Road Badge › In the Empty Lot › Setting off from a standstill

Setting off from a standstill

Brakes on, pedal to two, look, then go.

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1The first four feet

A boy pushing off from a standstill on a bike, helmet on, both feet still on the ground and the front wheel wandering sideways across a white line. — The wheel wandering across the line in the first few feet.

A rider pushes off from a standstill with the pedal hanging at the bottom. They scoot twice and the front wheel wanders sideways across a chalk line.

Nobody did anything reckless. That whole wobble was settled before the bike moved at all, by where one pedal happened to be.

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2Two different programs, the same clock position

A state safe-routes-to-school curriculum and an adult cycling school both teach this start, and both give the same position on a clock face. Raise the starting pedal to two o’clock. The cycling school calls it the power position and says that with the technique in place a start becomes a non-event — no bike handling required, just steps in order.

That is a strong claim and it is the right one. Almost everything that goes wrong in the first few feet of a ride is not balance. It is a rider trying to get moving off a pedal with nothing left in its stroke.

3Why two o'clock and nowhere else

A pedal at two is near the top of its circle with the whole downstroke still ahead of it. Stand on it and your weight goes into moving the machine. A pedal at the bottom has nowhere left to go, so instead of driving you forward it turns your start into a scoot, and the scoot is where the wandering comes from.

On a heavy machine this matters more than it did on the bike you learned on. There is more mass to get going, so a weak first push means longer spent at the speed where any machine is least stable, which is walking pace.

4Two o'clock, and six

A close side photograph of a crank at two o'clock with a foot poised on it, next to the same crank at six o'clock with the foot flat and the leg straight. — A crank at two o'clock with a foot on it, beside the same crank at six.

One of those you can stand on. The other one is a footrest. Moving a pedal from the second picture to the first takes about half a second and you can do it with your toe.

5The five things, in order

Brakes on before you get on. The training standard writes that as a criterion of its own, because a machine that rolls while you swing a leg over is a machine you are chasing.

Straddle it, one foot on the ground.

Bring the other pedal up to two.

Look ahead, then behind over each shoulder.

Step down onto the pedal, push, slide back onto the saddle.

The fourth is the one riders drop first, and it is written into the standard too: look for hazards ahead and behind before setting off. In an empty lot it feels pointless. That is exactly why you build it here, where there is nothing to find.

6Stopped, and the pedal hangs at the bottom.

Pick one.

Right, and it costs you half a second. Hook a toe under the pedal or nudge it round, get it to two, and the start becomes a step you take rather than a thing you survive. This is also what makes a stop at an intersection usable, which is the next lesson.

Both of those solve a position problem with power. Scooting keeps you at walking pace with your weight in the wrong place for longer, and adding assist to a bad start just means the machine arrives at speed while you are still finding a pedal. The fix is free, and it is where your foot is.

7Build the start

Five shuffled cards: brakes on, straddle it, pedal to two, look ahead and behind, stand on it. Drag them into order. Get it wrong and the card plays what happens — the machine rolls away from you, the wobble, or a start into something you never looked at.

Two of the wrong orders you can build look completely reasonable and still put the machine in motion before you are on it.

8Which of these belong in a start?

Pick every one that is right, then press Check.

Find all 4.

Four things in the start, and the order of them is the whole skill.

Two of those come later or not at all. You are not moving until the rest are done.

9Four words, in order

Say it out loud as you get on

Brakes. Two o'clock. Look. Go.

Say it on every start for two weeks. The order is the part that has to go automatic, because in a month you will be doing this at an intersection with something coming.

10Before you leave this page

Ten watched starts, five off each foot.

In your space, do ten starts from a standstill with somebody watching, five leading with each foot. They tick a start only if the pedal was at two before you moved, the brakes were held until you were astride it, you looked ahead and behind, and the front wheel stayed inside a chalk line for the first ten feet.