Five First Day of Fall 2009 Cycling Tips!
With the fall rapidly approaching, the days getting shorter, and football season coming into full swing, it's important to remember that cycling in the fall--especially in the SF Bay area--is simply amazing! Here are five great tips to help you better enjoy cycling this fall:
1. Leave the house early on both weekend days! By promising yourself that you'll ride first thing on Saturdays and Sunday, you get yourself out of the house, and away from the temptation of watching the endless array of football games from your couch. With fewer hours of sunlight, riding early is essential--and you'll probably end up riding longer too! (And, when you come home and take that hot shower, you'll know you have really earned the right to watch the night games, and/or the games you recorded on the DVR.)
2. Buy armwarmers ($20-$35) and light fingered gloves ($8-$22), and always carry them with you! Fall rides, glorious as they are, get a bit cool--even in sunny Marin--so packing these simple items is as necessary as carrying an extra tube and wearing a helmet. Ounce for ounce, elastic armwarmers and lightweight gloves give you more warmth than you can imagine. By having these items with you, you'll soon find that your fall rides become ever more enjoyable, and when the sun comes out, or the ride goes up hill, you stash them easily in your jersey pockets to retrieve as needed. All of the major bike clothing companies make good armwarmers, with Pearl Izumi and Sigoi having multiple sizes and good elastic. Bay area REIs and Sports Basement stores have the best selection.
3. Buy a new bike helmet! Protect your head. Be sure your bike helmet is in good condition, less than three years old, and if not--buy a new helmet. For advice and tips on buying a helmet, see this author's previous article. http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-20082-SF-Cycling-Examiner~y2009m8d24-Save-Your-Life--Always-Wear-Your-Bike-Helmet
4. Learn how to fall safely this fall!
With the fall riding seaon approaching, it's a good idea to go back to the basics, and remember how to safely fall from your bike. While no one wants to fall off their bicycle, it's inevitable that you'll fall sometimes, so you should learn how to do it with the least amount of pain and damage to yourself.
You can practice this on grass or on the beach, and you can learn how to fall from people who teach falling technique every day! Here's how:
First, you'll need to improve your ability to not fall accidentally. The best way to accomplish this is to improve your balance, bike-handling ability, and overall body awareness through extremely slow biking maneuvers. (Bikes work because the rotation of their wheels in a smooth forward motion keep the rider from falling off one side or the other, so the speed is an essential component staying balanced. Therefore, it's much harder to keep a bike upright at slow speeds, or at red lights, because 100% of this balancing act has to be accomplished by the rider.)
Take your bike (and a buddy with his/her bike and a first aid kit) to a flat grass field--like the fields at Fort Mason--or out on some of the more stable sand--like that close to the water's edge at Ocean Beach--and practice riding your bike at crawl-like speeds.
Make tight turns, practice your bike stands, clip in and out with either foot 50 or 100 times, put the bike down once or twice, and simply concentrate on learning how to interact with your bike and gravity--without hurting yourself. The key, of course, is to only practice this on very soft surfaces, and only at very slow speeds. Although some falls are of the high speed nature, many bike falls happen at extremely slow speeds, or on loose gravel or changing bike surfaces--when bike handling is most difficult--so you should learn how to clip in and out of your bike pedals at all angles, and you should learn how to fall to the ground at slow speeds, without hurting yourself. Generally speaking, wear a good helmet and bike gloves, keep your chin to your chest, and push yourself away from the bicyle.
A second solution is cross-training in a martial art where the instructors will teach you balance, awareness of body, and how to fall safely! Learning how to break your falls with grace and balance is a fun way to prevent injury--and it looks a whole lot cooler than being taken away in an ambulance.
In the SF Bay area, there are a number of great martial arts studios, where you can take classes in either aikido or judo, where learning how to safely fall from a variety of angles and speeds is an essential part of the class. After a month of classes two or three times a week, you'll know how to do break falls and roll yourself out of possible injury--and you'll have made some new friends, and found a great cross-training activity.
5. Teach yourself how to ride no-handed, and practice the skill often! (For tips on why and how to ride no-handed, see http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-20082-SF-Cycling-Examiner~y2009m9d23-Bike-Handling-Skill-Development--NoHanded-Riding-Tips
[Of course, no bike ride, and no fall from a bike is ever 100% safe, and you should not attempt riding a bike or falling from a bike, unless you can do so safely. Also, neither the Examiner, nor this author are responsible in any way, shape, or form, for your individual choices and actions. REMEMBER TO BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR BODY AND YOUR BIKE!]
[Be sure to read Part 2 of this article at: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-20082-SF-Cycling-Examiner~y2009m9d22-First-Day-of-Fall-2009-Part-2--Fall-back-in-love-with-cycling-this-fall]
Also, remember to subscribe to Mark Loy's SF Cycling Examiner articles by clicking the "SUBSCRIBE" button above the article headline. In this way, you'll be informed when Mark writes future cycling articles. Thanks.
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