Originally Posted by
wolfchild
I don't do it for safety... I had a preference for putting my right foot down ever since I started cycling, it's just a habit which feels natural and most comfortable to me. Occasionally I will put my left foot down but 99% of a time it's my right foot.
I’ve always done it as well but when I started using toe clips and clipless, I started thinking about why I did it. My wife who is only 5’ tall and rode bikes that were 7” or more too tall (23” frame instead of a 16”), puts her left foot done because she couldn’t reach the ground if she put her foot down on the right (proper) side with those large bikes. She had to stand on tiptoe
and slide her leg over the top tube doing a kind of split to get off a bike at a stop. She thought about it long before toe clips and clipless. When you are riding a bike that is 2 to 3” taller than you have legs for, every fraction of an inch counts.