Giles prefers a sideways slide to stop when confronted by gravel
You must be referring to our Spanish farm overnight impromptu camp!! That was one of my all time great trips!
"No but it doesn't look good"." Is the priority to be safe or to look good? (See! Its not just on the forum that I'm a bolshie bugger!). "Ummmm " was the answer ...
This is a real key point in my book, and often comes up in the Rapid training days. And .... yeah ..... whilst it's not a grey area (clearly safety trumps anything else), there is a place in your bike riding for for a bit of style and panache.
We talk about the four S's, safety, system, smoothness, speed, and no where in that is 'Style'. But maybe there should be?! Maybe we should coin it the five S's ?! If everything is in place, and your riding is safe, systematic, smooth .... you get on with it .... then having a bit of style and flair is in my book a good thing.
I see riders who make such a cluster of coming to a stop. Bloody hell! it's just coming to a stop - its CBT stuff! But I still see people paddling, walking, hop skipping and jumping and ..... it looks shit! Even stopping with both feet down in my humble opinion, looks shit !!
Maybe its years of 'corporate riding' where from my part, you are a little bit on show, the public watch and they expect to see a good standard. And part of that is looking impeccable in traffic (filtering, town stuff etc) and the old swan on the water analogy.
I like to see riders glide to a stop at the junction, red light, whatever .... and when that foot goes down it should be like Rudolph Nureyev. Clean, crisp, heel rolling on to toe .... stop. Not even a hint of a skip. You control that bike beautifully, and you look, professional. If you're then jigging about swapping feet .... then the lights change and you're fannying about swapping feet again ...... nah ...... it looks pants and amateurish!
Both brakes to stop, off the rear in those last few feet as your foot comes down, left foot sorting out neutral and relaxing. Lights change ..... tap ..... go ......