Oversimplified generalization alert!

- the front brake is for stopping; the rear brake is for slowing.

In reality, it's not quite that simple, but that's a defensible justification for having both.

I don't know what 'hanging' is but an alternative approach would be to do your braking before you get to the wet, muddy corner. If you're actually trying to ride fast on wet, muddy corners rear brakes aren't going to slow you down much better than front brakes.

When I ride my fixie in NYC back when I used it to get to school, I would throw a front brake on it and flip the hub over to the free wheel. When a car pulls out in front of you while you are coasting quickly down a slight incline, you will wish you had a rear brake to help stop as well.

I've learned a lot from and because of this thread.

I did a search on braking and found a couple things that haven't been discussed yet. First, the both guides I found recommend using both brakes, but use about three times the force on the front as the rear. Use the rear only as anti-skid control if you want to get fancy, as discussed in the Sheldon Brown link.

Second, the reason why the front brake works better is the shifting of weight from the rear to the front while braking. That's probably intuitive to many here, but I didn't know that.

That's what I'm worried about... Pad material is probably a lot more sticky and sensitive. The old ones have a perfect balance of not skidding and braking effectively in relation to my gripping power.

No fix brake if brake no broke.

You have better control if you use both brakes. This is particularly true when riding at high speeds, when cornering, and when on slippery surfaces.

Aside from better control which is directly related to stopping faster, you have more braking power. The lion's share of the work may be done by the front, but that hardly makes the rear useless.

On dry pavement, the maximum braking force will be lifting the rear wheel off the ground. If the rear brake is useful to you in a panic stop in the dry, you aren't applying maximum braking force, period. You can obviously distribute the braking force between front and rear, if you so choose, when you aren't braking as hard as possible, but this isn't necessary and doesn't constitute better technique. I disagree categorically that using both brakes gives "better control." It's much easier to control a single brake, especially because the amount of braking that will cause the rear wheel to skid various considerably depending upon how hard you are braking overall. The harder you have to brake, the more gentle you have to be with the rear brake - that's not better control, that means you have completely opposite needs at each end of the bike.

The situation obviously changes if you aren't on smooth, dry pavement, but there's no need to overcomplicate this. Under any situation where the front wheel will break traction under hard braking before the rear wheel lifts, it is necessary to rely on both front and rear to get maximum braking. And no matter what, the maximum amount of possible braking under these conditions will be a lot less than you can achieve with just the front brake on dry pavement.

I also want to answer a previous comment that claimed that using the rear brake was more stable - this is also not the case. A skidding rear wheel is easier to control than a skidding front wheel, of course, but the effect of weight transfer from braking is far more predictable and easy to account for with the front brake than the rear as long as both wheels are still turning. As I already mentioned, the harder you brake, the less you can brake the rear wheel. This is true no matter which brake you use - if you are relying on the rear brake to slow for corners on a twisty descent, the traction situation at the rear wheel becomes very unpredictable. On the other hand, braking increases traction on the front wheel because of the weight transfer. The result is that, in my experience, using the front brake before and during fast corners feels far smoother and stabler than using the rear brake. On dry pavement, you're just not going to break that front wheel free. But you really could pretty easily skid the rear wheel, and that's not risk-free when you're going fast.

Can you stop with maximum braking force with the front brake right on the edge of the rear wheel coming off the ground? I cant.

Even if you have opposite needs at each end of the bike, you still have way more control over what the bike does. And needing to be gentler with the rear is not a problem, even in emergency situations. That's a skill issue.

It is true that in a straight line on dry pavement, you can maximize braking power by applying enough power to lift the rear wheel. In practice, this need comes up only rarely. On less secure surfaces and when turning is involved, hard braking on the front alone can make the front let go -- it's really hard to retain control once that happens. By using both brakes correctly, you drastically reduce the risk of a skid by either wheel. In any case, controlling a rear skid is way easier than a front skid, and there are certain situations where you *want* to skid the rear -- for example if you need to lay the bike down.

If someone was only going to use one brake, the front is a no brainer. But for the best handling, you want both. Is there really anyone here who thinks that the best way to do a wet mountain descent is by using *only* the front brake? I know it can be done, but that's not the best way in my experience.

I'm pretty sure his fishtailing was *not* deliberate and almost ended in him highsiding, unless this is some technique I've never heard about. In that guy's case, his technique was probably also to drop a nugget in his shorts.

Yes, I can. And if you can't, I suggest that you go out to an empty parking lot and practice until you can. If you can't do this you very simply are not capable of stopping your bike in the shortest possible distance, and that's a deficiency in skill that you really should address.

As I said earlier, I disagree that using both brakes somehow means that you have more control. Using both brakes means you can use less force on the front, but the consequence for weight transfer should be essentially the same.

With surfaces where front traction is a real concern, the situation is obviously different. Not so when turning on dry pavement, however. By the time you're into the turn, brake pressure should be very low or off totally, anything else is asking for trouble. But I still contend that the front brake is safer in those circumstances if you have to grab a handful. Losing a rear wheel in a high speed corner is very likely to result in a crash. Thanks to weight transfer, you are actually extremely unlikely to lose the front wheel in a high speed turn if you're on the brake, especially going downhill. As for situations where you want to skid the rear - nonsense. In cyclocross or mountain biking, sure. On the road, there's no situation where skidding the rear is desirable, and the supposed situation where one might need to lay the bike down is not something that anyone should be practicing technique with an eye towards.

I thought I had adequately qualified my arguments to the point that I was talking specifically about dry conditions. And under dry conditions there are zero benefits to using both brakes over just the front. None. When wet, the major consideration for me is not which brake I am using, but slowing down far earlier and more gently. It is actually possible to do this with just the front brake, but it is possible to safely squeeze out a bit more speed by using both brakes. That doesn't mean that using both brakes is the best technique und other conditions though. When it's dry, it certainly isn't worse than using just the front brake, but it also isn't any better. Do what you like, but I stand by the contention that there is no reason to rely on anything except the front brake under most conditions, and it's just easier to deal with.

tl;dr

[QUOTE=Seattle Forrest;14230809]Until you snap the (spray-painted) chain.

It's an actual track bike, not a hipster fixie.

When the road gets loose or you're riding on a trail then the rear break takes some of the strain off the front and for trail riding it can enable you to steer the bike when the bike gets squirely, the trail gets technical, you are going down big rock sections where the front might wash out or you need to get out of control to complete a tight turn or avoid a crash. (like pulling the hand break in the car). When your weight gets further to the rear on trails the rear can give more overall breaking force and even in the neutral riding position you will notice the benefit of the rear if, like me you like to stop in a reasonable time.

Use common sense when breaking.

ADD? My sympathies.

Agreed on all of this.

In real life, front traction is often a concern because of tiny debris, unevenness, etc. Circumstances for each situation are unique, and you must adjust very quickly to optimize your outcome.

This is why I say you have more control. In the wet, this is more obvious, but there are a lot of dry conditions where it also helps. While it is true that the vast majority of the time it simply makes no difference, it is good practice to develop a feel for subtleties.

BTW, when roads are empty, I also practice braking with the car in a wide variety of conditions. There is real value in training your reflexes to do the right thing.

Well, I think we're mostly agreeing furiously, then. I just think that conditions are just fine to use the front brake alone probably more often than you do. 90-95% of the time, I think. But it depends a lot upon where you ride, what the roads are like, what the weather is like, etc. If you're on the Western side of the Cascades, you probably see a lot more rain on an annual basis than I do here in Tennessee. And the quality of the roads in Tennessee is another point - some of the smoothest, best-maintained roads in the country are found here. On the other hand, I rode for several years in central and western Massachusetts, my home state, with lots of chip seal, rough pavement and sand, and I was okay there. And by the way, I do often use both brakes when slowing if I'm not going all-out, if for no other reason than to put less strain on my left hand.

That's the way I see it; and rather than wear out my knees slowing my fixie while screaming down some hills, I put a rear brake on it.

The back brake is for keeping the back wheel behind the front wheel