Gaining confidence on the bike

I happened to be at Via Ciclante yesterday and happened to over hear a customer requesting someone to remove pedals that her cycling shoe clip into her and replace them with standard pedals that would enable her to ride her road bike with her running shoes. I could see the sense of urgency in her face to solve the problem and provide her some comfort and confidence when she would ride again (no mal intended).

She reminded me of the early days (only 7 years ago) when I first started cycling. I went from a heavy duty mountain bike to my Cannondale Multisport 700 bike with Speedplay pedals that JP got me all syked up about riding and eventually racing with.

Tony and I got all geared up to go out for our first ride. Little did I know that it's like learning to ride a bike all over again. I should have got some basic instruction on getting in and out of the pedals. Needless to say my first ride around the block was not too successful i.e. when I came to a stop my brain was pre-programmed simply to lift my foot off the pedal and place it on the ground. Well I am sure you can imagine what happended next. Yes I tipped over. Tony wasn't too impressed and couldn't understand how I could have possibly fallen. All good:). I got back up again - wiped off my embarrassment and some gravel from the road - got on the bike to finish the ride. At the next intersection I was mentally and physically prepared to slow down and clip out my pedals to come to a stop. The funny thing was I didn't realize just how skinny those skinny tires are. I rode right into a divit in the road, got stuck and blew my first tire *&^&%$. Needless to say a ten minute ride took about 40 minutes. Bottom line is a lived, learned and can now laugh about it and share with others. The only thing wrong with making a mistake is not learning from it.

A few suggestions if you are interested:

1) if you are not comfortable getting in and out of your pedals, put your bike on a trainer and practice clipping and unclipping and dismounting.
2) if you don't have the benefit of a trainer, or as a next step take your bike out in your car to a parking lot or a straight away where there isn't much traffic. Practice at your own pace to clip and unclip your pedals and dismount. Sometimes, especially if you live and ride in the city, traffic, pedestrians, stop lights, stop signs etc. can make your first few rides overwhelming until you get comfortable in the pedals
3) Leave your girlfriend, boyfriend, sister, father (the know it all's) at home - lol. It falls under the same rule as - "never let a family member to teach you to drive a car". You may just end up throughing the bike down and walking home.
Other:
If you are riding aero bars for the first time, try riding aero with one arm at a time until you get comfortable. Follow lessons 1-3 above.

Happy, healthy training,

Lucy