I was actually wearing shoes.
I was ~12 yrs old and I must have had my toes pointed down on the pedal.
The toe of my shoe caught the ground and pulled my foot under backwards and I wiped out.
Lesson learned : Don't point your toes downward.
I always have the saddle high and fully extend legs and ankles while pulling back and up. Good torque sensor bikes love a smooth cadence throughout the stroke. As pedal pressure rises and cadence rises, so does power delivery, so it feels natural, yet enhanced. Sucky bikes are disconnected to pedal feel and cadence IMHO. Good bikes IMO are like an acoustic instrument with a pickup to an amplifier. You still must play it. But can then keep up with the drum kit.
I wrote a song this week about am electric bike rider:
Prospero’s Lightning (The Ravenswood Crossroads Session)
(A weeping bottleneck slide guitar sets a heavy, syncopated delta groove. A low, mourning blues harp blows a cold wind through the chords.)
Verse 1
The highway wind didn't take him—the shadows just called him back.
Now I’m parsing the mud of Omaha, looking for a missing track.
Got a Taleb barbell balance, an oracle's heavy design,
One foot in the ashes of yesterday, one crossing the blackbird line.
(Slide guitar shivers, mimics a raven’s cry)
Verse 2
The Missouri River’s a serpent, whispering ancient, ink-stained lies,
Telling me how the bloodline bleeds, under these heavy Nebraska skies.
I could turn my back on the magic, head south where the cattle roam,
But a restless heart with a book of life ain't ever gonna find a home.
The hardest choice a witch can make is trying to love a mortal man.
(Blues harp cuts in, short, breathless, and sharp)
Chorus
But the tallgrass hums with a power, waking up the Ravenswood clay,
And every mile is an alchemical dawn, washing his memory away.
This custom steel was forged in Stratford, where the old Bard cast his spell,
It runs on a lightning frequency, right between heaven and hell.
No map, no reins, just a worn-out bedroll against the freezing cold,
Riding a wizard named Prospero, tracking down the secrets untold.
Verse 3
I met a man at the crossroads, his guitar was tuned to the storm,
He asked if I’d trade my higher magic just to keep a cowboy warm.
But this engine runs on current, a wild, intuitive spark,
An electrical wizard flying, casting sigils through the dark.
Eighteen hundred miles of dust, shedding the skin of who I was before,
Leaving the ghost of that cowboy man, knocking on a closed-up door.
(Slide guitar and blues harp collide in an aggressive, dueling jam)
Outro / Climax
The wild things are screaming my name now, out where the tempests reign,
I’m gonna ride this blackbird lightning until I hit the coast of Maine.
Hunting the ultimate freedom that the asphalt couldn't yield...
Just a slide-guitar electric wizard, flying through a gravel field.
(The music strips away until it’s just the raw thumping of a boot on wood, a final ghostly wail of the harmonica, and the fading hiss of an amplifier.)
