tomato coupe

What's a pseudo track stand? Is that where you lean against a dumpster?

LarryMelman

I bet it involves duct tape and a three-dollar bill.

bironi

It's about relaxing.
Try it after a beer on a grass surface.
Add another beer if you're still skittish.

ScottCommutes

My suggestion for learning a track stand:

Learn it exactly like you will do it - on your bike, on the flat, unsupported, moving in and out of it. Go really slow. Stop. Hold it until you can't, pedal a bit to recover. Repeat. Each time try to get a few more milliseconds out of the stop phase. Do this often - like for five minutes at the start of every ride.

It's the same thing you want to do every time you get to a red light, except that you are forcing yourself to practice it in a safe place. That's what I like about this method - it's completely authentic to how you ride a bike and not contrived by leaning against a wall or hill or something.

rsbob 

I’m a roadie that can’t bunny hop without being clipped in. But then, how many roadies ride flat pedals? Add that to not being able to do a track stand, I guess that makes me a Sunday bicycler, but I’m ok with that. So much for impressing the ‘real men’.

CrimsonEclipse

Only track stand I've ever done was by accident.
Long ride 95f 95%, exhausted, stopped at a light
Was so tired that I forgot to put my leg down.
Some pedestrian is looking at me funny, but I was too tired to care.
Light changed, I went on my way

A shower, some rest, food, and hydration later I realized it was a cool track stand or I looked like I was about to die.
(probably both)

Maelochs

Right ... and unlike the fake method of leaning against a wall, with this method one can crash sideways to the ground and shatter one's collarbone, just as it would happen ion the street.

Garthr

I can hold a track stand for about as long as I can hold the thought "Who Am I ?"

Prowler 

Several years ago I decided “ there’s no reason a 60 year old man cannot learn to track stand”. It being the dead of winter, I made a shallow ramp from scrap wood, maybe about 5 degree slope and about the size of dinner tray. Set that on the shop floor next to my vise. I clamped a board in the vise to grab onto as I was falling off. Lined my geared mtn bike up on that small ramp, wheel turned about 40 deg to the left and got started. MANY failures but I could just grab that board each time then restart. With no fear of falling I kept at it. A couple minutes each day. Finally I held the track stand 1second. Many failures then 3 seconds. Then 5, 10, 15. I got pretty good at it. I still practice on occasion. Yeah, it’s pretty much a “parlor trick”.

For me there’s no real use “in the wild” other than standing next to some car who has pulled into a pedestrian crossing and stopped for the light. It really alarms them. BUT the very low speed balance it taught me has been very helpful during all sorts of riding. And I always win the slow races with my grand kids.

BTW: while learning, I had to retrain my brain. Since back when I was a kid I was “right footed”, always stopped the bike with my right foot forward. As I live in the USA, I had to change that - get into the habit of stopping with my left foot forward. No worries. Did that too.

rm -rf

I remembered seeing this on one of Sheldon Brown's articles on fixed gear riding:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html#mounting

That would be amazing to see!

(On my first fixed gear ride years ago, I did a partial version of this idea: I tried to coast as I came up to a stop sign. I got bounced right off the saddle. No tip over crash, good.)

Trakhak

Thanks for that! I had no idea that the technique was known outside New Haven. Guess it should be called the "New England Dismount," since Sheldon was in Massachusetts.

He doesn't say where he first saw it being done, unfortunately. Guess its origin is lost in the mists of time. Funny that it wasn't revived and then adopted en masse during the 1990's - 2000's tixie fad.

Just looked on YouTube for bike dismount videos. Found this video with six different techniques, but not the N.E. Dismount.


Bingo. Here's the dismount Sheldon was referring to, with a variation: the rider hops off, which looks pretty clumsy compared to the classic Sheldon/New Haven technique of stepping casually off the bike. Still, it gets the job done and gives you an idea of how easy it would be to learn.


Sheldon is mistaken about it being impossible to perform the dismount with a road bike, by the way. Since you have to push forward and begin to stand on the pedal simultaneously, the point in the circle where you do that happens just a few degrees before top dead center whether you're dismounting a track bike or a road bike. Maybe a fixed gear allows you to be a little less careful about where you start the push, but the difference in the pedaling circle positions can't be more than a few degrees.

gringomojado

I can't ride "hands free", may be from my days as a newspaper delivery rider!

gm

CrimsonEclipse

Someone who's honest about their ADHD?

Litho dbh

Trackstanding is nice and all, but really not that big of a deal. If you really want to impress people, wheelies are more awesome. Work on that instead.

3alarmer 

LarrySellerz

what ever happened to those races anyways, I heard they were popular in America at the turn of the 19th-20th century. I’d be good at them too, I practice track stands every day at every red light as another above poster suggested. Haven’t made any noticeable improvement, but I still try

rsbob 

OMG, you may not be a real cyclist according to Larry. The shame.

rsbob 

Oh put the pressure on.

Now to be a ‘real cyclist’ I must be able to

1. Track stand
2. Bunny hop uncleated
3. Ride no hands
4. Do wheelies

What’s next? The horror. The horror.

I can do #3 as well as take a jacket/vest/gloves on and off while riding and eat/drink, but that’s the best I can do. Sigh. I have to face it, I will never be a real cyclist.

ScottCommutes

This thread has inspired me to work on my track stand.

I've learned a couple of things. While the ability to do a track stand might be a "parlor trick", it does correlate with long hours of experience on a bike, as well as excellent skills handling said bike. If you see someone that can do a track stand, take it as a hint that they didn't start riding yesterday and that they probably have been around the block a few times.

I also bolted aero bars onto my bike this weekend and have been learning to ride with them. Believe it or not, riding aero bars helps with your track stand. You can ride and sight over your thumbs and clearly see how much your body rocks unnecessarily. Then, because you don't have the torque advantage of longer handlebars, you learn to control smaller movements. You balance more and rely less on simply turning the bars to stay upright.

indyfabz

They shoot horses, don’t they?

rsbob 

That just might be your most inspired quote ever. Well done and oh so true.

indyfabz

I saw the film when I was young.

rsbob 

Same here. Quite depressing.

jack pot 

if you can't track stand sell your fixed ... no point in posing if you can't strike a pose

genejockey 

This list is like one of those videos GCM puts out - "The Four Things Beginning Cyclists Must Learn".

But of course, those are all parlor tricks that don't have much to do with cycling. Well, maybe riding no hands is a useful skill, though generally I prefer to just stop and take the jacket off, since I ride alone. Then again if I rode in a group, I wouldn't try to take a jacket off while riding no hands either.