winston63 

I'm certainly not as competent or comfortable with it as I was in my younger days, but I will say it depends quite a bit on the bike I'm riding.

I can control my AWOL relatively easily hands-free, but oddly I can't do the same with my Diverge. It's a much more nimble bike and is simply way more agile, that might be a part of it.

In any case, it's not something I do very often except maybe to unzip a jacket or something like that.

FiftySix

I missed this until I saw winston63 reply to you.

I'm 54, 5'9", and 180 pounds with my work boots on. My ear fluid has turned to hard gel apparently, so I get motion sick in aircraft much easier than I used to years ago. Balance is a little more wobbly, but really my balance improves when my leg strength is increased by riding bicycles, and I'm no strong leg guy.

I still think the ease of riding hands free is on the design/geometry of the bicycles out there. Some are just more stable than others. I remember the Huffy 10 speed I had in the late 1970s and I could ride that thing no handed well, but it really favored being on the crown of the road. Go off the crown and the bike wanted to head for the ditch.

Out of the three bicycles I mentioned earlier in this thread, the least stable was my 7 speed cantilever frame cruiser with 26"x2.125" tires. That bike had to be pedaled quickly in 5th gear (70 gear inches) to have some resemblance of stability.

My current 8 speed Norco with 700x38 tires is twitchy and is the only bike I have that "planes like a boat" as the speed increases. Once on that "plane" riding no handed is easy. Again pedaling quickly at 70 g.i. or above is what it likes, even when having hands on the bars.

My current single speed Schwinn (66 g.i.) has a frame like an old Varsity/Racer/Speedster. It is "aircraft carrier" stable and has 700x42 tires. At 54 years of age, I can ride that thing no handed through sweeping turns and change track with ease. It could care less if the road is crowned or not and I don't have to pedal it as quickly as the other bikes to remain stable. If I really slow down on the Schwinn, the front wheel begins to wallow, but it's never twitchy.