Doc_Wui

Also a former motorcycle owner, and I used to switch the front brake on my bicycles to the right side too.

Motorcycles use a pedal for the rear brake, and a toe lever to shift gears. (At least they did in the 1970's). Japanese and Euro motorcycles used the opposite sides for brakes/shifter, so most riders who switched between bikes often had a scary moment where they braked with the wrong foot. Hence my motive for switching my bicycle brake lever.

I quit riding motorcycles long ago, and no longer reposition the brake levers on my bikes.

Kapusta

To me, this pretty much makes all the other hair-slitting arguments either way irrelevant. Get used to right-front and pretty much every other bike is going to have the brakes backwards for you.

I just don't buy that there is any particular performance benefit either way. You will get used to either one.

There are some cases where following the crowd makes sence.

Shimagnolo

Same here.
Seems silly to have bicycles & motorcycles reversed, but I'm not inclined to change it.

kickstart

"Performance" benefit? No. Safety benefit? Yes.
When ones attention is divided between braking, signaling, and watching traffic in all directions, while making a turn, the rear brake allows a far greater margin of error.
Locking up the rear will likely result in a minor skid. locking up the front is likely to end in disaster......For those of us who don't have cat like reflexes, or world class skills.

Shimagnolo

IIRC, it was ~1975 that the DOT mandated all motorcycles standardize on shifter on left, and brake on the right.
Back in my 20's I knew a guy with one of those old HD's that had a foot-operated clutch, and a hand shifter mounted on the frame between his legs (aka "suicide clutch"). It was really amusing watching him shift.

kickstart

I had an old Ducati with the rear brake and shift reversed, and an Indian that had right hand shift, left hand throttle, right hand spark advance, and a non suicide foot clutch. There was a learning curve but it wasn't that bad.

Kapusta

No difference in performance OR safety.

You brain learns either one (left OR right). By the time someone has gotten to the point in their riding that they are even thinking about this whole subject, they have already learned one way or the other. These are not "cat-like reflexes". It's just whatever you learn.

Just because one hand is dominant, does not mean it is innately more coordinated.

What IS a real safety issue is riding any bike other than your own when you are used to to a braking setup different than nearly every other bike out there.

kickstart

You don't seem to understand.

One typically signals with their left hand, which naturally leaves the right for braking.

The rear brake is more forgiving of over braking, as such it gives one a greater margin of error when braking under challenging conditions.

It has nothing to do with what one is used to or what side the lever is on, it's just the natural dynamics of a bicycles brakes.

Therefore it makes sense to have the rear brake on the side one is likely to be using when braking with only one hand on the bars.

italktocats

uh no

italktocats

try using the front while having 1 hand in the air, doesnt go very well, rear is fine however, nothing to do with locking, jsut the weight shift will crash people

HerrKaLeun

I never counted, but I think I have as many right turns as left turns. So signaling on left arm and right arm is 50/50.

I know some people do the old signaling (from where cars didn't have blinkers where car drivers signaled out of the left window with an "L" to go right).

But stretching out to the right when signaling right will make sense to everyone behind you (none of the car drivers behind me was alive when cars used hand signals for indicating). Actually in the US I saw for the first time signaling to go to the right by using the left arm... so that is not an international standard or something you can count on people to know.

Indicating to the right with right arm when intending to go right is how I learned it and how I have always seen it in Germany. When going to the left, the same with the left arm. The car driver behind you does not need to be trained or guess where you intend to go. When you do everything with the left arm, people that are not "initiated" in this secret ritual won't know that you intend to go right. Also imagine a bike lane between two drive lanes (like for bus lanes on the right). When you want to go right in front of the bus on the right to you, that driver will be alerted by you stretching your arm into his lane. He does not care about your left arm signals, but your right arm will indicate to him you are about to cut into his lane.

italktocats

ironically ive only seen it in the usa, in germany people tend to fix their broken blinkers

79pmooney

I grew up with rear on the right. Raced with rear on the right. Have ridden 200,000 miles with rear on the right. Logically, rear on the left makes more sense n the US as we would then have out hand on the effective brake as we signal.

But I will stay rear on the right for one simple reason. Yes, JanMM's suggestion of swapping them around to keep our minds fresh makes sense (post 16) but ... (the big "but") there is only one time when this really matters and at that instant, my brain isn't functioning - big time panic stops. I find my eye-hand reflex completely bypasses the reasoning process. Retraining that reflex takes real time (and mistakes). No thanks. Not with his body.

Ben

HerrKaLeun

Very good idea, I apply that to cars as well. I randomly swap brake and accelerator every once a while. Sometimes I forget to tell my wife when she uses my car. You should have seen the look on her face....

kickstart

Personally I use the "by the book" signals, and haven't had any reason to diverge from it. I have seen bike and motorcycle riders use their right arm to signal but it seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
Using hand signals is apparently the in thing to do with the Harley crowd, and they seem fond of flamboyant, exaggerated gestures while pointing their finger.
It seems most people get the point no matter how its done, and a few are clueless to even the most obvious.

Kapusta

My bad, I did not realize you were refering to left-hand-only signaling.

I gave up on that a while ago. I decided it is much better to use a signal more people are going to understand (pointing with the arm on the side I am turning to).

What made me come to this conclusion was when (despite knowing what the "by the book" signals are and even occasionally using them myself) I was driving behind a guy on a bike and thought he was waving to someone rather than giving a right-turn signal. If I am slow to get it in a real world situation, I'm pretty pretty sure 95% of the drivers out there are even slower (if they get it at all).

But either way, if I ever do need to stop quick, I am going to have my hand back on the bars before I start braking hard.

And honestly, I don't think it really matters THAT much which brake you squeeze too hard with only one hand on the bars. If, in a panic situation you are hitting the back brake hard enough to lock it up (which is where the "margin of error" comes from) you are probably going to lose control anyway.

So while I agree that the rear brake in general is more forgiving and has a greater margin for error, I don't think it matters a whole lot one-handed. If you don't have the immediate, natural reaction to have your hand back in the bar before a hard braking, I think you may be in trouble.

My original point was that having a bike with a setup reversed from the norm where you live is far more likely to get you in an accident than the hair-splitting differences we are talking about here.

The silly thing here is that we are both arguing for left-front. You becuase of signalling, me because it is the norm in the US.

JanMM

Ha!

Drew Eckhardt 

Right for right handers because your right hand is stronger and has more dexterity. I've been riding like that for thirty years.

Not enough to matter. The slight extra bend to end on the right side is insignificant compared to the tight curve to run the housing under the bar tape.

It doesn't matter except during emergency stops when you have better things to do than shift, and even then you're usually in a gear you can start in although it's not ideal.

Only new bikes are legally required to come with front brake on left when the purchaser does not request otherwise.

FrankHudson

Though I'm right-handed, I'm a guitar and bass player. I doubt my right hand grip strength is greater than my left.

Kapusta

Same here. Though in my hammer-swinging days the opposite was probably true.

In any event, I think the "strength" argument is basically irrelevant these days with modern brakes.

Also, I think every stringed instrument player out there is a walking counterexample to the notion that the non-dominant hand is necessarily less dexerious than the dominant.

highrpm

You know when I rode motorcycles and bikes for all these years, I never mixed the brakes up. Nor did I even really notice a difference. In my mind they were completely different activities.


I can lock the front wheel with my left hand just as easily as the right. So I'm not swapping anything now.

Sangetsu

Whatever you prefer. I have had a couple pre-war road racing bikes, still set up as they were when new, both had the front brake lever on the right side. And now, looking at some old racing photos, it seems that it used to be common for the front brake lever to be on the right side.

Kapusta

Looks like the EU has seen the wisdom of right-front:

https://enduro-mtb.com/en/new-eu-directive-demands-uk-style-braking/

coominya

You could say the same about switching from the old Imperial system of measurement to the metric system but the metric system has proved itself to work just as well but with a whole lot less confusion. Most resistance to change for the better comes from stubbornness and a belief that to change is an admission of past failure. Ego driven behavior that psychiatrists have a field day with.

Scarbo

Whoa--didn't mean to cause you to get up on to your hind legs, pardner.

What I would say to you is this: Not all change is for the best. In the case of the switch to the metric system from the Imperial system I think most would agree that clear advantages and discernible benefits accrue. In the case of switching the right/left brake, as the OP suggests, I fail to see what these enhancements would be, unless you could describe them to me, in which case I am all ears.