I was riding my fixed the other day and i needed to make a pretty sharp turn, next thing I know my pedal hits the ground and I eat shit. anyone else have this problem?
never. and every time i turn and am at a pretty good speed, i push the limit and see how far i really can go. maybe ill stop, eating shit isn’t in my planner
otherwise known as pedal strike. happens when turning too sharp. your crank arms could be too long.
I’ve never actually fallen from pedal strike, but it scares me every time. No advice except for maybe shorter cranks or more narrow pedals.
Pedal Strike
t is never a good thing to strike your pedal on the ground while cornering tightly. On a freewheel bike, you can coast though the corners with your pedals horizontal, thus avoiding any chance of striking. On a fixed-gear machine, you don't have this option.
If you do bang a pedal on a fixed gear, the pedal can lift the rear wheel off the road, and down you will go. This has never happened to me, but it is something to bear in mind.
How much of a problem this is will depend on your bottom bracket height, crank length, and the design of your pedals.
Most of my fixed-gear bikes have 165 mm cranks,which give a bit more ground clearance than the 170 mm's usually used on road bikes. I also make a point of using pedals that don't stick out too far.i have 170s , but with gr-9s they’re pretty narrow so i think it makes up for it
Pedal Strike or Why riding fixed on the street is not the most practical of ideas.
Uh, you learn to deal with it, like toe overlap. Don’t take turns that sharp, choose your line carefully, avoid potholes, curbs, etc.
it’s happened to me a couple times on my old conversion, and yeah, you just learn to avoid it. get some sylvans or GR-9’s and 165mm cranks and you’ll be fine. or get an IRO, with an almost-stupid-high BB and never worry about it again (i’ve seen how far i can push my angus, and i feel like my wheels are going to slip out from under me long before i even get close to striking).
I’ve had it happen once, and learned my lesson very well after I brushed all the dirt and plant bits off myself. It must’ve have looked pretty cool the way I fell though, I ended up like, laying flat-ish on my bars for a split second before riding into the dirt and finally flipping over them.
used to happen on my conversion. closest i get on the track bike is scraping toe clip with my toes pointed too far down. never gone down though. im more worried about squeezing between car and curb and striking on curb
Happened to me twice. Once on my old Gitane conversion - luckily the pedals were shitty soft aluminum so the one that hit the ground crumpled instead of lifting the rear wheel. And another time on a mountain bike where the rear wheel lifted up but came back down about a foot over to the side. It was pretty scary both times but no eating of shit occurred.
reedreeder is right about IRO Angus BB height. On mine, I can sometimes get my toes to scrape the ground if I point them down in a turn but that’s it.
My main fixed gear for the last 5 years or so has been a Trek conversion with 170’s and touring pedals. I often ride that thing harder than it deserves to be ridden and I have never ever ever hit a pedal on anything. I must be made out of magical fairy dust.
165 crankz it is!
i ate shit at school on the lil bmx bike i ride around on. i took a corner too sharp and slammed crank arm into the ground, flipped over the bars and ruined shredded the skin on my knee and palm. that scared me about pedal strike. haven’t gotten it on the tarckbike yet, but i get scared every time toeclip scrapes the ground going up a relatively steep hill (yes, theres a small relatively steep and curvy hill on the terry hershey trail)
lol wth? on a bmx? you can just put your pedals horizontally to make them not hit the ground…
yes i know this, but i was lazy and tired from class (let out at 9pm and i just woke up from that class) and iunno. i was a bloody mess walking into subway asking for napkins.
This is why people should ride track frames and not conversions, or “fixed gear” frames.
Spend money on a real track frame before buying yourself some 90 dollar hipster rim.
When i finally got a real track frame i was beyond delighted, no more scrapping the ground and clipping the curb. It really is unneeded stress when you are already riding a brakeless bike.
It feels like shit to have to slow down and take the turn slow cuz of riding the wrong frame
Oh, I thought this was going to be about turning.
I have never had toe overlap on my 56cm Samson using large toe clips and 165 cranks. I have, however, had a couple instances of pedal strike on the IRO.