boostbutt

Had a scary experience riding with my usual road bike guys, on my fixed gear. We were doing like 50km/h at some point going down hill and my feet just spun out of the pedal straps, leaving me two legged in the air and slowly applying brakes! The guys drafting me had a bit of scare!

I'm using old Shimano 600 with straps (triangular shaped pedal). I guess I could prevent this from happening if I tightened the straps more BUT that would mean a tougher time to get out in case of emergencies....

I just build up my fixed gear 2 months ago and it has really become my 'weapon of choice' but I want to also assure my road buddies that I'm safe to ride with!

Exit.

Uhhh...get better pedaling form?

prind0

Have you tried tightening them more and actually seeing if they were that much harder to get out of in an emergency?

I have my straps pretty tight, and I have absolutely no trouble at all pulling my feet out if I need to.

muckymucky

but thats not what straps were designed for yo~

straps does have that inconvenience of emergency escape~ so i guess clipless would be the only real answer to your problem.

Tomo_Ishi

50 km/h? That's like 140 - 150 rpm on pedals with ~70 GI. 130 rpm with 80 GI. That's uber, but what would I know? ... But you might wanna ease up a little after all it ain't a "roadie".

Tomo_Ishi

I don't think that's the problem. If you are pedaling uber fast with less than perfect form, you can have accidental "clip-out" even with a clipless.

Kenneth

just go clipless...safer imo

true that you may still have an accidental "clip out" though. i never have though

kyselad

+1 to clipless. It's pretty hard to spin out of any decent setup. I'm guessing your roadie buddies are using them as well, and for good reason. Then again, they're probably also using gears, which might prove to be another valuable upgrade when riding with them.

JacoKierkegaard

Clipless.

kringle

What pedals are you using? You can try feeding the straps through the rear cage of the pedal, like so. It seems to hold the foot better.
More examples at https://www.fixedgeargallery.com/reviews/pedals/

Even with Gr-9's I managed to squeeze them through.

Also, depending on your cages, you can try to get road shoes and bolt on some slotted cleats. Keep in mind, this will make it a lot harder to get your feet out.

JohnDThompson 

Are you using slotted cleats when you ride? If not, that's your problem. Toeclips in conjunction with slotted cleats are just as secure -- maybe even more secure -- than clipless, and you don't need to tighten the straps so hard that you cut off circulation to your feet.

coolkid_cody

Even riding at 200+ RPMs you shouldnt be pulling out unless you have bad form. The few times I've pulled out is from trying to crank it starting from a light and that's me being dumb. Clipless is realy nice though, I just switched over after a year and a half of clips and straps. I'd say work on your form before you invest in clipless. After riding fixed only 2 months you could improve some more.

BTW by 200+ RPMs I mean 15 to 20 second bursts.

mrvile

I'm wondering if the OP rides a road bike regularly at all, since he did mention that he was riding with his "usual road bike guys." It seems odd to me that any regular roadie would spin out of their toestraps without automatically considering clipless as an obvious solution (besides better form, of course).

Cinch those toestraps down tight. You'll be surprised at how easily you can still pull out of them if you have to.

chevy42083

I never have.

carleton

There is your problem right there.

Straps and double straps are NOT designed to release in an emergency. Period.

If you use them as you should (by strapping them down snugly), the ONLY way to exit is to reach down and loosen the clamp.

Chalk this up to user error.

Right now, I would not consider you safe to ride with. Sorry.

Get some clipless pedals and shoes.

carleton

When you crash with straps and double-straps you go WITH the bike like so:




This, my friends, is why clipless pedals came to be.

tgscordv6

Once you go clipless, you don't go back.

cnnrmccloskey

Clipless might help, but if you spun yourself out of your straps they are definatly too loose, people seem to think that having your straps as tight as possible or completely loose is the only option, the straps I use are a bit finiky to get into but they secure my foot enough so that I have never spun myself out of them and I can get out when I need to, don't give up on them without playing with them a little at least.

and +1 for work on your pedaling form

Tomo_Ishi

Oh come on, OP was bombing down a long hill. You've done that before, it's all about spin and he spun out. ... Pedals flew out because he couldn't keep up. Pedals did OP a favor, because he could have flew off his bike instead or stay on it but annoy the hell out of "roadie buddies" bobbing up/down on his saddle. (would've been a funny thing to watch ... =) )

(Don't get me wrong, I do have a clipless setup, ready to go for long rides. Nothing beats that. I don't contest that at all.)

hairnet

I was hitting speeds like that (slow for these hills) coming down the Santa Monica Mountains and I have to say, you have to have two brakes if you're going to be going down long steep hills. Trying to control my cadence did some to slow me because of my low gear, but I was still relying on the front brake. I was lucky the inner tube didn't blow, that rim was on fire.

shubonker

Get gears

Ken Cox

Road bikes and fixed gear bikes don't mix well because of differences in cadence.

Generally, but not always, fixed gear bikes go up short hills faster than geared bikes, up long hills slower, and down almost all hills slower.

Do your friends and yourself a kindness and match your riding equipment so that you can easily and safely stay together.

Off of the track, clips and straps have no practical use except possibly for messengers who spend as much or more time walking as riding, and, even in the case of messengers, I think the right mountain bike shoes and clipless pedals represent the safer option.

The first two years of riding fixed and clipless I inadvertently clipped out perhaps twice while spinning at bouncy-blur spin rates, and clipless pedals and shoes made it much easier to reconnect with the pedals than would have clips and straps.

Get some inexpensive Shimano Mountain Bike shoes, some inexpensive double-sided Mountain Bike SPD pedals, and don't set yourself and your friends up for an unhappy experience by mixing fixed gear bikes with road bikes.

Even if you can maintain the same average speeds with your geared-bike friends, you will annoyingly speed up and slow down, relative to them, on hills.

j3ffr3y

once I fell over in front of a crowded store going 0 mph because I tightened my straps too much. I'm sure everyone who saw got quite the chuckle.

Sixty Fiver

Have descended at 90 kmh with clips and straps on my road bike and at 70 kmh on my fixed road bike running 82 gear inches... 70 kmh is where my roadie friend said I pulled away from him and he said my legs were a blur and this put me somewhere in the 190 rpm range for a good long distance.

Technique is everything... a fixed gear needs constant pedal input on high speed / high rpm descents to keep you from losing a pedal and your technique and set up needs to be perfect.

AEO

the accidental clipouts are often caused by fatigued legs twisting enough to cause the cleats to pop out of the pedal.

easier to do when you are trying to slow down because you're exhausted from the sprint.

the other causes would be worn out cleat or a too loose/too tight spring tension.