Originally Posted by
chaadster
What? That does not make sense to me...
The reason your stronger/dominant hand is the stronger/dominant hand is because you can control it best, and the whole damn point of mechanical advantage (i.e. brakes) is to achieve through leverage what you cannot achieve with your bare hands (i.e. braking power), so...
So what difference does it make if your left hand generates 35lb of squeezing force and your right 45lbs when your brakes only require 25lb at the lever to generate 150lbs at the rim?
I don't think the assertion that "stronger hand should be on the brake less likely to cause a crash" makes any sense at all.
You want your best fine motor control on the brake that does most of the stopping, so you can maximize your stopping power by walking up to the edge of lockup and working there; you also want to have your strongest hand on the strongest brake to combat fatigue and brake fade while maintaing maximum braking force. Dual sport riders (i.e. bikes and motos) want uniformity so that, in our time of need, we're not confused about which hand or foot is doing what; we want automatic response with maximum effect.
I am curious about where the USA convention of left-front braking comes from, though...
You are likely right. There is no agreement about this. Sheldon Brown discusses most of the possible explanations for the different preferences here:
http://sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html. I notice my explanation is missing. Never mind. It isn't important anyway. The motorcycle explanation for right front braking may have some validity. Also the dominance by European riders most of whom (according to Sheldon) use right front. As for where the left front USA convention comes from, I have no idea. I just know that 30+ years ago I decided to set up with right front, and have been doing it ever since.