Bah Humbug

OTOH I could go months without touching my rear brake.

LarrySellerz

yup I recommend people looking to practice emergency stopping or just stopping with just the front brake to unhook the back brake.

shelbyfv

My first thought was to be concerned that you were giving out stupid dangerous advice. Then I realized the number of folks asking for "Larry Cycling" advice is zero. Rumor has it promoting wrong riding was one of the things that got the other one removed. We can only hope.... Edit- referring to the other prolific troll who disappeared. AFAIK there is only one "Larry" though it's likely other user names stem from the same source.

datlas 

There is more than one Larry?!? Not sure the world is ready for that.

genejockey 

If there were two of you,
Or, God forbid, a few or you,
Too much is what it would be!

SoSmellyAir

Both all and none of the above. Think Waiting for Godot with both main characters being played by Larry.

genejockey 

"He told us to wait!"
"But that was yesterday!"

koala logs

Done it when I was a kid. One of them ended up in endo. It's good to know that you know how to do it....

But to the moral lesson of story is avoid getting yourself in situations where you need to emergency brake in the first place. Practice your crash rolling skills but don't crash in the first place.

I won't recommend practice hard braking where your rear wheel is about to lift off because it might actually end up lifting off. Older riders might even break a bone.

smashndash

Eh. If you're doing any sort of performance riding, you should know what the limit of your stopping power is. I've had to emergency stop a few times. A couple times in races, once to avoid a head-on with an SUV.

Practice your stopping. If you're afraid of falling, you can do it with flat pedals and a lowered saddle. It's really not that bad. Just remember to let go of the front brake if you feel yourself flipping. You have more time than you think.

koala logs

How could there be a "head on SUV" in a race? Were you simply racing against your group buddies?

Jeff Neese

When I learned to ride a motorcycle, I was taught that you ALWAYS use both front and rear brakes together, even if you're just slowing down or braking gently. That's because you want to have the muscle memory of applying both, when you actually do have to stop suddenly. You don't want to have to "remember" anything. The other thing I was taught is to actually practice your panic stops. You need to know how you and the bike respond under hard braking, and how to apply proper modulation between front and rear brakes.

I've always applied this to bicycles. Even if I just want to slow down a little, I use both brakes. Then when I have to stop suddenly, that's what I'm going to do naturally. And because I do practice sudden stopping, I understand how my bike handles and what the limits are. I practice again whenever I change anything, like brake pads. A lot of the practice is getting used to the way your body weight shifts forward during hard braking and how to maintain control when that happens. A lot of people aren't prepared for that weight shift, and crash.

This "front brake only" thing is maybe for people that aren't skilled riders or who have cheap brakes with poor modulation. If you want to fool around and practice front-only braking just to see what those limits are, fine. But for maximum stopping and minimum stopping distance, learn to use both front and rear, and of course practice.

datlas 

I think your points are good and reasonable.

The OP does not have a back brake (at least that's what he said in post #1), which I think is not so good and not so reasonable. But it's his choice.

Zaskar

I recommend people looking to improve their braking skill ignore this advice.

njkayaker

Motorcycles tend to be longer, have much lower centers of gravity, and are much, much heavier.

And, even still, motorcycles have some of the same braking dynamics as bicycles.

https://bigapplemotorcycleschool.com...ing%20at%20all!
https://www.bestbeginnermotorcycles....-a-motorcycle/

On a bicycle, at the fastest braking (braking at the limits), the rear brake is doing very little and it's easy to lock/skid (there's enough info about this from experts).

The issue isn't "just using the front brake". It's what you do at the limit with the rear brake doesn't matter very much.

If you are below the limit, the rear brake does more in stopping (but the front brake is still much more effective). But you still have to take care not to lock the rear brake (this, contrary to some people here, is easy to do).

Most people rarely (if ever) are braking their bicycles at the limit. It's all they know.

smashndash

Separate incidents. I've emergency stopped in races, and also on the street. It's useful in both cases.

There's a lot of hoopla in this thread about theory. All I was trying to say is that the best thing you can do is practice and develop that muscle memory. Being able to drop anchor without panicking is far more important than the specifics of your technique.

greysquirrel

After reading this thread, I started stopping only with my front brake(road riding). Did I stop in a shorter distance? Probably but I got the dreaded rotor ping and a ton of front tire compression/fork bend affecting handling/steering. Also, if you MTB you're going to learn bad habits that will kill you.

merlinextraligh

you can definitely stop faster using both brakes, provided your weight is distributed correctly. Push your weight way back, i.e. butt over rear wheel, torso pressing on the seat, and you can have the front brake at the threshold of lock up, and enough traction on the rear wheel to add significant braking force from the rear tire.

your ability to slow the bike is limited by the size of the contact patch with the road, and the coefficient of friction of that contact area. Twice the contact patch is better

this CGN video demonstrates:

Overdraft

When I went to motorcycle race school we were told that none of us are good enough to touch the rear brake.

On a modern sport motorcycle there’s enough braking power to get the rear wheel in the air with two fingers so you’re not getting extra stopping power from the rear brake. You’re getting different braking, drag the rear brake to compress the front suspension before putting the fronts on so you dive less, upsetting the back end so you can back it in, etc. But all this assumes you have suspension and since this is the road bike forum not very applicable.

So while some fancy people may be able to optimize braking by simultaneously shifting their weight max aft while perfectly modulating their front brake lever so the rear tire is skimming above the ground (MotoGP riders do this routinely) I certainly cannot.

So given that the front brakes on a bicycle (to me at least) don't feel so over powered that I could easily find and control the point of lifting the rear, nevermind controlling the lever that precisely while dangling my ass in mid air behind the saddle, I’m always going to get at least some benefit from applying the rear brake as well.

The road ain’t exactly lab conditions and I'm no Tour rider, so the theory of the front brake generating all the stopping power is true for the few, but not for most!