Riding with no hands !!!

[Ascent]

I used to do it all the time when I was 16. Don't do it now normally but found myself doing it today cycling back from Cambridge. I was on the guided busway route, I'd never do it on the road, and it was just to relieve a few muscles as I was doing a much longer route than I normally do.

 

[Specialeyes]

Purely coincidentally I happened to try this yesterday on the High Peak Trail on the Hetchins. Don't know why it occurred to me to re-learn it but like most folks, I was in the 'I used to do this all the time when I was 16, surely it can't be that hard 34 years later?' camp. True enough, it wasn't. Once I'd got past a couple of crouched attempts with hands hovering over the bars it was a question of just sitting upright and bloody well getting on with it.

I should probably get out more, as it was really fun!

 

[Ajax Bay]

I suppose geometry, headsets and wheels all have some influence.

Riding 'no hands' requires the rider's commitment to lean back (ie no hands hovering over the bars) and "Geometry" (and a normally functioning headset).
Reposting from a post 20 months ago, quote from Touring Bikes by Tony Oliver:
"A bike designed with neutral steering eg many touring and expedition bikes, should be extremely difficult to ride 'no-hands'. Their [combination of] offset/head tube angle is deliberately chosen so that steering is unaffected (or at least affected only a small amount and not enough to allow easy/safe 'no-hands'). However a racing bike should be very responsive to leaning and therefore relatively easy to steer no-hands. Also one's weight must be well back, but of course this means one is further away from the 'safety' of grabbing the bars."
Like [others] I suspect that the natural reduction in risk tolerance that most experience/exhibit with advancing years means we get caught in the too far forward and, on a relaxed geometry bike 'no man's land', this manifests as loss of ability.
Christmastime @kingrollo thread: Admission-i-cant-ride-no-hands
and a few posts therefrom:

YES I CAN! Happily remove/refit gloves, answer the phone, scratch my ##### chin, do the Bolt point, fumble in back pocket for a snack or just sit back and soak up the ambiance. If you can do it then you know that actually you can have your hands back on the bars in a split second should the need arise (apart from the two arms stuck in the sleeves of a jacket scenario, which needs to be performed on a quiet, straight road).

Tried today, still got it and managed about 800 metres before it was time to get the hands back on and go a little faster.

The first time I realised I could ride ‘no handed’ was when a prat in a w**k panzer cut me up, when I was about thirteen years old, and I was wildly gesticulating, and giving him some fine ‘Ja Volls’, and I realised I had both hands off of the bars. I’ve never needed it since, but it’s nice to know, I could if I needed to.

 

[ActivR]

Very simple, but each bike travels differently.
First of all, you must have the right speed - then you have almost nothing to do.
I used to think that it requires acrobatic balancing ability.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Very simple, but each bike travels differently.
First of all, you must have the right speed - then you have almost nothing to do.
I used to think that it requires acrobatic balancing ability.

Wait till you get to my age - standing up requires acrobatic balancing ability

 

[Jimidh]

Wait till you get to my age - standing up requires acrobatic balancing ability

This time on a Friday night also requires the same acrobatic balancing ability!!

 

[DRM]

Purely coincidentally I happened to try this yesterday on the High Peak Trail on the Hetchins. Don't know why it occurred to me to re-learn it but like most folks, I was in the 'I used to do this all the time when I was 16, surely it can't be that hard 34 years later?' camp. True enough, it wasn't. Once I'd got past a couple of crouched attempts with hands hovering over the bars it was a question of just sitting upright and bloody well getting on with it.

I should probably get out more, as it was really fun!

Me too, I used to ride no hands quite easily as a yoof, however as others have said thirty odd years later you know that you don't bounce like you used to do, but whilst out (off road, but tarmac lane) on my MTB I kept having a go till I cracked it, had a few goes Saturday & Sunday on the roadie till I cracked it on that too, I think on a road bike there's a confidence issue due to being leaned further forward, so the grown up, don't be stupid part of your brain makes it seem a long way to sit upright & balance properly, where as on an MTB or hybrid you are sat more upright to start with.

 

[Serge]

I tried it yesterday and my five year old daughter told me off!