Originally Posted by
Onegun
Mander, Sheldon Brown and I disagreed on many issues when he was alive, and nothing's changed now. He was a great guy, and avid cyclist, and someone who gave selflessly of his knowledge. But his orientation was the touring side of things while mine was racing, so our philosophy of cycling was 180 out. The biggest difference is that I raced, wrenched on a racing team, and coached (at least one) multi-year, multi-discipline state champion, and Sheldon simply wrote about such things.
Bottom line is that because Sheldon said it is so doesn't make it so. We disagreed on many things from bike handling issues to bike geometry issues to how to build the best wheels. Sheldon was not God, (and he would be the first to tell you that), and neither am I. (And please don't ANYONE mention Jobst Brandt next!)
Anyway, I'm done with this thread. I stand by my remarks, and probably own jerseys that are older than the people here telling me I don't know how to use a brake.
That's fine, and sorry for my brusque earlier comments (have you got a jersey older than 1979?). But very few people who know what they're doing will say that it's ok to ride an ss with no rear brake, that a rear brake is only useful for tandemists on descents, and that Sheldon only thought otherwise because he was a tourist and didn't race. Every rider in the pro peloton runs two brakes, as required by both UCI regs and common sense.