TXsailor

It depends on what bike I am riding. My 54 cm Ironman and my Giant Escape are the easiest and I can ride them for miles no handed. Its a great way to get the kinks out of my old back or eat something. My 56 Ironman is pretty easy too but not like the other two. My other bikes give me more trouble doing it so I usually don't.

I won't put up with a bike that doesn't shift right or drops the chain.

nomadmax 

I was on a rainy club ride the other day that's usually pretty cut throat in terms of pace/getting dropped. When it finally stopped raining/warmed up, I pushed ahead of the group by about 300m and started to descend a 35mph hill. I sat up, took my rain jacket off, stowed it in my jersey pocket, then waited for the group to catch up so I could pull. According to a few in the group, you would have thought I had poured gasoline on a pile of fireworks and was enjoying a cigarette. Given their reaction, I guessed they had never had to add/remove gear while riding so I declined to ask for a push while I peed.

thinktubes 

I ride no-hands for the last 2 blocks before I get home so the neighbors think I'm pro.

Ald1 

I like to work on it to improve balance/line riding etc when on a lonely road with calm air. No where near the level of putting on jackets etc. RANT. If you are in a group ride, yes we see you can do it but please don't. Or at least peel away from everyone. OK?

easyupbug 

I do all the time, mostly to prevent ulnar neuropathy (finger numbing), but also for all the other reasons mentions, checking out a bike, jersey zipper, etc. I also like it believing that it can help with balance now that I am near 70.

The Golden Boy 

I used to do it all the time when I was a kid. I haven't been able to reliably in the past 10 years.

RiddleOfSteel

I looked for the video and found it. Looks like we're getting a clearer picture and more context surrounding things. Thanks for that!

My left eustachian tube is a bit of a issue--used to be both occasionally, but now if I feel imbalance, it's always the left one. Freaking sucks. I end up being a human barometer with regard to a rain storm/front moving into the area as my equilibrium just starts to feel it. Proper grade Sudafed works but also makes my heart pound at a decidedly higher BPM for two to two and a half hours after taking it, so no Sudafed for me! I find that the Zyrtec (or generic store version) stuff clears the insides (anti-allergy, as I do have allergies in the spring) without having the Sudafed side affects. Still, dramamine et al are still on hand if natural remedies don't fix it. Those balance bones, man. Sensitive! I have PT-type movements I can do to 'reset' them, which helps. Biking also helps--as in I never feel any imbalance when on it--hence my affection and heavy involvement in bikes. It's been the elixir for both physical and mental ails. Sorry you have to deal with equilibrium issues--wish it upon no one.

Last ride 76 

My first USCF sanctioned race was an Olympic Development points race in Manchester VT in early May 74. Sixty-plus miles over 10 laps. A cold and damp start. Halfway through the first lap, I'm in the middle of pack someplace, and a stars and stripes jersey rides up next to me... John Howard is riding next to me. He moves to the left edge of the pack, sits up and takes his hands off the bars, pulls a page of newspaper from under the front of his jersey, balls it up, and tosses it to the far side of the road. He moves up the outside of the pack, and within a few minutes, I'm riding with a smaller group of guys...



Seeing him sitting up, relaxed and unhurried like that, was such a perfect moment*, it kept me going when I got lapped, and until I "finished" solo 20+ minutes down on the winners... Turns out I probably finished 1st in my "class", coming in not quite dead last. I was a 1st yr junior, (still 15 that January), who didn't know I wasn't even supposed to be in the race... It was the 2nd day of 2 days racing. I was standing in the racers line, I guess they wrote down my name, gave me a number and that was it. After the race, they had a good laugh when went inside and asked how I did in jrs...

I rode alongside and "raced" against John Howard in my first "real" bike race...



*The one book (a British paperback) I had been able to find, up to that point, about bicycle racing and training techniques, mentioned the newspaper trick as something the pros did in Europe.

ramzilla

Under power on a flat stretch or slight uphill I can ride no hands. Not so much downhill. It also depends on the bike. I've got a 1982 Centurion Elite that is my favorite no hands bike.

Brad L 

It depends on the geometry of the bike. I had a crap road bike when I was a teenager that I could ride all day with no hands. Fifteen years later I get a Specialized Sirrus road bike that won't track straight no matter what I do. I can ride my Colnago Dream with no hands but I don't find the need very often.

John E

One of my faculty pals rides no hands all the time -- he's a unicyclist.

downhillmaster

I ride no hands to stretch out my back and to look badass

big chainring 

Exactly. I admit it. I text while biking.
And ride no hands when eating, drinking, just taking a break.

Reynolds 

Depends on the bike. On some I can corner no handed, on others I barely can do it for a few seconds.

unterhausen

I wish I could, but it seems like none of the bikes I ride right now will do it safely. It was always something I only could do well when I had been riding a lot.

Swanndog

Some bikes have a geometry that makes it easy , others not . I had a 1970 sears road bike that rode great with no hands . I have newer bikes where it’s sketchy to do so . It is good if it’s stable to do so as you can eat your lunch while rideing

Lemond1985

Seems to help if my seat is all the way back on the rails + tilted back slightly so I don't slide forward. And the headset is in good repair, naturally.

I can ride no hands on most of my bikes, but I was never one to ride wheelies. Some kids had a real knack for that, I could never pull it off.

Mikier

I only have two words: Chris Fromme

Last ride 76 

...Was trying to put on a clingy tight fitting jacket in gusty, high wind conditions, while riding at high speed(!) on a TT bike having a disk in back, and a deep rim in front). Not a good decision, I'm sure he would agree in retrospect, but his accident has little to do with riding no-hands for the purposes of this discussion.

jackbombay

The first century I rode, I rode about 20 miles if it no hands, I wasn't racing, I was actually on a Sears/Free Spirit Shimano 3 speeds, almost all original, 38 pounds with my U lock on it, I rode from Brooklyn to coney island up the west side of Manhattan and across the GWB into Jersey and back to brooklyn, a fair bit was on bike paths, so I rode no hands when the path was smooth and it worked out.

Jeff Parker

It frustrated me for a while that I couldn't ride hands off like I did as a teen, and then I realized my bike then was a lot heavier and I was a lot lighter. Top heavy makes it a lot harder. I can tell when I ride a bike with steel wheels!

Lascauxcaveman 

That's the ticket. Flat ground, steady speed in that range, fairly slack head tube angle and well-balanced, fairly heavy, gyroscopic front tire helps a lot. No extra weight on the front wheel; no front bag. My no-hands distance record is about 4 miles, but if I chose a flat smooth path it could be ten times that; if the right right bike is under me.

Yes, I was proficient at riding a unicycle in my younger days. A very natural thing.

mech986 

Seems to me we should be checking our bike alignments including straightness of the rear wheel line relative to the front wheel, plus the overall dropout alignments as well. I suspect a lot of our bikes crab a little.

I can ride hands free on my Italvega Super Speciale but nowadays it’s with a slight right sided body lean rather than fully upright. Probably leaning the bike a little left to compensate.

Last ride 76 

I'm not getting old, I'm old. For a moment, I read baldness, and my brain turned it into "hide my baldness," and then I thought "but we wear helmets, otherwise, yeah sitting up straight would hide the thin patch." Then I squinted at the screen, and everything became normal again. It never occurred to me that riding no hands could be badass, except perhaps when nonchalantly going around turns, or like John Howard, in a race. That's some serious badass-ness.

Lemond1985

Or when those domestiques drift back to the team car, ride with no hands, and load up on 10 water bottles stuffed into their jerseys. I never see their bikes wobble, I wonder what the secret is?