Your choice of a bicycle…

Let’s start with some good news.

Bicycles have pneumatic tires which can be squashed almost to the rim with no damage. The fabric of a tire flexes and the air inside compresses harmlessly, as this slow-motion video shows.

If bumps and potholes do not exceed the height of your rims above the ground, your ride may be jarring, but no damage will occur to them. Understanding this is key to whether you must slow down, ride around, jump, walk or carry your bicycle.

Fatter tires are more pothole-tolerant, and as recent research has shown, supple tires up to 47mm wide are as fast as skinny tires. While aerodynamic drag is higher, less energy is lost to vibration. Road bikes are trending away from frames and forks which take only the skinniest tires (and no fenders!). But you don’t necessarily need to buy a new bike to enjoy the advantage.

• Slightly smaller 650B wheels with wider tires could replace wheels with narrow 700C tires. You may have already dinged up the rims anyway! With disk brakes or drum brakes, the smaller wheels can fit without any other modifications. You’ll have to replace rim brakes.
• An older rigid-frame mountain bike can offer the advantage of wider tires at a lower price, and a moderate cost in weight. Good road tires are available in mountain-bike sizes, and there’s nothing wrong with equipping a mountain bike with road handlebars. Mountain bikes also come with a wider gear range than typical road bikes.
• Fatbikes and e-bikes can have tires as much as 5 inches (125mm) wide. A fatbike sacrifices efficiency in road riding; an e-bike compensates for that with the motor.

Steps

You can usually ride onto a low step — a steel plate at a construction site, railroad tracks, an uneven joint between concrete slabs, the rim of a shallow pothole — if you approach them squarely. You’ll want to stand up and use your arms and legs as suspension. Tires inflated hard have more bounce to surmount hazards, at the expense of a harsher ride. Do maintain a firm grip on the handlebars! Release the brakes momentarily to avoid locking or skidding the wheels as they lose and gain traction.

Drops

Dropping by a few inches, (typically, over a curb) doesn’t risk damage to the tires and rims. For comfort and to maintain control, you need to keep the cranks horizontal so you don’t catch a pedal, and rise off the saddle with the knees and elbows flexed.

Before descending a curb, you do need to check for conflicting traffic in the street.

A deeper drop could damage the frame and fork. Skilled off-road riders use some clever tricks to negotiate fallen logs and dropoffs, but we’re just covering what you need when riding on roads and paths.

Vigilance, vision training, good headlight

Bumps and potholes aren’t the only hazards. Pavement edges and diagonal railroad tracks can sweep your bicycle out from under you. We cover them in CyclingSavvy’s Train Your Bike sessions. And that is not to speak of sharp objects which can flat your tires — delayed misery.

Mostly, you avoid all kinds of road hazards through your skills. Keeping the eyes moving, and scanning the road surface every few seconds, are essential to avoid all of these hazards. I dinged a few rims before I got good at avoiding these hazards That was back in the heyday of skinny tires, though.

Peripheral vision can do more than provide semi-conscious cues. I trained myself over a period of a couple years to focus my attention in one direction while my sharp central vision looked in another. (Careful about doing this in company — it looks weird.) With practice, I learned to observe the entire visual field consciously. In that way, I could be give more attention to the road surface without losing awareness of traffic.This is literally consciousness expansion. And a rear-view mirror allows you to keep facing forward with more attention on conditions ahead.

Seeing conditions matter. The shadow under a tree can be especially difficult, and led to my worst crash. At night, a good headlight with a flat-topped beam pattern casts a long, even beam of light onto the surface ahead. A headlight mounted lower, at the fork crown or on a front rack, will reveal bumps and potholes better than one on the handlebar. And of course slow down if you aren’t sure that you can see well.

Value your personal space.

Perhaps it’s obvious, but your options to avoid surface hazards are much improved if you are away from the edge of the road. Again, a rear-view mirror is helpful. A glance into the mirror will reveal whether there is any traffic (bicycle or motor-vehicle) behind you, and afford you the confidence to use the space you need. If there is traffic behind, the mirror makes it easier to negotiate lane position.  

Keep your distance from any rider ahead of you who is not a trusted paceline companion. Many crashes on bicycle-club rides occur due to failure to point out a hazard. The same hazard occurs when riding close behind a motor vehicle, even at low speed.  

My worst experience with a pothole occurred when I was close behind another cyclist on a slow group ride. It cost me a concussion — 15 minutes of my life when I appeared and acted normal, but which I did not remember, followed by the disturbing realization that I did not remember my route home. Fortunately, my memory recovered within a couple hours. It could have been worse.

The rock dodge maneuver

If you notice a pothole soon enough, you can steer around it normally. Sometimes, though, you don’t see a pothole until you have almost reached it, or you are in a tight space. CyclingSavvy teaches the rock-dodge maneuver – steering quickly to one side (usually the left) to avoid a pothole, then regaining balance by steering quickly the other way.

This can be so quick that the bicycle just zigzags to one side, then the other, and you continue to ride in a straight line. It’s good to practice this in a parking lot, but it needs to be second nature when you see the hazard at the last moment. Sooner or later, a pothole will test you!

Jumping

Jumping over a pothole or other surface hazard is often possible. It can be useful when you have time to prepare, and as an alternative to the rock dodge. Clipless pedals or toe clips and straps offer an advantage in pulling up on the rear of the bicycle. Jumping is easiest on a lightweight bicycle.

A single jump works well if you are going fast. At slow speeds, you haul up on the handlebar first, and then lift the rear wheel. Timing is important, and it takes practice. Skillful mountain bikers accelerate to lift the front wheel, but you won’t need to do this in road riding.  

If bumps and potholes damage a tire or rim

The classic example of bump and pothole damage is the pinch flat, where the tire was crushed against the rim. It is also called the snake bite, because it leaves two holes in the inner tube.

Are tubeless tires the answer? They seal themselves against ordinary punctures. Mountain bikers like them because they can run at low pressure without getting pinch flats.

The sealant in a tubeless tire can create a mess though, if the tire comes off the rim. Removing and replacing a tubeless tire is messy too. You need to carry an inner tube, a tool to remove the special tubless-tire valve,and a pump (or a cell phone) anyway in case a tubeless tire does puncture. It’s your choice.

Impacts can damage a rim, too. It may be possible to pull out a minor dent in an aluminum rim, though that requires a special tool and good wheelbuilding skill. Repair is most likely to succeed with a low-profile aluminum rim. Never just tighten the spokes where the rim is indented – that indents it more.

If rim sidewalls were spread apart by the impact, rim brakes lurch. There’s no way to get the rim back to smooth braking, so it needs to be replaced. Fortunately, most aluminum rims these days have parallel sidewalls, and they usually do not spread when dinged.

Rim damage also loosens spokes. A disk, drum or coaster brake may offer a false sense of security when the rim is damaged. It’s best to check spoke tension, and err on the side of safety.

Carbon-fiber rims crack, and generally need to be replaced if damaged, though I have heard of their being repaired.

Bumps and potholes come with the territory

Bumps and potholes are an unfortunate fact of life, and I hope that I have been able to offer some useful advice!

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We asked Beth:

Why a second edition?

The first edition was a trailblazer. When it first came out, cities and towns were just starting to wake up to the dangers of e-bikes and e-motos, but nobody had a cohesive plan to handle them.

It took a little time for the word to spread, but once it did, the response was incredible. The book became my calling card. It led to invitations to speak at national events for the American Trauma Society and the National Bicycle Dealers Association.

More importantly, it introduced the Bellemont Project to leaders who were tired of ineffective quick fixes. They were waiting for a real, strategic way to keep their communities safe. That first edition proved that parents and professionals were hungry for a better way to handle e-bike safety — and it set the stage for the massive response we’re seeing with the second edition today.

What have you discovered since the first edition? 

The second edition is much more than an update — it’s a response to a world that has changed overnight. In just two years, the industry has shifted. Several manufacturers have been aggressively selling illegal e-motos disguised as bicycles. They use tricks like ghost pedals and easily disabled speed controls to fool parents. I realized that families need a clear guide on how to check motor wattage and speed capabilities before they buy.

The biggest breakthrough for me was the research of Dr. David Yeager. His work proves that an enforcer mindset — relying only on punishment through laws and traffic tickets — doesn’t work with the teenage brain. My book bridges this advance in adolescent psychology with e-bike safety to give parents a Mentor Mindset. That helps parents build the skills to keep their kids and communities safe while respecting their independence.

Finally, I found a surprising solution in the history of snowboarding. Just like e-bikes today, snowboarding was once an “outlaw activity.” It only became safe once it became a real sport with sanctioned spaces to train, perform, and compete. By moving from the streets to the stadiums, we can protect our sidewalks and give talented teens a safe place to grow.

YouTube influencers are calling out teens to ride en masse, taking over streets. What do you think about this phenomenon.

I see videos of influencers telling kids to slam their new helmets onto the pavement or show them how to clip wires to make their bikes go 60 mph. They never talk about the risks. If a kid crashes during a rideout, the influencer might show it for two seconds before cutting to something more fun. They edit out the reality of the danger.

In the second edition of The Caring Parent‘s E-Bike Survival Guide, I have a chapter called “The Rise of the Invisible Stuntman.” Science shows us that teenagers are biologically driven to seek status and respect. These kids are risking their lives for a two-second shout-out from a famous influencer. Usually, the teen stays anonymous while the influencer gets all the fame and money.

I want to change that. These kids have incredible talent, but they have no place to go. I’m working to move this movement from the streets to the stadiums. We should work with motocross to create sanctioned spaces where these young riders on e-motos can train, perform, and compete safely. My only rule? You have to keep a clean record on the street to participate. A kid who is talented enough to stand on the seat of an e-moto while riding should be in a stadium, not on a freeway!

Some parents are now being criminally charged for their kids’ actions. What is your reaction to these stories?

Now, the legal system is turning toward the parents. Honestly, it’s a necessary wake-up call. Some parents are making dangerous decisions just for convenience, or to make their child happy, and they need to understand the stakes. A parent who buys an illegal e-moto for a child is part of the problem.

However, threatening parents with jail time is only half the battle. Punishment alone doesn’t change behavior. If we want parents to do a better job, we have to give them the skills to succeed. That’s where the second edition of my book comes in. It moves beyond the enforcer mindset and gives parents the actual tools they need to lead their teens. This is about combining accountability with the right information to keep families out of the courtroom and young riders out of the hospitals.

What are your thoughts about the wave of new laws affecting e-bikes and their riders?

We saw the tragic result of this recently in Lake Forest, California. A 14-year-old was performing power-wheelies on an illegal e-moto near a high school when he struck and critically injured an 81-year-old substitute teacher. The boy fled the scene, and his mother allegedly tried to cover for him. She is now facing multiple felony charges.

The sad truth is that the bike was already against the law. The mother had even been warned by police months earlier. Laws alone didn’t stop this tragedy because neither the mother nor the son had been given the behavioral tools to understand the consequences of their actions. They needed a diversion program, like the Bellemont Project’s Incline Program, to change how they think about safety.

A few years ago, California State Representative Dave Min introduced a bill to study e-bike safety, which led to the release of a report by the Mineta Traffic Institute. Now, it’s time for the state to act, again. We need a real count of what bikes are actually parked in our school parking lots. A recent study conducted by Safe Routes to Schools in parts of Northern California found that as few as 12% of the bikes seen at some schools were actually legal e-bikes. The majority were illegal e-motos. If we don’t identify the real problem, we will never find the truly strategic solutions. That’s why the second edition of my book is so urgent — it gives parents the truth about what is legal and the skills to mentor their kids before a tragedy happens.

Most parents feel like they are losing the battle with their kids over e-bike safety. Is there one thing they can do today to change the conversation?

But there is a second, very practical step: Check your insurance. Most parents don’t realize that if their child is riding an illegal, out-of-class e-moto, their homeowner’s or other insurance likely will not cover them in a crash. You could be personally liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills or legal fees.

The second edition of The Caring Parent’s E-Bike Survival Guide gives parents the needed scripts for these conversations and a checklist to make sure that the bike — and their family’s finances — are actually protected. We don’t have to choose between our kids’ fun and their safety. We just need the right tools to mentor them through it.

Also see:

Teen Ebike Training online course.

PowerSavvy — course for adult e-bike riders

The post Parent’s E-Bike Survival Guide, 2nd Edition! appeared first on CyclingSavvy.

I have some exciting news: a translation of Bicycling Street Smarts, in Spanish, is now available as a Kindle ebook. The title: El Ciclista Astuto.

How did Bicycling Street Smarts in Spanish come about?

CyclingSavvy Instructor Michael Brooks reached out to Minneapolis Latinos en Bici MN member Noemi Treviño Flores. She shared our Bicycling Street Smarts booklet with the club. Marco Mejía and Reyna López volunteered to translate. As a reward for the work, the club will get free access.

Bicycling education is not the smoothest career I could have chosen. Especially for that reason, I am deeply gratified as the author of Bicycling Street Smarts. I speak also for CyclingSavvy co-founder Keri Caffrey, who revised illustrations. As described in the acknowledgements in the new version and in a previous article, many others have helped with Bicycling Street Smarts over the years.

An international audience

Spanish usage, traffic laws and customs differ from one country to another. Our version reflects North American conditions. Another version for Spain has been translated and published by advocacy organization Madrid Ciclista. El Ciclista Astuto — Bicycling Street Smarts in Spanish — can reach cyclists in many countries around the world.

And why should we stop with Spanish? We already have draft versions in French and German. Would you like to have Bicycling Street Smarts, CyclingSavvy Edition in French, or German, or another language? Please let us know. We might make that happen. AI now can provide a fairly good draft translation for review, so translation goes faster than it used to.

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Tengo noticias emocionantes: una traducción de Bicycling Street Smarts, en español, ya está disponible como un ebook para Kindle. El título: El Ciclista Astuto.

¿Cómo surgió Bicycling Street Smarts en español?

El instructor de CyclingSavvy, Michael Brooks, se puso en contacto con Noemi Treviño Flores, integrante del club Latinos en Bici MN en Minneapolis. Ella compartió nuestro folleto Bicycling Street Smarts con el club. Marco Mejía y Reyna López se ofrecieron como voluntarios para traducirlo. Como recompensa por su trabajo, el club tendrá acceso gratuito.

La educación ciclista no es la carrera más fácil que podría haber elegido. Precisamente por eso, me siento profundamente satisfecho como autor de Bicycling Street Smarts. Hablo también en nombre de la co-fundadora de CyclingSavvy, Keri Caffrey, quien revisó las ilustraciones. Como se describe en los agradecimientos de la nueva versión y en un artículo anterior, muchas otras personas han contribuido a Bicycling Street Smarts a lo largo de los años.

Una audiencia internacional

El uso del español, las leyes de tránsito y las costumbres varían de un país a otro. Nuestra versión refleja las condiciones de Norteamérica. Otra versión para España ha sido traducida y publicada por la organización de defensa Madrid Ciclista. El Ciclista Astuto —Bicycling Street Smarts en español— puede llegar a ciclistas en muchos países de todo el mundo.

¿Y por qué detenernos en el español? Ya contamos con borradores en francés y alemán. ¿Le gustaría tener Bicycling Street Smarts, edición CyclingSavvy en francés, en alemán o en otro idioma? Por favor, háganoslo saber. Podríamos hacerlo realidad. Hoy en día, la IA puede proporcionar un borrador de traducción bastante bueno para su revisión, por lo que la traducción avanza más rápido que antes.

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The Philly Bike Expo is celebrating its 16th year. This remarkable event, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia, brings together outstanding exhibitors from throughout the country. These include dealers, distributors, advocacy organizations, and specialty frame makers. There will be valet bicycle parking. For general information, check out the Expo’s Web site. Here’s a panoramic view of the exhibitor area in an earlier year’s Philly Bike Expo. (Click photo to enlarge.)

CyclingSavvy at the Philly Bike Expo

Don’t forget to visit ABEA‘s table, T10 in the exhibit hall. We’ll have QR codes to order everything we offer online, in person and in print. Find out about our PowerSavvy, Savvy Club Rider and Group Leader online courses and our new Teen Ebike Training course!

Rides

We’ll lead a CyclingSavvy Ride to PBE Sunday morning — 7:45 AM from the Convention Center. The ride returns at the Expo as it opens — again, there is valet parking. The full rides schedule is here.

Workshops and demos

Pam Murray will give a workshop on 10 Things to Help You Bike More, on Saturday at 10:30; John Allen, John Schubert and guests will give on on the E-bike Crisis Sunday at 10:30, The workshop schedule is here.

Autographed copies!

Bicycling Street Smarts, CyclingSavvy Edition will be available on our table at the Expo. Yes, autographed by the author! We’ll also have copies of Beth Black’s excellent Caring Parent’s E-bike Survival Guide.

Philly Bike Expo Kids Arena

Bring your kids! There will be an indoor riding arena where children can try out bikes and practice riding.

Be There or Be Square!

The Philly Bike Expo is the only big bicycling event of its kind on the East Coast. It is not to be missed.

See you there!

The post Philly Bike Expo, March 14-15, 2026 appeared first on CyclingSavvy.

The Expo is the premier event for everyday bicyclists on the East Coast. Advocacy organizations, bike clubs, ride organizers, and makers of all kinds of bicycles, components and accessories will be there.

Sunday morning we’re leading a ride, and CyclingSavvy instructors will host a presentation on the current e-bike legal crisis at 10:30 AM. ABEA will have a table in the exhibit hall. Meet us in person at the Expo!

Pamela offers inspiration and a cornucopia of ideas on how to promote bicycling through example and leadership. Watch the video here. Or come to the Expo for her presentation. Or both.

Clicking on “Vimeo” at the lower right of the video below will take you to a Vimeo page where the description includes hot links to all of its sections.

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For some years I’ve responded to critics of CyclingSavvy who say it’s not perfect with, “Of course CyclingSavvy strategies aren’t perfect; they’re just the best.” I always feel comfortable using our strategies wherever I go.

But over the years, some serious crashes have given me pause because they involved CyclingSavvy graduates or even instructors. Most notable are the pre-dawn crashes.

I work as a safety planner for MetroPlan Orlando, a regional transportation planning agency. In that capacity, I routinely review police crash reports involving cyclists. In my 30-plus years working for the agency, I’ve reviewed, classified and catalogued more than 10,000 cyclist crashes. I see information and data that very few people do. My work helped in the development of the CyclingSavvy curriculum, giving it some of the scientific heft it needed to support its strategies. 

Bicycle commuters can’t typically choose their riding time, but recreational cyclists have more flexibility. Pre-dawn recreational cycling is very popular in Florida, to beat the summer heat, and because traffic tends to be very light. But these hours hold a special risk that we need to understand.

Reports of pre-dawn crashes in the Orlando area

In July of 2021, Stephen McKinney-Steck, a CyclingSavvy graduate and notable retired leader from Orlando’s public television station, was hit from behind and killed during his regular early morning ride. Stephen was one of those people who does everything to extreme excellence. We knew he would have had much-more-than-adequate lights and reflectors on his bicycle. He would have been using lane control on the arterials and collector roads he rode for his daily early-morning rides. His death hit us hard both because he was a friend and because we knew he was doing everything right…and using the strategies we teach. Stephen’s crash occurred about 20 minutes before sunrise.

Only six days after Stephen’s fatal crash, two other Orlando metro area cyclists were hit from behind while riding side-by-side. Fortunately, neither was seriously injured. They were at the rear of a large recreational group ride. All the members were using good, bright taillights.

The officer who wrote the report on the crash said that the driver “appeared confused and fatigued,” and said he “never saw the cyclists.” Clearly, the driver fell asleep at the wheel. He could have just as easily rear-ended another car at the traffic signal just ahead. The crash occurred 15 minutes before sunrise on a 4-lane residential collector posted at 30 mph, and the cyclists were likely riding at 20 mph.

About 12 years ago, CyclingSavvy Instructor Charles Badger was hit from behind around 4:30 a.m. less than a mile from where Stephen was hit. Charles was an avid brevet rider on a training ride. The college student who hit him also fell asleep. Charles suffered a significant and life-altering brain injury.

And elsewhere…

A couple years after that, CyclingSavvy Instructor candidate David Spranger was hit from behind while commuting to work around 5:00 a.m. in Charlotte, NC. The motorist who hit him was intoxicated, but drowsiness likely aggravated the intoxication. David similarly suffered a life-altering brain injury. Like Stephen, both Charles and David had excellent lighting and reflectors and wore helmets. 

Massachusetts CyclingSavvy graduate Ian Whiting was riding in the pre-dawn darkness when he was struck from behind. His helmet did its job and he recovered fully, despite a broken neck. He has this to say about the incident:

Comparing pre-dawn and post-dawn crash counts

In Orlando metro-area crash data for the years 2015 through 2025, I found 12 fatal pre-dawn overtaking crashes (between 5:00 and 7:00 AM and before sunrise). (Some of these may have involved cyclists with no or poor lighting; crash reports are often incomplete on this point.) By comparison, daylight hours between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. saw only four fatal overtaking crashes. A total of 49 fatal overtakings occurred during those years, so 24% of them were between 5:00 and 7:00 AM; only 8% between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m.

Crash counts can reflect not only an increased risk for drowsy driving, but also an increased number of cyclists on the roads. But we don’t have good data on how many cyclists are riding in the pre-dawn hours.

The circadian trough

“Circadian trough” is the name for a time of day when alertness suffers. (There’s a pre-dawn one and also a mid-afternoon one, as anyone who’s tried to stay awake through an after-lunch business meeting can attest.) 

Daylight may make the difference. There’s some evidence that daylight can help to mitigate sleep deprivation. I experienced this effect in my early 20s (young and stupid) during a solo overnight drive from Orlando to Cleveland, Ohio. I recall struggling to stay awake from around 4:00 a.m. until sunrise around 6:00 a.m., but as soon as the sun came up, that struggle stopped.

It can be tempting to approach pre-dawn crashes as yet another “gotta fix those awful motorists” problem. Sure, it needs solving, and not only for cyclists: all road users are at risk. But we can also develop strategies for ourselves. Clearly, being highly conspicuous is not enough. Using bike lanes and paved shoulders also appears to be of little help. And this is certainly not me putting in a pitch for separated bike lanes, which add a host of new problems for bicyclists.

Instead, we can rethink how we treat those pre-dawn hours. Risk management is often about trade-offs. The trade-off for cycling has always been about balancing the relatively lower risk of overtaking crashes against the higher risks of turning and crossing conflicts. The circadian trough shifts the overall risk towards the overtaking motorist, but by how much would be very hard to quantify.

Seeking solutions

Are you riding recreationally? Perhaps it would be worthwhile to wait until sunrise (though of course staying aware of the risks of the low rising sun). Or you might ride trails in independent rights-of-way (though many are technically closed from dusk to dawn). Are you riding to work? Look at your route. Consider using neighborhood side streets rather than collectors and arterials. If that’s not an option, you could consider using a sidepath or sidewalk. On sidepaths and sidewalks, you’ll need to ride significantly slower to reduce your risk of right-hooks, left crosses and drive-outs. 

As Ian Whiting suggests, a rear-view mirror can alert you to a vehicle approaching from behind. If you are controlling the lane, it will also show you whether a driver is reacting to you by slowing or changing lanes.

Someday, most motor vehicles will have systems that, even if they aren’t fully autonomous, will at least track the eyes and face of the driver and determine if they are drowsy or otherwise impaired. My Tesla already nags me if I’m not paying adequate attention to the road while using the Full Self-Driving program. But until then, we should all be aware of the circadian trough and plan accordingly.

The post Pre-dawn crashes appeared first on CyclingSavvy.

and here it is in Google Maps.

Preparation

I was more than a little surprised! Bike Together Waltham his is a motley crew of cyclists including one or two still in middle school. But I saw an opportunity.  A group ride can show how a challenge is manageable, and reasonably safe.

I reached out to Saul Blumenthal, a leader in Bike Together Waltham, and invited him to ride with me so he could later coach the group. He took up my invitation.

Here is video which Saul and I recorded of our ride. 

Saul is a CyclingSavvy graduate. He understands lane use and lane position. Though our ride was early on a Sunday morning, with light traffic, we did encounter a couple challenges beyond the ones in my previous video — notably a traffic signal that was not working, and a vehicle that had to change lanes to overtake us.

The community cycling group takes on the challenge

Three days after the demo ride, the group rode the challenging stretch as part of an evening ride at dusk.  Saul gave appropriate instructions at the start and during the ride. The group understood my unusual lane choice. Everyone had lights, with one exception which I’ll get to later. The group rode double file when controlling the travel lane, and mostly held together. All in all, I think that the ride went well.

It can’t be expected that an informal community cycling group ride will display the order and discipline of a French randonnée or CyclingSavvy urban riding practice. But it is in the nature of the learning experience that not everything is perfect. This group impressed me well with how it handled the challenge.

Saul shot video of the group ride. I’d like you to note what you think went well and what might have gone better. I have some debriefing comments following the video, which you may compare with your observations.

It was not perfect, but all in all…

OK, A few things might have worked better. I shared the following notes on the community cycling group’s chat after the ride and got a positive reception:

• One boy (yellow shirt, gray helmet) appeared to be about 10 years old. He had good bike handling skills and endurance, but no lights, as I realized near the end of the ride.. “Frog lights” attach with rubber straps and cost only a couple of dollars each. 
  I rode for decades in Boston-area traffic with small battery and generator lights with incandescent bulbs, no brighter than these. My lights, aimed level, worked fine to alert other road users when streetlights and urban light pollution revaled the road to me. My friend Pam Murray rents frog lightse lights before evening rides which she organizes, and refunds the rental if riders return the lights at the end of the ride. I donated a few of them to the group.
  
• On the other hand, one rider had very bright headlight in flash mode and aimed level, a glare hazard. You can see it in Saul’s rear view at 0:58 in the video and then see the headlight’s beam reflecting off the back of a rider ahead.
  
• A couple riders stayed close to the right-side lane line when we were in the leftmost lane. Being a bit farther into the lane would have placed them farther from high-speed motor traffic. The lane was plenty wide to allow riding double-file without crowding the right edge. I am wondering whether the habit of edge riding had ingrained itself with these riders to the extent that they didn’t realize that the edge in this case was on the left!
  
• At the end of the bridge, the group merged from the front rather than using the “got your back” techniques, where the sweep starts to change lanes first. Making this technique work requires more preparation so everyone knows to do this. It wasn’t a problem in this case, but a more compact and orderly lane change is less disruptive and creates a better impression.
  
• I am confident enough about young people riding with their parents. I wouldn’t coach them to ride a route segment like this alone.
  
• It could have worked better to split the group into two in advance of the climb in this segment, given the number of riders and that a group of three (including me) was slower than others and formed a second group.

Can a community cycling group manage?

No bike ride is completely without risk, or goes perfectly as planned. Taking on challenges is the way to expand horizons.  I have seen a significant uptick in the challenges which Bike Together Waltham will take on, and in meeting them. My ride with this community cycling group was a learning experience, for the group, and for me.

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CyclingSavvy policy is to respect bicyclists’ choices. Our goal is to help you to make informed choices, and execute them in a safest way.

In response to the Facebook post, I wrote an article illustrating my choice to ride up to Beech Street as a bicycle driver, in line with motor vehicles.

I rode through the same intersection on another day using the separated bikeway. Choices, remember?

As I approached Beech Street, the vehicle at the head of the line waiting to turn right was — by perfect coincidence — a pickup truck. The video here shows how I kept myself safe. My choice was not the only way to be safe. There are other options. Comments follow.

In the separate bikeway, slow is safe.

As the video shows, some of the time, I was going faster than the motor traffic to my left. Still, I had to ride slowly and cautiously to avoid potential hazards.

I passed a man standing at a bus stop close to the edge of the street. A few seconds later, I passed a blind corner at the end of an outdoor dining area.

The bikeway is next to the curb. Parts of it are to the right of “floating” parking where I could get doored from my left. Someone could walk out from between parked cars.

Pedestrian advocates got bulbouts to shorten crosswalks before bicycle advocates took their turn, and so the bikeway zigzags to the left where the parking leaves off. I had to look back to make sure that a vehicle wasn’t about to rear-end or sideswipe me.

Re-entering the travel lane

Approaching Beech street, the bikeway weaves back to the right behind a row of flexposts. I rode in the bikeway for a while. Then I made a different choice. I carefully crossed between the flexposts into the travel lane to wait behind the pickup truck, which was first in line. The driver of the car behind me could see me and the driver of the pickup truck didn’t need to.

When the light changed, I proceeded across the intersection into a bike lane which was properly buffered on its right side so I could stay out of the door zone. The driver behind me — and another — passed me safely.

Signal-timing confusion

While I was waiting, three bicyclists passed me in the separated bikeway while the pedestrian signal was in walk phase. That looked safe to them, and it is not surprising.

The bikeway has its own special, small traffic signal at Beech Street. The parallel crosswalk shows a walking man when the bicycle signal is red, but a no-turn-on-red sign makes it look safe for bicyclists to cross along with pedestrians.

I didn’t. Why not? The pedestrian phase is all-way. The near-side crosswalk (in front of the pickup truck) is also in walk phase. A pedestrian could be coming from the left, hidden in front of the pickup truck. The first two bicyclists unknowingly risked a collision with a pedestrian. The third arrived just after the bicycle signal turned green.

A couple seconds later, the pickup truck had a flashing yellow right-turn arrow. A flashing yellow normally requires a motorist to yield to to traffic visible through the windshield or a side window. But here, a right-turning motorist has to look back into the right rear blind spot for approaching bicyclists. That is very likely how the bicyclist in the Facebook post got right hooked, and why I chose to wait behind the truck.

If you stay in the bikeway

How would you be safe and legal while staying in the bikeway? You could wait till the bikeway signal changes, to take advantage of the leading green. If you arrive later, you need to take care that a driver will not turn right and collide with you. Like the third bicyclist in my video, you will very likely be going faster than the driver, who will not have seen or expected you.

The leading green for the bikeway is supposed to place bicyclists in the forward field of view of motorists. (An advanced stop line for bicyclists would improve on this.) But that can work only for bicyclists who are already waiting, or who arrive just when the bicycle signal changes. It offers no benefit to bicyclists who arrive later. A bicyclist approaching the intersection at the same speed as the motor vehicle may be continuously in the right rear blind spot.

Cambridge bicyclist and former City Councilor Craig Kelley has described another problem with waiting: a bicyclist sideswiped him to cross Beech Street on a red bicycle signal.

It may be hard for some people to get their heads wrapped around all this, but waiting behind the first motor vehicle avoids this significant hazard, as well as the right hook.

Evaluation

While CyclingSavvy doesn’t tell students what choice to make, we do evaluate convenience and safety. Either the travel lane or the separate bikeway can be ridden safely, but the bikeway must be ridden slowly to reduce risk where you would have too little time to react to a pedestrian, car door or moving motor vehicle. The travel lane, on the other hand, is wide-open space with clear sight lines and plenty of maneuvering room if you are controlling it, riding in its middle.

Riding in the separate bikeway is slower and more complicated, though it may be more convenient if motor traffic is stopped in a real traffic jam. Fear is real even if it is unjustified, but a rear-view mirror, with lane control, goes a long way to alleviate the fear. You do have to check the rear when riding in the bikeway, too, including for faster bicyclists! You may find the bikeway less stressful, but please don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security.

Please have another look at the earlier article, and each time you approach Beech street, decide for yourself: which works better for you: riding in the travel lane, or the bikeway. It’s your choice. Both are legal in Massachusetts.

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“Clipless pedals”: but shoes do clip into them. How is that?

Well, they don’t have toe clips. Language has inertia. The name “clipless pedals” reaches back into the past, like “horseless carriage”. I prefer “pedal binding system” to avoid confusion, but I’m not going to go to battle over that.

Why this article now? A CyclingSavvy subscriber commented that the only information on clipless pedals on our Web site was advice to not use them in a CyclingSavvy on-bike session. This article says more about why. It also serves as expanded content for our Bicycling Street Smarts booklet.

The subscriber’s point is well taken — buying and installing pedals for one-time use is a nuisance.

That said, we recommend against clipless pedals in our courses for three main reasons:

• We repeatedly mount and dismount, and walk to gather into a group.
• Cleats for some systems protrude from the soles of the shoes, making walking very awkward.
• Though other clipless systems are walkable, students may not have mastered them or adjusted them.

Hint to instructors: bring plain pedals and a pedal wrench to the on-bike session. Hint to students: check that the instructor will bring flat pedals. Wear shoes that work with them. Shoes from a clipless system with recessed cleats do, no problem. Go to a bike shop if necessary to make sure your clipless pedals are not corroded in place. Removing and replacing pedals yearly after greasing the threads is good practice in any case.

What do clipless pedals offer?

Why might a cyclist want clipless pedals, anyway?

In my experience, the main advantage is that they eliminate the need — consciously or subconsciously — to steady the feet on the pedals. Riding on a bumpy surface with clipless pedals is easier and safer. A secure connection between feet and pedals promotes a higher pedaling cadence.

It is common to imagine that securing the feet promotes pulling up on a pedal during the upstroke, but research has demonstrated that this is counterproductive. I can gain about 10% more power at a given cadence by pulling up (measured by comparing speeds uphill). But I find it more comfortable to shift down and pedal faster.

Some people use clipless pedals because everyone else in the bike club does. Well, OK, but in any case it is important to learn how to use them expertly. Read on.

Clipless pedals: advantages

With double-sided clipless pedals, properly adjusted, and if you have mastered them, the shoe just clicks in and out. You never have reach down with a hand, hook a foot underneath to backpedal, or start out with a metal cage scraping the ground.

The feet stay warmer in winter without toe straps to restrict blood flow. Sandals are pleasant in hot weather. Sandals that take cleats are available.

If you ride a fixed-gear bike, you can’t stop the pedals turning to adjust a toe strap, and clipless pedals are the only good option.

Some systems are walkable.

Clipless pedals: downsides

Clipless pedals do have some disadvantages.

Aside from the sandals, the only available shoes are road racing shoes and mountain-bike shoes. You may need to change into other shoes when you reach your destination.

Clipless pedals, shoes and cleats can be expensive.

As already mentioned, only some systems are walkable. And even then, walking wears down the soles of the shoes until eventually, a walk becomes a tap dance that can mar flooring. Then it wears down the cleat.

Many clipless pedals can’t take pedal reflectors — though reflectorized shoes or ankle bands can substitute.

The Shimano SPD walkable system sheds mud and snow reasonably well. I’m not familiar with how well other systems handle this.

Cleat adjustment

Unless a clipless system has free “float” (ankle rotation), cleats need to be adjusted to toe the feet out — almost always out — at the angle they take naturally. A bike shop may have a professional fitting system to determine that angle. You can determine it yourself by trying out your bike shoes on metal-cage plain pedals. Marks that the pedals leave on the shoes can show the angle. You could place duct tape on the soles to make more distinct marks.

I toe out Shimano SPD cleats nearly as far as they will go, as shown in the photo below. Their default straight-ahead orientation quickly leads to knee pain for me. If this continues, you may wear out the cartilage on the underside of the kneecap, and need knee surgery. I learned the hard way. Don’t let that happen.

Cleats also adjust forward and back (toward the toe or heel). I place the cleats as far back as they will go, so the foot is forward.. Standing too much to pedal gave me Achilles tendinitis– a squeaky feeling and pain at the back of the ankle. I was able to heal while still riding, with my feet farther forward on the pedals, and light pedaling at a high cadence.

Listen to your body. Pain is a message of tough love from your body to you.

Toe clips and straps, the classic option

Toe clips and straps are the time-worn way to secure the feet. Why did clipless pedals replace them?

It’s mostly about convenience and simplicity. Starting and stopping are tricky with toe clips and straps. When starting, you have to flip a pedal up with the toe of a shoe, or else the pedal is upside down as you gain speed. After inserting the foot, you need to pause pedaling to tighten the strap and get the best advantage.

The strap must still be loose enough to allow yanking out the foot in an emergency.

Only the complete (and obsolete) racing setup — with slotted cleats on the soles of the shoes — completely secures the foot, but then it is necessary to reach down and loosen a strap before putting a foot down.

Toe clips and straps work with almost any shoes other than sandals or thick boots, but we don’t recommend toe clips and straps in our courses, unless you are an expert with them.

Toe-clip-and-strap adjustment

Some cyclists — especially mountain bikers — do prefer toe clips and straps over clipless pedals. So, here are some tips on getting the most from toe clips and straps with ordinary, walkable athletic shoes.

Pedals with a metal cage work best with shoes that have stiff soles. Platform pedals, with a flat surface, are more forgiving.

Toe clips should be a bit long so the toe strap falls just behind the widest part of the shoe and holds it in. Also, toe clips often must be placed outboard of their normal location on the pedals, to accommodate a normal toe-out of the feet.

Leather toe straps hold their shape, making it easy to insert the foot. It is not so easy with cheaper toe straps made of synthetic fabric.

Threading a toe strap so it is easy to adjust is counterintuitive. The photo below shows a correct installation, with the end of the strap sticking out like a floppy dog ear..

Many cyclists use toe clips that are too short, or leave the straps loose, and never get the full advantage. Some cyclists leave off the straps. They get all of the inconvenience with none of the advantages. Other cyclists overtighten the straps and fall down because they can’t get a foot out. I hope that the advice here will spare you those difficulties — if you use toe clips and straps.

My choices

Having mastered their adjustment and use, I have Shimano SPD walkable clipless pedals on all of my bicycles. The ease of raising a pedal for the power-pedal start settles the matter for me. But then, I work from home. I do not have to show up on the job in work boots or dress shoes. My Shimano SPD sandals and MTB shoes are spiffy enough for most places I go.

The pedals on one of my folding bikes take Shimano SPD cleats on one side and are plain on the other. These pedals are less convenient when starting up, but I do a lot of walking at the Philly Bike Expo. I wear my walking shoes and don’t have to pack another pair.

Practice

If you are getting started with clipless pedals — or toe clips and straps — test their adjustment, and practice with them while leaning against a wall, or with the bicycle mounted on an indoor trainer. Many clipless pedals have an adjustment for tightness of the connection to the shoe. For riding with many starts and stops, you will want the pedals looser and to be more careful about accidental release.

Always leave one foot clipped (or strapped) in when you stop and restart during a ride. That makes it easy to raise a pedal for the power-pedal start. You will develop a preference for which foot you put down. Which foot doesn’t matter much, but you will find that the cleat for that foot wears more quickly. When a cleat gets too badly worn, it will become difficult to insert and secure. You may wish to switch the cleats from time to time to equalize wear, or train yourself to use either foot. .

More details, and especially about how to install and adjust cleats, pedals and toe clips, are at https://sheldonbrown.com/shoe-pedal.html

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