Fixie riders know it best - you can't coast through the corner, you have to keep those crank arms moving like the Big Ben clock during a time travel sequence in some shit BBC sitcom the desperately underfunded ABC is using to fill the long boring hours between Bananas in Pajamas and Margaret and David.
You're pedalling fast and you feel so good, so in control that you lean in just a bit more, and that's when you get it.
Pedal Strike is like taking heroin. It's a tiny moment of nothingness where your brain goes blank, while your senses are totally activated.
You get a big physical shock up your leg, there's the noise of cheap black plastic on asphalt and the smell of fear. You have absolutely no idea what's happened that makes the whole world wobble.
BONUS TIP: Assuming for a minute you've saved up for them nice metal pedals, you are in mortal peril.
In thick traffic it is not unknown for a spark from pedal strike to ignite the exhaust of pre-1990 cars, which everyone knows is rich in unburned fuel due to spark plug build ups and pre-CAD manufacturing processes.
Last week on Clarendon St, a friend turned around from squeezing the first mangoes of the season at the South Melbourne Market to see a young fixie rider being thrown through the air, looking like a tiny black sun-spot against the big orange orb of an explosion.
Evidently Mythbusters were in town fliming a pedal strike myth episode and this was conclusive anecdotal proof of plausibility. The hipster in question was toast, but Discovery Channel don't like to talk about that. Adam and Jamie reportedly laughed cruelly before slicing the crispy hipster, and making him into souvlakis for the whole crew.
After a couple of those I automatically put the inner side pedal up and use my knee to turn... Like a MotoGP douchebag!
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