purptiger

Suppose you are on a road bike and you have to make a sudden stop. Then you remember that you are in a high gear. How do you reduce gears and continue on your route.

This often occurs when the traffic light suddenly changes, or a car suddenly stops in front of you. Looking forward to your ideas.

Bah Humbug

Left foot on ground, right clipped in, shift as desired, lift rear wheel off ground, pedal until shifting completed. Start as normal.

79pmooney

Well, the good thing is that if you just clip in and go, there will be nothing sudden about your start!

What I do is: with left foot down, I shift down a cog, then rock the bike forward and lift with a pull from my right leg, pedaling as much of a circle as I can before the wheel comes down. In back, it is usually just one cog at a time so I may have to do this several times but dropping to the inside chainring is easy. (Never thought about this before, but that is a drawback to 1Xs.)

If you ride with panniers for uses like commuting, this "rock and shift" is a bear with the loaded panniers in back and a joy with LowRiders in front.

Edit: Bah Humbug's for the CF bikes of the Road Forum, mine for the C & V, Touring and Commuter Forums. Also when you are tired or having a bad day. Or have DT shifters you cannot operate while lifting the bike.

mstateglfr 

^this.
Close the thread here, otherwise its at risk for GamblerGORD53 to ramble on about the benefit of IGH bikes.

tempocyclist

Or a certain somebody else will chime in saying they only ride fixed...

genejockey 

The one thing you forgot was "curse loudly and colorfully at whatever caused you to have to stop in Biggie Smalls"

datlas 

Agree this is the best option if you are stopped for several seconds. If it’s a one second stop, you could start moving with a strong push-off with unclipped foot, and quickly shift into easier gear.

CAT7RDR

This only happens when I am on a steep incline.
Two choices: paperboy zig-zags until I am up to speed, or, getting off the bike and manually spinning the crank and shifting until in my preferred gear range.
Oh the horror!

zandoval 

It also helps ta have good legs so you can MASH AWAY!!!

Carbonfiberboy 

Your stoker curses at you a little, but no big deal, she can handle it. You try to do better. The other thing that happens is that you madly shifted down as you came to a stop, so when you start up again, there are all these clanging noises and your stoker says some words to you again, but this time you ignore her and just pedal. It'll be fine. The big advantage is that it's always easy to get going again, even on hills, just hit that clip on the first stroke.

jaxgtr

And hoping the reason for the stop was not another rider while you are in a paceline doing 25 and they meant to shift but pull the brake and the next you know, you are looking at someone asking if you are ok, you have a shattered collarbone that requires 5 operations and months of PT and time off the bike, but the first thing out of your mouth is how is my bike, but that wouldn't happen.

SoSmellyAir

I have just learned to ride clipless (so pardon my inexperience) and I do the above except opposite legs. If we ride on the right side of the road, is it not safer to unclip and land on the right foot?

Bah Humbug

I have no idea. I'm a righty, so I'd rather the first pedal stroke be with my strong right leg. Not sure how it would make a difference.

Carbonfiberboy 

Riders have different opinions. Most roads are crowned, so if you put the right foot down (in right side countries), it'll be a little further down and the bike might lean a little more depending on your clearance. So many riders put the left foot down instead. However a rider in our club once had her left foot run over, so that's a point for right foot down - it's safer. It's also possible to screw up the stop and tip over, which usually means a right side fall if you're a right foot down rider. Another point for right foot down is that a curb, if any, would be on that side, so you get to use the curb, slightly more comfortable. I'm a right foot down rider. That said, it's good to be comfortable putting either foot down. Everything doesn't always turn out as planned.

scottfsmith

I do two quick big downshifts (3 gears down each shift on brifter) whilst slowly but forcefully pedaling. The gears sound like they are going to die but they get over it very soon and I get moving very soon as well.

The lifting up the rear wheel method is me admitting defeat, I only do it if it is a red light or am stopped facing an uphill.

LarrySellerz

When this happens to me I curse myself for letting it happen and suffer the consequences. By this I mean I don’t downshift as to not shift under load, and do my best to protect my knees by standing up and accelerating slowly.

if this happens on a hill I’ll turn around to downshift or get off my bike and lift the wheel to shift. Way too easy to kill your gears shifting under load.

if you absolutely need to shift, downshifting the front is easier on your components than moving the chain up cogs. One shift in the front equals like 3 in the back in terms of gear ratio, and moving from big to small is easier than the reverse.

LarrySellerz

[QUOTE=SoSmellyAir;22809150 If we ride on the right side of the road, is it not safer to unclip and land on the right foot?[/QUOTE]
What’s the reasoning, I’ve never thought dismounting on one side or the other is safer. Dismounting on the left might put your upper body several inches closer to traffic, but cars should be giving you ample space anyways. I don’t know if I’d count dismounting leaning away from traffic as defensive cycling, heck often it’s nice to leave the rightmost lane for turning cars when stopped.

downtube42

Gut it out for a few feet to get things moving, back off the power, shift shift shift. Carry on.

Indeed, this is the scenario where I miss my IGH; you just very smugly shift gears. As far as the fixed gear story, you're always in the wrong gear on a fixed gear anyway, so it's no biggie.

Now try blowing up your back and riding a 'bent for a decade or so. This scenario on a 'bent is 10x worse, and may involve falling over if you try the high-gear start on a slight incline. Zero speed falls are the worst. Talk about embarrassing.

Leinster

Added a couple of crucial steps whenever I have to do it.

Note; steps do not apply with cargo bikes.

SoSmellyAir

Yep. I practice putting my left foot down within my own community and if I am stopping on a MUP.

Troul 

could call for a SAG. Otherwise, shift the gear & lift the rear.

eduskator

Apply front brake, lift rear wheel, pedal with one foot while shifting gears. Works like a charm all the time (do it with attitude, it's always better).

scottfsmith

Is that still true on modern group sets? I have a 2020 Ultegra that I have put many thousands of miles on with shifting under load and have had no issues with besides breaking the rear cable. The chain has been giving me thousands of miles per chain.

On my previous 90s-00s bikes I had to be much more careful.

GhostRider62

As a fellow sometimes recumbent rider, I have to laugh. Starting is indeed 10X harder on a low flung bent. I had to practice hours and hours and hour. Eventually could start up in my 56 x 11. It is all about balance and not rushing it. On an upright, starting in the big ring is trivial, it just takes a tiny amount of practice or a bit of planning to shift before stopping

zandoval 

One more comment...

All Hail The Non-Indexed Friction Shifter!