I submit to you this tale of sorrow and woe, so that you can avoid making the same mistakes I did. Ok, so I went to my town auction in early june, and picked up and old dual-suspension mountain/trick bike for FREE. All it needed was a wheel and some love. I took it home, and one of my friends told me he had some extra wheels I could take. So I went over, and got a couple wheels for my good bike, and for the new one, we decided it would be funny to put on a 20-inch wheel instead of a 24-inch wheel, 'cause he didn't have any the right size. So it was going to be like a big wheels thing, with a big wheel in front and a little one in back. So my sister puts this wheel on as I'm tuning up my normal bike, and we finish at the same time. We have a loop in our driveway, so we rode out to where it makes a teardrop style kinda point. At this point I'm in bare feet and she's wearing shoes. Then I says "Hey, let's switch bikes, I wanna test that one out." So I get on this bike. I ride about twenty feet. I decide I want to test the suspension and start bouncing on it. Here's what happened: The toes on my left foot were curled over the pedal a little, and as I was bouncing and pedaling on a bike that was a low-rider to begin with because of a small wheel, they caught on the ground. It scraped. I screamed bloody murder, and when I looked at it, it looked like the entire front of my toe was just kinda hanging there. At least the skin. I run to the front step and sit down, and look at it, and it turns out that it RIPPED my entire toenail on the middle toe of my left foot right OUT. It didn't rip it off. The toenail was not cracked. There was no toenail left in that toe. I was so freaked out, but I calmed down, cleaned it up, got a tetanus shot, etc. My sister is still working on making my toenail into a necklace for me, and my toenail has prettymuch grown back. The end. And the moral of the story: Don't ride barefoot on a low-riding full-suspension bike.
Ouch, that sucks. Yeah bikes and bare feet don't seem to get along very well, but sandals can be deadly - trust me.
when I was a kid I always rode barefoot and never had a problem, of course it was a single speed stingray with the slicky rear tire, banana seat and chopper handle bars. I've taken my full suspension mountain bike out barefoot but the pedals are too spikey for barefeet and I'm not a kid anymore.
I rode my old 20 inch banana seat bike barefoot all the time as a kid. But this was in the late 1960's early 1970's. At 12 my parents gave me a 10 speed bike as a xmas gift. It had the metal spiked pedals, but I became familar with riding it barefoot. I still own the same bike and I usually ride it daily barefoot or on some occasions wearing flip flops. I am sorry about the experience your had. That totally fucking sucks. I have been very fortunate, I have never had a bad barefoot bike incident.
When I took my bike out for the first time this year, I was riding below a Costco parking lot, and looked back to see if my shirt was still in the bike rack. When I turned back, my right sandal foot slipped off the pedal, I turned a sharp right, into the grass, went up and over the front of the bike and kissed a tree with my back. I still have the scars!
barefeet and bikes do work to a point just dont do anything crazy and dont put alot of presure on your foot against the pedals most pedals now have grips on them that hurt if you ride bare footed and put alot a presure on them, but i do have to say riding around on my bike barefoot is one of my favourite passtimes i just have to be causius
[font="]Well, I am into mountain biking. That does not work barefoot, I tried in sandals once and me foot ended up getting slammed between the pedal and a stump. I just about broke a toe. However, riding on the street can work fine. Just get the right pedals so that they are not digging into your foot. And of course, be careful. [/font]
I like to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail BF. It's a former railroad bed that runs downhill. All you do is coast for over 30 miles. At one point, it crosses the Appalachian Trail. I've hiked the trail in each direction for over 2 miles.
I've ridden my bicycle barefoot almost daily since I started barefooting. I don't think it's dangerous; when you do trick riding or off-road mountainbiking, you risk a fall or an occasional scrape not just to your feet but to anything... if you do any more extreme sports it's up to you to judge when you reach the point of needing extra protection, which may or may not include shoes, but certainly isn't limited to footwear. As a regular rider I haven't noticed any particular risk. One of my bicycles has metal & rubber pedals, the other has pure metal pedals with 'studs' for grip, haven't had that one for very long. I've used it a couple times for about an hour and a half without any problem, if I make any day trips it may be less comfortable but my feet will get used to it. I'm not going to change the pedals!
Bikes and barefeet can get along fine. Have a look at www.ridingthespine.com and check out "Goat" a long time barefooter. The 3some are riding trails along the continental divide from Alaska to the tip of South America.
