The Bumpy Road to Clipless Pedals

A wide variety of clipless pedals. I am
currently using Look KEO-2s. 

Intellectually, I understand that clipping into bike pedals gives you more power and economy of motion, which are both good things for triathletes who want speed and need to save strength in their legs for running after biking. And I get that progressing from flat pedals to "clipless" (a silly name for pedals you clip into) is a right of passage not unlike having your training wheels taken off. Many people make the shift with nary a problem.

I am not one of those people.

I didn't learn to ride a bike l until I was almost a teenager, and I do not have the best balance in general. Consequently, of the three sports of triathlon, cycling is the one that has been hardest for me to get into.

For my first triathlon, in the spring of 2013, I rode my frumpy, clunky mountain bike purchased at Target in 2003. My friend Kath had sold me her used triathlon bike, and after that first tri I decided I needed to change up to the big girls' bike. Perhaps without giving it adequate thought, I also assumed this would be a good time to move up to clipless pedals.

I signed up for my second triathlon --NJ State-- and had five weeks to train. I purchased new bike shoes and had my local bike shop install the clipless pedals on the "fancy bike," as I called the tri bike.

The first day in the pedals I did slow loops on the paved trail around the local park, clipping in and out. I toppled over a few times at stops, but was fine. I felt the motion of clipping starting to sink in.

The "fancy bike" with clipless pedals. My nemesis. 

The second day clipped in on the tri bike I headed for the open road. I was on a straight away, less than two miles from my house, when I found myself struggling to shift gears. On the tri bike the gear shifts are located on the aero bars instead of the handlebars like I was used to. Heading down a slight incline I accidentally pressed the gear shift the wrong direction and loosened the tension.

If I had been a more seasoned cyclist, I would have coasted for a bit and then shifted back to the correct gear. Instead, I started pedaling furiously, like a circus monkey, trying to generate tension against the slack chain. My knees pistoned, my heart hammered, and then, suddenly, the bike flipped out from under me.

My $15 helmet saved my life during the crash. No kidding. See that
crack? That could have been my skull. Wear your helmets, people.
And for the love of all that is sweet and holy, buckle them!

I remember seeing the double yellow lines at the center of the road. They appeared above me and then below me just as my helmet smashed into the pavement, followed by my right shoulder and then my thigh. I slid about two feet and came to a stop. My GPS would later show that I had been going 23mph.

The bike shoes automatically detached, like ski bindings, and the fancy bike landed about 20 feet past me, in the middle of the two lane road.

Fueled by adrenaline, I got up and stumbled to the curb. It was mid-morning and luckily there were no cars on the road at that moment.

Once on the curb I did a mental inventory. I couldn't feel any pain yet, but I knew I would soon. I could see road rash blooming along my right thigh and arm where the skin had been peeled off in sheets. But I had bigger problems. I couldn't move my right arm at all. I was able to lift my right hand into my lap only by dragging it up with my left. In doing so I noticed my bike gloves were shredded and there was grit engrained in both of my palms.

I wondered if I had dislocated my right shoulder. I had a sudden flash of scenes from ER and Gray's Anatomy in which doctors used traction to push dislocated shoulders back into their sockets. I knew that would be painful, but that it was a quick solution. I prayed it was a dislocated shoulder.

Another biker came along and pulled my bike out of the road. He was joined by a man who had been out mowing his lawn and heard me crash. The expressions on their faces suggested they were having trouble looking at me. I asked if someone could fish my phone out of my saddle bag and hand it to me.

I called 911 and gave them my location. I explained that I had crashed on my bike and needed to go to the hospital. An ambulance was on its way.

Next I called my wife and told her what had happened. She, too, was on her way.

It was during the five or six minutes it took for the ambulance and my wife to arrive that the pain began to register. The two men were staring at me, asking, at intervals, how I was doing. I do not know what I said.

My mind, which I had been able to keep focussed for long enough to establish priorities and craft a basic plan to call 911, was slowly spinning away from me. I stared at a drop of blood as it oozed and slid down the open wound from my shoulder to my elbow, pulling along bits of gray dust in its wake. Inside I felt a complimentary coruscation, a scrape of nails across tenderized meat. Outside and inside were still connected but the sensations were out of synch, like an old long distance phone call.

The only thing I remember about the ambulance ride was seeing my wife's very worried and pissed off face as they closed the doors behind the gurney, and that it was bumpy. Every bump sent fireworks of pain through my right shoulder.

Turns out the ends of the bone were actually splintered,
which is hard to see in this x-ray but Dr. Flemming
discovered during surgery.

The X-rays revealed a shattered collarbone. I was sent home and told to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The next day I met with Dr. Flemming, a charismatic and charming sports medicine specialist who recommended fixing the splintered bone by inserting a plate and screws to hold all the pieces together while they mended.

Dr. Flemming explained that the surgery was out patient. I'd come in in the morning and be home by afternoon. Success rate, he said, was 100%, and the arm would be useable almost immediately after surgery. He could get me in for surgery in five days. Those five days were a pageant of pain, so I was in high spirits when surgery day finally came.

Dr. Flemming had not mentioned post operative pain. I do not believe it would have been useful to know how much it was going to hurt, but it did catch me by surprise. The first few days post-op were spent in a half-waking fog, negotiating a maze of excruciating sensations while family members tried to pick up all the slack for things I couldn't do.

In my moments of lucidity, instead of promising my wife I'd never be so stupid as to fall off my bike again, instead of thanking her for caring for me and for doing the dishes and buying me salves and healing ointments for my road rash, instead of any of that I babbled and wept about how I wouldn't be able to complete my second triathlon - NJ State.

A week post-op I was feeling a little more life-like and insisting that I would be able to rehab in time to complete my second triathlon. My wife narrowed her eyes, but I dragged her in with me to Dr. Flemming's office where he said he thought it was possible I could safely participate in the triathlon depending on my progress.

I miss 2013 because I was skinnier then, but I don't miss the terrible
pain of my broken collar bone. I am reminded of it every time the shoulder
strap of my work bag or my bra strap or my swim suit strap grinds over
the plate in my neck.  

So, progress I did. I got out and ran, though the shoulder ached and the road rash scabs cracked and then got wet and sticky from sweat. I went to the pool, and, after a few truly dispiriting attempts to swim, I managed a weak breast stroke that I believed I could sustain for a 500 meter swim if I had to.

But getting back on the bike was another matter altogether.

Dr. Flemming said, of all three sports, cycling was the one that would actually put least strain on the collar bone while it was healing, but my desire to get on a bike was non-existent.

Suffice it to say, I did actually complete that triathlon. I rode my old Target clunker, but I did ride.

After that race I purchased a mint-green, Bianchi cyclocross bike, nicknamed Leonardo. It was a much sleeker vessel than the Target bike, but much sturdier than the tri bike. I put cheap flat pedals on it and began slowly, ever so slowly, trying to get comfortable riding again.

My Bianchi cyclocross, Leonardo. He got me back on the road.

A year after the crash I was still skittish and avoiding bike workouts or cutting them short. On the bad days I was besieged with visions of the double yellow lines at the center of the road, as I had seen them from an inverted position before my body smashed into the pavement.

I was fortunate to find a friend, Maria, who agreed to ride with me. We did loop after loop of a ten mile course near Manasquan reservoir throughout summer 2014.

It took months before I finally became confident on my bike, able to go down hills at full speed, capable of riding in areas with road traffic. I finished seven more triathlons that summer, including my first olympic distance, all riding the flat pedals on the cyclocross bike.

Which brings us to this summer, 2015, and back to that same triathlon --NJ State-- that I had raced after my fall. This year I did the 20 mile bike course on my cyclocross with flat pedals and maintained an 18.5mph average (race timing site said 18.9, but I don't think that's correct). My friend, Kath, the one who originally sold me the tri bike, noted that if I could go that fast on flats, I owed it to myself to start using clipless pedals.

That thought stuck with me, and so, the week after the race, I put the clipless pedals on the bike. But before I could even get on them I had a full blown panic attack. I sat on the floor of my porch, staring at the pedals, my breathing ragged and short, sweat spreading down my neck and arms. And then, after I'd collected myself, I couldn't get the damn things off.

I went down to my local bike shop and asked Joe to switch them back to flat pedals. I stood at the counter and shook my head sadly: "I just can't do clipless, Joe. You have to put the flats back on."

Now Joe is a pretty cool dude. I don't know how old he is, but his hair is pure gray and cut in a mohawk. His body is nothing but lean muscle and he is prone to absentmindedly mentioning the 100 mile ride he did yesterday, or the 200 last weekend. He is not bragging. He gets up early to ride, leads rides after work and, as I found out while working on this post, he has logged 73,000 outdoor road miles since 2006 (scroll to the end to read a bio for Joe that I found on the Knapps Cyclery website :).

So he looks at me with sad eyes and says, "You know, I hate to see you give up on the pedals like that."

"I don't know what to do, Joe. I'm just too scared to ride clipped in." I tell him. "You have to put the other pedals back on."

Joe stands there for a minute, then tells me to bring the bike and follow him out back of the store to the empty parking lot. He has me put on my bike shoes. Then he tells me to get one side clipped with the other foot firmly on the ground. I do that.

Then I stare at him.

He tells me to push off.

I stare at him.

"I'm not going to let you get hurt," he says.

But I don't believe him. I believe I'm going to fall over and break my collar bone again, and have to go to the hospital, and my wife is going to divorce me, and I'm going to lose my job and end up living under a bridge eating dog food out of a can.

"I can't do it." I say, still standing there.

We wait. No one is manning the store, but Joe is just standing there like he's got all the time in the world.

Finally I screw up my courage and push off. I hear Joe's words and I do what he tells me to do.

I go around the lot. I clip out and stop, clip in and go. I circle about six times. It all seems so peaceful with Joe there.

Joe tells me to keep up the good work. We go back into the shop but he won't charge me anything, not for changing the pedals, not for changing my attitude.

The next day I go on a ride around town on my own. I go slow. I practice clipping in and out. Stopping and starting. It is not as easy as when Joe was there. Lots of times I get nervous at a stop. Often I can't seem to get my left foot to clip in.

But I go out the next day. And the next.

Four days after my lesson with Joe, I am on the road headed to Cape Cod for a vacation week with my wife and daughter. I love cycling on Cape Cod, but it is hilly and there is traffic. I am intimidated to ride on the Cape clipped in. Still, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

The first morning on the Cape I let my wife go for her run at 8am and I stay with our daughter to make breakfast and watch some cartoons. By the time my wife gets back at 9:30 the heat is kicking in. I rush to get out to my bike and my heart is pumping as I pull Leonardo out of the back of the minivan and check tire pressure. The driveway is paved with large gravel and I don't want to try to start on that, so I have to walk the bike out to the edge of the road before clipping in.

I clip in without incident and set out for a hilly 10 miles in high heat. There is no shade. I feel okay. But at the turn around point I go to stop on an incline and don't get my left foot out fast enough. Kaboom. Down I go.

My left hand hits the ground hard and the edge of my Garmin watch jabs into my wrist. My mouth floods with saliva that tastes like metal. The entire crash from 2013 replays in my head during the two seconds it takes me to figure out I'm not hurt.

I feel very sorry for myself as I watch two huge mosquitoes land on my arm and tuck their napkins under their chins in preparation for a feast. More bugs can smell my sweat and are circling my head.

I get up. Swatting at the bugs. I'm shaking. I'm afraid I'm too shaky to clip back in and ride the 5 miles back to the rental condo. But there isn't much choice, so I do it.

When I get back into the house I start to cry a little as I let down and realize I'm okay, just a few bruises. My wife can't decide whether to be reassuring or mad at me. She settles for concerned.

In a few minutes I collect myself and go take a shower. Afterward I email Maria, my cycling buddy who rode with me at Manasquan reservoir last summer, and Kathy, who got me into all this in the first place. I tell them I fell, that I was scared, that clipless pedals are too hard.

They send me nice notes and tell me to keep going.

The next day I go out again. I do the same route. At the turn around point I clip out correctly. Hah! But then, about two miles away from home, a bus stops abruptly in front of me. I have to scramble to stop safely, but I manage it. Unfortunately, as the bus starts up again I get nervous because there is a long line of cars behind me. I get one foot clipped in and then lose my balance and fall over again. Kersplat.

At least this time I fall into a sandy shoulder of the road, but I did it in front of a dozen drivers who roll up, one at a time, and ask me if I'm okay. I am coated head to toe with sandy sweat, but I am fine.

When I get back to the house I tell the story and this time receive a scolding. It is mentioned that maybe I would do well to go for a run and stop messing with the damned pedals. This sounds like a good plan.

Racked up at Jersey Girl Triathlon, for my
first tri using clipless pedals. August 2, 2015.

But the next morning, despite the wife's narrowed eyes, I decide I need to give it one more try. Out I go.

I clip in and mosey along. I make a point of doing a few emergency stop drills, practicing for what to do when the next bus decides to stop in front of me.

That day I do a twenty mile loop, including several stops, without incident.

The day after that, I do the same. No falls.

When we get home from the Cape, I clean the sand and grit out of my bike chain and go out for a loop around town. I practice some more: clip out, clip in, clip out, clip in.

The left foot still doesn't feel smooth. I am perpetually anxious about the whole thing.

I will probably have a few more falls, but I remind myself I probably won't shatter a collar bone again. I am a stronger rider now. I am more experienced and less apt to panic.

So I keep on going: clip in, clip out.
-------
UPDATE:

On Sunday, August 2, I completed my first sprint distance triathlon using clipless pedals.

------

BIO - Want to know a little bit more about Joe? Here's his bio from the Knapp Cyclery website: 

Joe Kratovil is a former sales executive who has cycled seriously since 1984. Since 2006 specializing in Ultra

Distance cycling. Has participated in RUSA and UMCA sanctioned events. Is an official finisher of the 2011 Paris-Brest 1200 kilomoter event in France. Currently holds the UMCA record for crossing the state of New Jersey from east to west. Since 2006 has logged a total of 73,000 outdoor road miles. Joe has completed long distance bike rides in 15 states, Ontario Canada, and France. Also, is a two time inductee into the K-Hound club whose members represent the highest mileage cyclists in the country.

Joe