How Come?

My tip would be, don't look at the front wheel. Trust your innate balancing skills and don't try to point the front wheel. Overtaking people whilst holding on to the back of the saddle (which helps with getting the power down) pisses other riders off - just a word of caution.

My road bike isn't too bad, the Brompton is tricky though. I unintentionally tried it this morning while signalling right to change lanes on Blackfriar's Bridge. Hit a pot hole and my left hand came off the bars too, swerved sharply into the right lane but fortunately didn't come off or hit anything.

No-hands on a road bike is a bit harder than other bikes just because of the basic geometry. Fork rake and headtube angles make some difference but the key factor that make it tricky is that the bars are low and the seat is high. This means that you have to sit up a long way compared to the chopper you had as a kid, where your body position doesn't really change when you let go of the bars. With a big seat-bars drop you might even have to 'spring' off of your arms a bit to sit up straight which is a bit of a leap of faith if you're not 100% confident.

Who else in Bath has ridden through Combe Down tunnel hands-free the whole way,gently flapping arms and pretending to be a bat?

Or is that just me.

I used ride a mile or so to school handless. One right turn, a large roundabout and a tricky right bend. Mind you, I was on a BMX at the time. Used to outrun roadies by taking corners at full pelt.

When I was a fool of about 19 years I could ride all the way from the uni back to my student house - a journey of 2km featuring mutiple sharp turns, bollards and the crossing of a major road junction - handless. I'm not saying it was the cleverest stunt, but you've got to find something productive to do with your day after a 1pm lie-in!

Couldn't resist digging this one out again http://youtu.be/jNdsI3MuJ8s

You can tell how well a road bike fits you by how easy it is to ride no handed. Weight distribution front/rear innit.

Its all just practice really,start by leaving one hand on bars whilst u take off gilet etc then try to progress by doing with both hands.always keep a decent speed and steer with thighs.within 6 months of road biking i could eat a yoghurt etc on my bike.3 years and improving skills

Headset too tight? Steering needs to move freely so it can turn when you lean the bike.

Road bikes are harder to ride no handed. I ride my MTB to work and can do so no handed easily. I'm not so confident with my road bike. Possibly the steering is lighter and so it takes less to move it.

Basically trail and weight distribution - Bromptons ride with tank-slapper mode when unladen+hands-off but put weight forward and it cures issue. Bikes go into tank slapper when front unloads and trail reduces - cure = ease off and let weight gently move forward. Two things happen - contact patch gets bigger (length grows faster) and trail from steering pivot goes forward from contact point pivot.

Had similar with badly loaded trailers (nose light) and fortunately we managed to pull the oscillation out by very gentle acceleration, and very gentle correction.

If you want to ride relaxed and hands off buy classic 'Dutch'/Flying Pigeon/UK roadster geometry.

Physics. You have a much higher center of gravity on a road bike.
Other answers may be somewhat true but are stupid in comparison to mine.

I'm the same I suppose. A few possible contributing factors:

1) Fear
2) Fork trail
3) Lower back flexibility
4) Clipless pedals
5) More fear.