Originally Posted by Mark Kelly

Sorry to take the OP seriously and try to answer his question in the midst of your merry japes, but there you go.



Touring bikes use drag brakes to reduce speed down hills when laden. One such is a front hub drum brake like this which could be retrofitted to your commuter. Instead of running the cable to a standard lever, it is run to a mechanism which allows adjusting the drag (and releasing it when needed). You could jerry build something with an old fashioned friction shift lever (you'd need to drill the cable hole to 1.6mm).