Originally Posted by Diggy18
I'm new at ridin, so I have lots of questions. I read on the Sheldon site that the front brake gives you more stopping power, since it bears more of wieght, so I've been trying to make sure I get used to using the front brake lots.
But the thing is, I can use the back brake to lock up the rear wheel, but I can't seem to get the front wheel to lock up. Should I be able to lock up the front wheel, or are my brakes slipping, do you think?
(I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the front suspension absorbing a lot of the forward momentum so . . . um . . .well, that's as far as my physics will take me.
)
No....
You do not want the front to lock. Plus it's harder for reason of weight load.
See, under any kind of deceleration on a bike, the bike slows down, but, your mass attempts to move forward...this is why your rear wheels skids, even though most of your weight is right on top of it...the bike slows down, but your are still trying to move forward...this transfers the weight in front of your rear wheel, causing slight leverage in the front of your bike, which reduces load on the back wheel...so now sinc there is less load, there is less force needed to lock it up.
now for your front wheel, it sees that extra force, so it takes more to lock it...but since its up front...the harder you brake, the higher it's load. This is why you should use the front brake primarily. Now...you can decelerate too fast, and that ends up with you over the handlebars, eating ground. You have to factor your weight distribution and angle of decent when braking, since boh of those affect your maximum rate of decelaration before going over the bars.
My trick is to apply hte brake softly for a few feet, then start clamping down harder and harder while still pedaling until i feel the pedal load ease up...this means i'm reaching hte point where my back wheel is lifting, so i need to stop adding pressure until i get proper feedback again.
A suspension helps give you a bit better feedback, gague it on how far your front end is dipping...usually i can tell by handlebar feel as well due to my suspension that i am getting near the max point for my safe braking. The dip varies bike to bike, so use the pedal method for a while to assist in figuring out how much dip is proper.