Originally Posted by
andre nickatina
Well, we have noticed collectively over in BFSSFG that the geometry of track frames does seem to have a better effect as far as the brakeless riding / skidding that people tend to do with their track bikes on the street. The lessened rack of the fork as well as steeper angles make it a bit easier. Now obviously you condone brakes and all, but I'm just trying to present the picture from the other side of the fence. People aren't just riding track frames over road frames for "style" points, it goes a little deeper. And as far as the discomfort thing, I think it's remedied pretty well by lowering the PSI a little on your tires, or even running some comfortable, supple tubulars.
Skiddability (is that a word?) is mainly determined by weight distribution. Most normal bikes have about a 55/45 rear/front weight distribution.
For skidding contests, where the idea is to make the longest skid, the rider puts his/her weight as far forward as possible to reduce the weight on the rear wheel.
So, if your primary objective is to make it take longer for your bike to stop when you lock up the rear wheel, a track bike might be best. However, for riding in traffic, it would seem to me that a longer stopping distance is undesirable. Basically anything that makes skidding easier also means that the skid will be less effective at slowing the bike down. If you've ever ridden a tandem without a stoker, and tried to stop with the rear brake you have experienced the reductio ad absurdum of this, as it is easy to lock up the rear wheel, but it hardly slows the tandem down at all since there's so little traction.
Maybe "condone" wasn't quite the word you meant referring to my preference for fixed gear brake use. I did try riding brakeless for a while, back before it was fashionable. I found that it was a lot less fun because I had to be super-vigilant in traffic in case some cager did something unexpected and I might have to stop relatively suddenly. I found that I had to often keep my speed artificially low to make up for the lack of a good brake.
Since there were no style points to be had back then from going brakeless, I eventually re-installed the front brake, and found the bike much more fun to ride.
I consider riding brakeless to be basically a silly fad, not quite a silly as wearing baseball caps backward, but it is basically a fashion statement.
To me, the essence of cycling is in the _going_ not the stopping.
Sheldon "Front Brake, Road Geometry" Brown