Front brake vs back

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Dan

Dan

Staff
May 25, 2008
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Just my thought on this. A 2 wheeled any thing stopping forward first is a bad idea. The rear and rider have no choice other then stopping or slinging to the side. If enough inertia is involved, over. A much safer form of slowing a vehicle if both brakes are not available, is from the rear.

If the rear starts to slide out from under you, you have a chance at righting her. If the front wheel slides out from under you, you have much less time to react or chance to right the bike. All the forward momentum is being slowed by that very few inches of rubber trying to go slower then the road under it. Once skidding, the rider has no control.

Again, just a thought. There are no comercialy available bicycles with front only braking systems. There are many with coaster/rear only brakes.

I do not mean to be contrary but think as a safety issue, front only brakes are a really, really bad idea.

I really like you guys. SO COULD YA JUST WEAR A DANG HELMET AND USE GOOD, FRONT AND REAR BRAKES?

LOL, ignore me. Ruff day.
 
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skitchfish

Member
Oct 27, 2010
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Yup, what he said! LoL! You can still steer with the back locked up, heavy on the front binder and your doing nothing but holding straight and praying.
 
mew905

mew905

New Member
Sep 24, 2012
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skitchfish said:
Yup, what he said! LoL! You can still steer with the back locked up, heavy on the front binder and your doing nothing but holding straight and praying.
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if your front brake is that powerful, the only thing you have time to do is say "oh --" before you hit the ground. But you have plenty of time (and feel) to prevent that from happening. I've used it to actually pull an almost 90 degree turn (it was more like a 45 degree 'jump turn' then the rest normally). I've pulled a stoppie where I almost flipped trying to tow my friends motorized bike, but I let off before that happened. It's not about mechanical capabilities, you want that power should you need it, it can turn a 20-foot stop into a 3-foot stop, which could save someone's life, most likely your own. Thats actually the reason I dislike front fenders, because they catch the front tire and you come to a dead stop from which you cant abort.
 
2door

2door

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 15, 2008
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Good discussion but has anyone else noticed the OP hasn't responded or posted since May? Makes me wonder if he cleaned up his handlebars and removed both brakes. And that's why he doesn't post anymore. :)

Tom
 
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JonnyR

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May 13, 2012
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i have both breaks and wouldnt ride with one i have a dual break lever han have it set rear bias so it takes alot of force to lock up the front the rear locks before the front does
 
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bigbutterbean

Active Member
Jan 31, 2011
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My first motored bike was a kmart special beach cruiser that I ran only a coaster brake. I didnt know any better at the time, as I wasnt on the forum yet and didnt know diddly about mechanics or any of that. I did some crazy stuff, too. Like riding over ice patches full throttle a couple of times and flying down steep hills. I will never do any of that stuff again, but also wont ever run just a coaster. I am so happy to have my front drum, I will never go back to rim brakes again.
 
CTripps

CTripps

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Aug 22, 2011
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There are some solid arguments here for front vs. back, I won't weigh in on that. If it's an option, I'd go dual brake lever. I've set up a couple of bikes with them and have had no problems so far. I have them tweaked so that the front wheel can turn (barely) when the back wheel is locked up. Just make sure your brake calipers are firmly mounted to the front forks (if thats the option you go with and the way you're set up). When I was around 15 I had a front caliper come loose on a frankenbike I was riding. It hooked into the spokes and when the cable went taught, it stopped the wheel dead. In less than half a second I went fron riding to on my back staring at the sky holding a bike above me.

I have had one problem since motorizing when the front wheel was slowed faster than the back wheel, but that was external - I hit a sandy patch in an otherwise hardpacked trail. It grabbed the front wheel and the back tried to keep the same speed.
 
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borntofli

Member
Jul 27, 2012
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tx
I run 2 levers on the left side, front brake and clutch... I have no problem operating both at the same time....On the right is the throttle and rear brake....


Coming to a stop, pull in the clutch and w/ my pinkie apply a little front and more pressure on the back.....

I don't understand what is so difficult about all this.......
 
CTripps

CTripps

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Aug 22, 2011
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I had initially set mine up with brake and clutch levers on the left side. I just wasn't happy with it, which might have been solved by a longer clutch lever for ease of access/positioning. I ended up going to the dual mostly due to lack of space on my handlebars.



My wife takes one look at them as they are now and shudders. ;)
 
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bigbutterbean

Active Member
Jan 31, 2011
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Lebanon, PA
Oh yeah, definitely. I think its important to have both brakes on an mb, though. Two reasons. First, one brake wont always stop you, no matter how good it is, if the other wheel loses traction. Two, if one brake should happen to fail, then hopefully the other brake will still work, leaving you with at least one working brake. If you only have one brake, and it should happen to fail, you're screwed. So I think everyone should do whatever they need to, to have two working brakes on their mb. As long as you can safely operate both brakes at the same time if need be, thats all that matters.
 
mew905

mew905

New Member
Sep 24, 2012
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Wet rim brakes suck too, tried to ride in rain and had no stopping power for the first 400 ish feet. Definitely helped to have both available in that situation
 
KCvale

KCvale

Well-Known Member
Feb 28, 2010
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craigbett said:
I basically need to get rid of one of the levers (and can't do the double brake lever).
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This first post is the fundamental mistake that caused this the whole silly thing of picking just 1 brake.

He says he can't use a dual pull lever, that's BS. He has front and rear V-brakes levers.
Granted some bikes include the shifters into the brake lever but that is easy enough to fix.

First off when you motorize a mountain bike something has got to go from the handlebars and for me that is always the front derailleur and it's shifter.
It easy to move your chain by hand to the best front sprocket for you.

He could and should have just put a dual pull on there and removed the two original levers and just put a rotary shift on the left for the rear gears like this don't ya think?



It is not rocket science or expensive to make the user controls the best they can be.

If you look at any of my builds with 2 pull type brakes you will see the same lever, SickBikes $12 'teeter-totter' self adjusting dual pull on the right.
http://www.sickbikeparts.com/catalo...ducts_id=41&osCsid=l3f5blitdsm23tdebhsnr1lfv7



The lever pulls a pivoting bar from the middle, and the two brake cables attach to each end.

As the brake cables move and pressure is applied to the brake pads, it pivots to keep the pressure equal to each wheel all the way to full locking.

I tried a dual pull that was 'direct to lever' for each cable.
It wouldn't even work in the above example as the front was a V-brake and rear a Band Brake with different pull lengths as the animated gif show, one cable goes a lot farther than the other but pressure on the brakes remain 50/50.

ANYWAY... In my book there simply is never an excuse to not have 2 brakes.

Here is a tip for your coaster brake bike builds to make it a better brake.

A lot of beach cruiser size bikes have a pretty big front sprocket and an 18T rear. This will allow you to pedal up to 18MPH or so and cruise but a real pain to get going because of the step gear ratio.

The negative side effect of that is the same gear ratio is used to activate the coaster brake, hence less brake force to the point of many bikes can't even lock the back wheel let alone lay down a nice long J skid like you can do on a BMX bike.

The solution is simple.
That rear sprocket is a simple piece with 3 groves that line up with the hub and just a O clip holding it on.
Pop that 18 off and drop on a $5 19T.

The first thing you will notice is the bike is a lot easier to pedal up and start your motor. The second of course is now your coaster brake works much better ;-}
 
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