Setting off from a standstill

1Watch

The first four feet

Nobody in that shot did anything reckless. The whole wobble was settled before the machine moved at all, by where one pedal happened to be.

2The idea

Two different programmes, 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.

3The idea

Why 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.

4Look

Two o'clock, and 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 idea

The 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.

6Decide

You are stopped at the end of the lot and the pedal is hanging at the bottom.

Push off and pick it up as you goBring it round to two, then goTurn the assist up to make the start easier

7Build it

Build the start

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

8Find them

Which of these belong in a start?

Tap the ones that count.

9Say it

Four words, in order

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

10Do it

Before you leave this page