Originally Posted by rushr
Braking with the front is safe, including trailbraking, and most effective. Go watch motorcycle roadracing and tell me why they didn't all crash in the first turn. The rear brake is only used to square off the turn so you can get back on the gas more quickly..
I don't know anything about motorcycling and its correlation to bicycling so I really can't respond.
Originally Posted by rushr
If you are braking hard enough to unload the rear wheel the rear brake would be absolutely useless anyway.
If you are using both brakes, you don't unload the rear wheel as much as when using only the front brake. The rear wheel stays on the ground and keeps the bike tracking in a straight line.
This whole front-brake-only thing is one of those ideas that works well on paper but, having seen too many real life crashes in my 30 plus years of riding, I have learned to trust my experience. I brake with both brakes and have never been unable to stop when I need to. I have never lost control of my bike while braking with both brakes. I have, however, earned a dandy case of road rash years ago when using only a front brake on a fixed gear bike.