Originally Posted by
Saint Alfonzo
During maximum braking, your rear wheel is unweighted and unable to provide any braking power. This is, of course, for a nice dry road going in a straight line. As others have pointed out, if the road is wet, especially during autumn, you risk having your front wheel slide out if you try and do this. On wet or icy roads, you need both brakes for max stopping power.
This is also true when you are going fast on a hard turn, which is why road bikes have both a front and rear brake. On a hard turn, you need to keep weight on both wheels so keep from sliding out.
Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking of. When Sheldon says how 100% of braking power comes from the front brake, he restricts that statement to situations where you are stopping as fast as possible, in a straight line, on clean and dry pavement. But readers often seem to misinterpret him as meaning that you only need a front brake, period. So many times on these boards, I've seen someone who doesn't understand why you need a rear brake on a ss bike, because "all your braking power comes from the front". Again, this has to be the most common and potentially dangerous misinterpetation of Sheldon's words.