ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,744, issued on June 17.
"Decoupling of a shoe from a bicycle pedal" was invented by Jeramie J Keys (Roswell, Ga.) and Jerry L Keys (Gray, Tenn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Modules provide the ability of a cleat that couples a shoe to a bicycle pedal to be decoupled via natural lifting motion of the foot upon the occurrence of a specific circumstance such as a tilt of the bicycle indicative of an imminent crash. This allows the rider to use their foot that is no longer coupled to the pedal to potentially eliminate or lessen the crash and/or dismount the bicycle without needing to first perform a cleat release maneuver such as rotat...