Originally Posted by
Firelord777
I know what you mean by front brakes being important, I realized that completely stopping the rear wheel and skidding doesn't provide sufficient deceleration to perform and emergency stop, which I felt would probably put me in even greater risk than reducing stopping power.
There is this screw on top of the calipers on the wire, and unscrewing it will increase stopping power, and screwing it in will decrease it.
No that's just for adjusting brake pad clearance. It's a convenient way to decrease clearance as the pads wear away and means you don't have to be spot on where you clamp the wire. 1mm or 1/32" - 1/16" for Americans are good pad to rim clearances with the brake release levers in the closed position.
Loosening it too far can cause the brake levers to hit the handle bars before you get full braking force which is NOT good.
You control stopping power by how hard you squeeze. Some people connect our front brake to our right lever as on a motorcycle which lets right handed people squeeze harder with more control.
To keep from going over the bars you brace yourself with your arms. When you do that you can stop very quickly.
Stop hard enough and the rear wheel can come off the ground, although shifting your weight back will increase the deceleration you can get before that happens.
When the rear wheel comes off the ground you just ease up a bit.
Here's an article on braking and one of the included photos:
http://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/0...-on-a-bicycle/
