Just clearing out the Education and Safety desk...

Here are some tips for the beginning and experienced rider...

Y.S.B.A.T.  = You Should Be Able To…

A clever professor at Stony Brook would always show us a slide at the beginning of class, telling us what was the minimum that we were to learn from the day’s class....  

For the true cyclists in the Club, here are your first YSBATs:

 1. Drink a water bottle while riding.  Try to use your left hand to hold the bottle, so if you have to grab a brake, you don’t have to pull the left brake and practice flying through the air.  A helpful video from our English Cycling friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPZckjvDFU&feature=youtu.be&t=11

2. Use your gears properly, taking advantage of both the cogs at the back of the bike and the chain rings at the front of the bike.  Another video: https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/video/how-when-to-change-gear-on-a-road-bike-gcns-pro-tips

3. Take a corner properly - you should remember to brake before the corner. Here’s a video from our English friends, who ride on the opposite of the road: https://youtu.be/aPsVl42tqYo

4. Change a flat.  A couple of hints to remember: Make sure the tube is completely inside the tire before you pump it up, you can roll the tire back and forth across the rim with your hands to get all the tube completely inside the tire. Remember the curved part of the quick release is pushed into the bike and you press it with an amount of pressure to leave an indent in your hand, and you use the nut *not* the quick release lever to tighten the wheel on the bicycle.  Here’s another good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLO_HO0kEjs&feature=youtu.be

5. Ride with clipless pedals! Remember, most pedals have a tension adjustment, so you can make it harder or easier to get out of your pedals. You want  the tension to be strong enough to keep you from pulling out of the pedal, yet easy enough to unclip as you come to a stop sign. Our final video for today’s class:   https://youtu.be/EX007Lq_-NE