pedals and wheels

[worldtourjon]

Hi all
I have been riding for years but not for any purpose other than to be fit and I enjoy cycling. I've never had a really good bike or have much idea what to know is right or wrong with mine ( I do follow the tour de france though so I guess I know the basics) An example of my ethic is "hmm seems the brakes are permenantly on a little bit at the front...meh it will just make it a better work out"

However what I seems to be really wrong is that when I turn the wheel my feet often get caught against the wheel!! I'll be turning and then when one of my feet is just above the bottom of the revolution on the wheel side it starts to contact the wheel or sometimes gets trapped on the wrong side. Now I'm trying to learn not to get myself in this situation as its quite dangerous but I've never had this problem before on other bikes. Maybe I'm just riding differently but at the minute say I turn left my right foot will start to contact the wheel or get trapped!!

Am I just being a complete novice here or is tehre something wrong with my bike.

Also on a seperate note my bike tends to like skipping gears when I get off the seat and pedal hard making violent jumps between two or three gears when I've not changed anything...how do I remedy this?!?

Many thanks

 

[tyred]

It's called toe clip overlap and it happens on some bikes and not others due to frame geometry, wheelbase, wheel size, etc.

You can read a bit more about it here - http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_ta-o.html#toeclipoverlap


It shouldn't be a problem once you get used to it. You only need to turn the steering large amounts during very low speed maneuvers.

 

[worldtourjon]

Yea It's mainly at low speed which means I end up coming to stop pretty quickly and my feet geting caught in my pedals! I assume the bike is set up properly I bought it new from a bike shop and the guy was very techy. thanks for the link

 

[gbb]

There's probably a certain amount of adjustment on your cleats jon (depending which you have)
I had this with Looks, toe clipping the tyre. Loosened the cleats and slid them forward in the shoe then re-tighten. That way you take the toe back from the wheel.

 

[MLC]

And to answer the gear thing check the gear cable doesn't need tightening (I am a mechanical numpty but exactly same thing happenned to me and that apparantly was the problem according to the LBS - however this was the same LBS that provided me with a brand new bike that came with this problem so on second thoughts.....)