acaurora

While this no where as dangerous or as extreme as I'm sure some of you have experienced, I thought I'd share this anyway -

I was with a couple friends in a paceline on a century going at a pretty decent speed when we approach an intersection (country roads, mostly deserted) and the direction arrows for the ride indicate to make a right. Then we see a police car. My friend in the front brakes rather unexpectedly, and slows down considerably. I was right behind him, and wasn't expecting this, so I also brake rather hard with my rear wheel brake as I turn right behind him, and suddenly I hear my tire rubbing/sliding. Instead of my bike *turning*, it is more *rotating* , turns out I had braked so hard that I had locked up my rear tire. From my past experience of hydroplaning in my car, I give it a shot and release my death grip on the handlebars and let the bike correct itself, and it does. I've never slid before on my bike (other than when I fell, but that was a different bike... ), nor have I ever locked up a wheel, so it was a very interesting experience.

The guy that was behind me told me that if I hadn't let up on the brakes any sooner, I would have ended up flipping on my left side (as I wasn't leaning into the turn much). I figure I'm lucky, as well as if I had used my FRONT brake and locked I would've definitely flipped.

This post is probably useless, but again I just thought I'd share my experience. Be safe out there!

cooker

I've locked my rear wheel and drifted on streets slimed with autumn leaves - fell one time, corrected the other. And I wasn't speeding - just slowing for a stop sign.

mzeffex 

Haha, well, you would've probably been better than the bike from something like that. Some bruises on the side I would guess.

wrr1020

I had a similar situation just yesterday, i was out riding and as i was approaching an intersection was gonna make a right turn on the street right before the intersection. As i was approaching the street i was gonna turn on a guy decides to jaywalk across the street and i didn't see him, i slam on both front and rear brakes and the rear locked up and skidded. He saw me in time and stopped but had he not i probably would of slammed right into him due to not having enough time to stop. He apologized as i rode by after.

JoelS

The crashes I've recently witnessed (not me) started out the same way. Panic braking, lock up back wheel. But you did good by letting go and letting the bike self-correct. Had you grabbed more front in panic, you'd have gone over the bars. Good way to break a collarbone.

rm -rf

Yeah, I've done the full panic stop by grabbing both brakes hard. That's not a good idea. See Sheldon Brown's explanation
The fishtailing happened suddenly. I, too, saved it by letting off both brakes, but letting off just the back would have been enough.

The Sheldon Brown link talks about about maximum braking using just the front brake.

hairnet

He also talks about shifting your weight back in an emergency stop so you avoid flipping over the handle bars and skidding the rear wheel.