I’ve had people wave hello at me when I do that one too.
What the hell are you stopping so hard for that you are flipped over the handlebars? In 40+ years of cycling, I’ve never had it happen. The only things I have run into appeared so unexpectedly, that I never had a chance to brake at all. Would the alternative of skidding into the collision on the back brake been preferable in the accidents you’ve had?
It’s not so much about the force that can be applied. I can apply more than enough force with either hand on either brake. It’s about control and modulation. For that, I want my dominant hand on my most important brake.
Oy. No. People understand it because it’s printed in at least some DMV manuals and is how you would signal if your tail-light went out. We don’t need to add additional hand signals and increase confusion, even if the present ones are anachronistic. It’s hard enough educating drivers to share the road, the last thing we need are myriad forms of communication. I’m with @turkeybrain on this; from a distance or during the day it’s just a blinky light that says you’re turning right. Bad, bad design.
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Both times it has happened it has been going a fairly steep downhill @ 30+ mph. One time someone decide to pull out without signalling and the other time there was a log that must have fallen out of a landscaping truck or something in the road right after a turn. In both cases I had less than a couple seconds to react.
I didn’t actually mean to jam the brake so hard either time without shifting my weight back, but there honestly wasn’t enough time to react properly.
Really hard to say. The log in the middle of the road was big enough to cause me to crash unless I managed to swerve around it. The car? No idea. I actually was really lucky to not get anything more than road rash and a couple scars.
Lucky. I hit an uneven curb cutout at 20 mph, flipped over the handlebars, and spent the next year and half in physical therapy getting used to my new metal elbows.
If we’re going to try improving the situation with LEDs, how about making it so the rider doesn’t have to take their hand off?
Epaulettes, duh. Or something strapped around the elbows.
That happened to me BITD, the first time I had to do an emergency stop with a dual-pivot. I was over the moon and not just the bars, to finally have a proper front brake. The next emergency fistful of brake just resulted in a super-awesome stoppie; somehow my fingers could just nail it. Couldn’t begin to do one like that on purpose…
Done the flipping with Superbe Pros, 600 Ultegras, even Dia Compe side axis ones.
I second your opinion.
Butt lights.
Clench once for left, twice for right? Clench and hold for brake lights, which should be intuitive.
Yes, much more likely to flip over if you’re heading downhill.
You’re fairly SOL either way in that case, though. Anything you hit while jamming your rear break and skidding (which barely slows you down at all, and causes you to lose control) is going to cause you to flip over as well.
Only real option is not to go so fast down hill… (or assume you’re going to need to emergency break at any time and already have your weight shifted way back.)
dude…
spoiler tags
So how do they go, then? [spoiler] doesn’t do it.
Where’s the handy link in the reply menu to a full list of the tags, dammit.
[spoiler]like this[/spoiler]It would be kind of messy, though.
I have never noticed that motorists (or anyone else) paid attention to my hand signals while riding a bicycle. Plus, the few who do notice usually simply don’t care – they are not going to slow their precious onrushing behemoth in its urgent mission just because you want to turn into ‘their’ lane or whatever. It seems more productive to keep my hands on the handlebars ready for fast evasive action.
I think it’s telling that Bike Snob NYC’s blog has evolved in the last few years from mocking fixie culture to mocking clueless kickstarters for cyclists.
(Hey, that’s actually a real product out there. With reviews and everything. Better! I’m sure I’ve seen half a dozen kickstarter things with the same concept though.)
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