Old cyclist, new clipless pedals

Comfort comes with familiarity, and familiarity comes with practice.

When stopping, if you leave one foot clipped in it is probably marginally better to have the other foot near the top, but it's not going to break you one way or another. It helps getting started, to be able to just push down with the clipped-in foot, then clip in the other after you're under way.

Re: changing gears-again, practice as you ride, move the shifter one position at a time to see where the derailleur puts the chain. Concentrate on shifting the rear derailleur as that is where you will do most of your shifting. Assuming you have a triple chainring (three big cogs in the front attached to the pedals), leave the chain on the middle chainring as you shift the rear gears. You should be able to hit all the rear gears, just stay off the extremes (biggest and smallest cogs). As you get more comfortable, shifting the rear gears will become intuitive.

More than anything else, RIDE LOTS! and you wi;ll quickly become cofortable, even fast.

You could go out to ride with pillows tied to your shoulders and hips to cushion the landings.  Just joking.

 I am a geezer and just started with clipless pedals a few months ago.  I started out just riding around the neighborhood, clipping out and putting a foot down at every corner just to maximize the practice.  When I am approaching an intersection, I clip out but hold my foot in place on the pedal to clip back in if I don't need to stop.  I also work on clipping out and then back without looking down in while riding along to master feeling the position of the pedal rather than looking down.  I am not crazy about clipless pedals but I can do them.

At my age, I am more worried about going down than I used to be, but I tipped over once this week.  No harm done. 

TW

I personally don't see the point in keeping your cliped in foot up.  I mean, how can you?  When I come to a stop, I unclip my right, stand up on my left pedal, so I'm out of the saddle, and step down when I stop moving.  It is physcially impossible to still have my left foot high.  If I'm slowing down like this and suddenly need to start going, it takes a whole half second to step on the pedal with my right foot and go.

Now, after I stop and am sitting there, I raise my left foot up to a ready position, so when I go to take off I just push the pedal down, lift my right foot and go.

How do you stop with your left foot still tall?  Are you trying to put your right foot down while still in the saddle?  That has awkwardness written all over it.

As for braking, braking is a fine art that you learn with time.  Idealy you want to be heavier on your front brake then the rear.  As you slow down, you have a weight transfer from back to front. So while slowing down, there is more force sticking the front wheel to the ground.  So the faster you stop, the more traction your front has and less your back has.

If you grab a fist full of front brake, that tire is more likley to stick and slow you down.  If you are used to fast braking, then you can shift your weight backwards to keep from going over the bars.

Now if you grab a ton of rear brake instead, you will lock the tire and skid.  If you are going downhill and 40 mph and have to panic stop, a skid can be lethal.  So you could do all your braking with the front and just use the rear to help it along. 

We used to train for crits by riding the top two levels of a parking garage at night.  That taught me everything I needed to know about braking and cornering.

this might help:
http://home.swbell.net/mpion/startstop_movsmall.html

that's how I do it verbatum except I usually come out of the saddle and coast before stopping.  I also wait at lights with the clipped in pedal up and the brakes on to keep me still.

these are also worth a read:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/techctr/descending.html
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

I generally leave my clipped foot low, and back around to be ready to start.  I would not want to try it another way. 

I have ridden with clipless pedals for 10 years now.  I just bought a new pair for my tandem, since I didn't want to crash my little girl the first year we rode that.  But I am sure I will do fine now. 

The only time I have fallen over in the past 2 years, once when I was on my road bike going up a wet grassey area were the bike path was not.  (It was pretty comical) and once when I thought I could go and changed my mind at the last second.  That was NOT comical.