"Bob LeDrew" (bobledrew1)
05/20/2015 at 09:56 • Filed to: bikelopnik, toe clips, ottawa, rideau canal, cycling, bicycling, pedals, clipless
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"Bob LeDrew" (bobledrew1)
05/20/2015 at 09:56 • Filed to: bikelopnik, toe clips, ottawa, rideau canal, cycling, bicycling, pedals, clipless | 0
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Most cyclists come to a point where they go from the flat pedals that they probably started with and move to clipless pedals.
Going clipless can be a great advantage for most riders. You can pull up with one foot as you push with the other, adding to the power you can generate. You’re unlikely to have your foot slip off the pedal, leading to embarrassment at best or balls-to-the-crossbar (or vulva-to-the-crossbar) at worst. And that is bad.
But until this week, I didn’t ever think of the great disadvantage of clipless pedals. If you end up in a deep body of water, you can be !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . That’s what happened to a guy in my home town. He was riding on a shared bike-pedestrian path next to the Rideau Canal, when he somehow lost control, launched over the low concrete lip, and into the drink he went. Fortunately, two people saw him go in and dove in to rescue him.
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It’s not clear what caused the rider to lose control. Certainly, a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in which a rider slipped on ice and went into the then-empty canal led to head injuries.
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Was there something the rider could have done? Well, one question that’s come up is whether he was riding with modern clipless pedals or old-school toe clips. The old toe-clips did the same task as modern clipless pedals, but were a bit more dangerous.
If you really strapped yourself in tightly, you really could be harnessed to the bike, and to get loose, you have to reach down to loosen the strap, then pull your feet backwards.
With modern pedal systems (there are a bunch), a cleat on the shoe hooks into a bracket on the pedal, and most of the time you “clip out” by rotating your heel outwards, away from the bike. It’s a much easier escape.
So I guess the rule for cycling alongside bodies of water should be the old Boy Scout rule: BE PREPARED. I’m personally going to aim for the hydrofoil method of water survival:
