Originally Posted by
Wilfred Laurier
... and an emergency stop is necessary, you generally stop with an uncontrolled skid in twice the distance that you would with a front brake.
...
+1 I'm an engineer type. I have several times sat down and calculated stopping distances. Simple physics. (No, I do not claim that you can stop in X feet from Y speed. I just calculate the relative distances it takes to stop using full possible braking using just the front, just the back and both. But both is a no-brainer. Exactly the same as front alone. As said above, in a really hard stop, the rear tire is barely touching the ground and completely useless for slowing.)
Every time I do those calcs using a typical rider on a typical bike, I get the same results. A ratio very close to 2:1. Front brake stopping the bike in half the distance of just a rear. (Rider height, center of gravity and the front-center distance of the bike vary the end result a little. Getting the front wheel further forward helps as does getting rider weight back and down.)
And an observation re: the rear wheel skid (popularized by the brakeless fixie crowd). Anyone here recall the competitions we had as kids to see who could skid the furthest? One rear-brake-only coaster bikes? We used to get 25-50 ' coming down not-so-long hills. (Something to consider long before you see those brakelights.)
Ben