One
of the scariest things that can happen on a road bike is when something flashes
into your path and makes you do a panic squeeze of the brakes. A long time ago,
when I was in college, I rode to the grocery store on my heavy duty Schwinn
Varsity. I bought a bag of stuff and figured I could ride back with one hand on
the handlebars and the other arm could cradle the bag of groceries. Of course,
I didn’t have a helmet. I don’t think they were invented yet!
So
I rode down a street behind a car that suddenly stopped in my path. To avoid
hitting the car, I squeezed the brake with my one hand in a panic attempt to
slow the bike, which was a much too quick overreaction. Well, it locked up the
front tire and I flew off the bike. I hit the pavement with my arm full of
groceries. I blocked my fall with the bag of stuff, which exploded on impact. My
one arm got scraped up a bit, but I gathered the groceries and walked the bike rest
of the way to wherever I was going.
The
panic stop on the road bike, I’ve learned, or on most other bikes on a paved
surface for that matter, rarely slows the bike down safely. Instead, it throws
open the door to a crash. The urge to squeeze the brakes hard is often the
first instinct borne in abject fear of suddenly hitting something. It takes
some doing to resist the initial message from brain to hand to make a hard
squeeze of the brake. But training your mind to hold off on an initial panic
reaction with a much lighter touch on the brake will often help avoid a crash.
I’ve
seen riders fall because of panic stops that were completely unnecessary. If
they manage to resist a hard brake, the bike’s forward momentum will often help
them steer out of harms way -- if they’re not riding too fast. Some of the
resulting falls I’ve seen have been no big deal, no injuries, just an
embarrassment to the rider. Others left the riders prone on the pavement,
unable to move and an ambulance had to be called.
A
few times I have lucked out despite making a brief panic brake at a sudden obstacle, such
as a squirrel running in front of the front wheel. Both tires lock for a half
second, but after a quick release, I have avoided hitting more than a few suicide
squirrels and a possible crash. That, I have found, is true luck, when I’ve braked
in a quick panic – even for a split second -- and have stayed upright. Helping
with control in that situation is equal pressure on both brakes instead of one
or the other. A quickly locked-up front tire is an end-o in the making. A
locked up back tire, though, usually allows more control of the bike when it
puts you in a brief skid.
This past week I rode a fast descent on a twisting two-lane
trail, and got to the part where there’s a sharp right turn, blinded on the
right side by a dirt and rock cliff. I take this turn pretty fast a lot, but am
always on the lookout for riders or walkers that suddenly appear coming up the
hill around the corner. My biggest fear is that they’ll be blocking the right
lane, because that can mean an unavoidable crash. I try to swing into it and
take a close inside line to make as much room as possible if somebody suddenly
appears. This time a rider appeared as I hit the corner and the shock of seeing
him caused me to briefly hit the brakes. I was leaning on the corner so I had a
mini skid that I quickly pulled out of and rode on. But it was a good thing I
just tapped the brakes. Or that could have been a nasty crash. The reduced
speed I still had after the braking allowed me to ride out of the skid. Which
reminds me of braking while on a mountain bike.
On a
mountain bike, speed, not the brake, is your friend
When I first started riding a mountain bike, I had to
re-learn my instincts of when to brake. I would approach a rock garden going
fast, and hit the brakes with the theory I needed to slow down to have control.
But after falling a lot, and hearing other riders urging me to “pedal through”
the rough stuff, I found that braking on the approach to rocky sections often kills
the very speed you need to get through them. Then, going too slow to ride
through it, you fall. So I learned to brake as little as possible on the
mountain bike.
One section of a mountain trail I love was one that
taught me a lot of lessons. This big lesson was to resist braking on steep,
technical down-pitches of trail. This particular section starts off with a steep
uphill pitch, the terrain alternating between hard packed dirt and loose rock.
Because it’s steep and long, I’m in a very low gear and I’m sucking wind hard.
At the top of the climb you have to ride between large rocks to make a right
turn that dips very steeply into a V-shaped trail that has tree roots and loose
rocks. It suddenly pitches up almost vertically toward a more leveled out part
of the trail. This nasty little ravine ate me up more than once! Tired from the
climb, I’d dip down the chute, and hit the brakes to get control. But the
quick, steep uphill pitch requires speed to get up, and any braking on the down
part kills the momentum needed to get up the steep part. One time I was really winded
from the climb, out of control on the quick descent. I ran right over a loose
rock the size of a lunch bucket, and slammed down to the ground, mashing the
palm of my right hand and scraping the skin under my forearm on some poison
oak. I looked up, and the bike had been thrown on its side pointing backwards
down the trail. Rejected by the trail! This section became my feared nemesis
every time I rode this trail, and after falling on it more than once, I took a
different approach. When I got to the top of the tough climb, I stopped to
catch my breath. Then I watched some other riders’ approach. What they did –
and important to note they didn’t seem as winded as me at the top of the climb,
which was one of my problems – was that they stood up on their pedals as they
rode down the steep pitch, and let their bike’s momentum run without braking.
Then as they hit the steep upward pitch, they were in position to pedal hard
while standing, and could ride fast up through the roots and rocks. So braking
down the steep pitch was the enemy, and preserved speed was the friend that
shot the bike up the short steep pedal climb. Took awhile to learn, especially
while fighting for oxygen, but I got it: Stay off the brakes and be ready to
“pedal through” the rough stuff.
Til next time, remember to pull on a helmet every time
you get on the bike. Then, keep the rubber side down, ride safely, and most
importantly, have a blast.
-- Mark Eric
Larson
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