My commute finishes with a quick downhill at each end and I take the opportunity to practice a panic stop; hard front brake, shift the weight aft, stomach on the saddle etc. It's fun and has come in handy commuting in Seattle. This morning's practice resulted in a failure-with no serious ramifications (I was lucky-practice in the other direction would have dumped me into Puget Sound!). As I hit the "mark" I use to signal "STOP!!" the swaged end fitting on the front brake cable jumped out of the notch in the lever. I've never had this kind of failure. I've been doing my own work for years and replaced dozens of brake cables-this one has functioned normally in city commuting since November. There was no indication of any slipping with the cable or the yoke at the working end. I was able to reinstall it at work, do my normal squeeze and rock-the-bike test on the elevator as I started home, but I found myself hesitant to slam on the front brake. Any thoughts?

My two cents: panic stops are not good for bikes or cars. I've screwed up brakes and rims fooling around, I'm much kinder to bike brakes now. I taught panic stops to my daughter teaching her to drive, she blew out the front brakes lines in my BMW. The average OEM components are not really built to these stresses. Doesn't mean you can't upgrade, but you are just eating up parts by pushing it to the limits. got sponsor?

I have seen this before, especially in cheap break levers. It's usually a result of that notched connector in the lever not tracking with the cable end. It can also be caused by allowing the break lever to snap-spring back to the home position. Cable slack will cause the end to jump the notch and it may jump the next time you hit the lever.
I would pull the hook and lift the cable end out of its notch. Clean any dirt away, and apply a lube. Make sure it is free to spin. Feel for any resistance, especially in the operational range. The lever should also swing freely - clean and lube as needed.
Next I would check the calipers. If they are dirty, and not springing back quickly enough, they could slacken the cable (Snap-springing the levers can do the same). Again, clean, lubricate, and make sure the movement is quick and smooth.
Dirty and kinked cables could also cause resistance.

~Monkey~

I agree with Angry-Monkey's suggestions. Sounds as if there was some slack in the cable after the previous brake application with the result that the end of the cable in the lever was able to get out of position. Check for anything that could be causing the cable or the brake arms to bind and therefore let the cable have some slack in it.

Agreed! Good thing to know, but practicing them regularly is inviting trouble. Both systems are designed for panic stops, but not as normal operation.
I'm also familiar with how steep some of the streets are in Seattle. A panic stop on flat land is one thing, in Seattle, one wayward stone or pothole, and even a properly executed panic stop is not going to save you.
~Monkey~

zip tie the cable's head into carrier on brake lever

It wasn't the panic stop that blew out the brakes on your BMW nor let the cable come loose on Rubato's bike. The mechanisms in both cases failed but it was not the actions that causes failure but the mechanisms themselves. Brakes in cars and brakes in bikes should be able to do hundreds or thousands of hard stops if the mechanism is working properly.

If you baby your equipment unnecessarily, it might last longer but you won't know if the equipment is going bad nor, more importantly, you won't know how to deal with situations where you have to make a panic stop.

And if you don't know how to stop on the steep streets of Seattle, a poorly executed panic stop isn't going to do you any good either. In fact, it will do you more harm.

That wouldn't work in every lever I've seen. There is, simply, no room in the lever for a zip tie. A zip tie would jam the mechanism.

I suspect, Rubuto, that your brakes may have been binding prior to the cable coming out. The brakes weren't returning properly after you release the lever. The brakes when released will pull tension on the cable and keep the head in cable carrier. All of the cable carriers I've seen on road and flat bar levers (which is yours?) aren't easy to get the cable to come out of when you have no tension on the brakes. I suspect either a sticky cable in the housing or binding on the brakes themselves.

Don't pay attention to the naysayers on stopping. I brake hard most of the time. It's not going to hurt anything that isn't already failing and you should keep your equipment in good working order all the time.

As for the Seatle hills, your choice is to either ride the brakes from the top of the hill to the bottom or let the bike roll and brake hard where you need to. The former causes more brake pad wear and rim wear while the latter doesn't. I've had numerous discussions on these forums with people who have to stop 3 times on a 3 mile downhill to let their brakes cool down. I can ride down a mountain road for miles and miles at very high speeds without overheating the brakes on any bike.

^^^pretty much^^^

See, this is wrong, never lock uo the brakes on a car, it looses traction. The old car chase movies are proof. Same could be said fir a bike, but the dynamics a different. If the brakes are setup proper, I think a panic stop on a bike where it may stoo faster is a handfull of rear brake and then half to half and a quater of front brake- which s sorta how cars work.

I don't know about this. I had always thought that cars had much more brake force (as in the lines) going to the front brakes then the rear. I have never seen a photo/video/description of a car doing a Dutch Wheelie (endo), ever. The weight distribution of a car is vastly different then a bike and rider so far more front brake bias can be without the possibility of rear wheel lift. The recent application of anti lock brakes are not to limit the car's endoing but to allow steering control by preventing locked front or rear wheels.

Now with bikes the center of mass is so high and the front wheel contact patch is so close to this mass center that too much front brake results in an endo very easily. Still when i stop "with anger" I apply a lot (repeat, A LOT) of front brake. My rear brake application serves as a sensor to how much front braking I can get away with. Too much rear braking and all that end does is skid or lift. The skill is to get that balance between skidding and traction at the rear wheel. This is why some practice of strong front braking is a good idea.

Part of this practice is learning the need to shift your ass behind the seat. Getting your center of mass as far backward and low as possible helps decrease the chance of the rear wheel lifting. This is one reason that tandems can stop far faster then many think they can with skilled riders. The tandem's rear weight bias keeps that end down on the road better then a single's.

Ask any skilled rider which brake they'd have, if just one only, and the vast majority will say the front. This is because the front does the vast majority of the stopping when the crap hits the fan. It's usually the unskilled, the unpracticed, the uninformed that are scared of the front capicity and instead rely on the rear brake. Sad to say this is a lot of riders... Andy.

if the brake was applied at maximum pressure more than once in quick succession, i wouldn't be surprised if a bit of slack was introduced by stretching the cable, or more likely, a bit of excess friction, causing the problem.

Cable or housing friction is the most likely culprit. Brake cables don't stretch significantly with normal hand strength.

Regarding weight distribution: one of my bikes is a Lightning recumbent- it has very even weight distribution (45% front, 55% rear) and a really sticky front tire. I can pull the front brake as hard as I can without the tire skidding or the rear tire coming off the ground. On smooth pavement I swear I can hear the tire rippling. Fastest stopping bike I've ever had.

It's not that cars have more brake force through the mechanism that they use but that they physically can't rotate around the center of gravity. The center of gravity is too low and too far back for the vehicle to lift the rear end off the ground and rotate around the center of mass over the front axle. Hollywood likes to show cars doing endos but they have to do it with a massive cannon mounted under the car to force the rear of the car into the air. Mythbusters has done several episodes on trying to do a front flip on a car.

You've got this backwards. It's not "too much rear braking" that causes the rear wheel to lift and skid. It's too much front braking. The front brake causes the weight of the bicycle to shift forward over the front wheel which lifts the rear wheel so that it loses contact with the road. There is a rule of thumb in mountain biking that when the rear wheel skids, get off the front brake. This lets the rear wheel come back in contact with the ground and increases control of the bike.

You are correct on shifting weight on a single bike. Not only does moving backwards keep the rear wheel in contact with the ground, it increases the deceleration possible before you are spun around the center of gravity, i.e. do an endo.

Tandems really can loft the rear wheel into the air for the same reason that cars can't. The center of gravity is too far rearward.

While I agree that there are too many riders who are afraid of the front brake, there are also too many riders who think the rear brake is useless and, in their own way, fear the rear brake. Because of a misinterpretation of the principles of braking and a fear of a skidding rear wheel, many road riders will not use the rear brake. Many of them would stop better if they learned how to dance on the edge of a skid then avoid it altogether.

"It's not that cars have more brake force through the mechanism that they use but that they physically can't rotate around the center of gravity. The center of gravity is too low and too far back for the vehicle to lift the rear end off the ground and rotate around the center of mass over the front axle. Hollywood likes to show cars doing endos but they have to do it with a massive cannon mounted under the car to force the rear of the car into the air. Mythbusters has done several episodes on trying to do a front flip on a car."

I think we are saying the same thing but with different words

"You've got this backwards. It's not "too much rear braking" that causes the rear wheel to lift and skid. It's too much front braking. The front brake causes the weight of the bicycle to shift forward over the front wheel which lifts the rear wheel so that it loses contact with the road. There is a rule of thumb in mountain biking that when the rear wheel skids, get off the front brake. This lets the rear wheel come back in contact with the ground and increases control of the bike."

Almost the same as I said. But the point i was trying to make is that the starting of the rear wheel's skidding is the indication of using too much front brake. I never said that one should not modulate the front brake force, in fact i suggest that getting experience with how to use the front brake is a GOOD THING. If one uses a lot of rear brake it will skid regardless of the front braking. I use the rear brake as my sensor to how the front action is going. If only a little rear braking application is causing skidding then I'll just about at the limit of front braking (before the endo phase starts).

"While I agree that there are too many riders who are afraid of the front brake, there are also too many riders who think the rear brake is useless and, in their own way, fear the rear brake. Because of a misinterpretation of the principles of braking and a fear of a skidding rear wheel, many road riders will not use the rear brake. Many of them would stop better if they learned how to dance on the edge of a skid then avoid it altogether."

I my 40+ years of retail shop work and local club education sessions I have to admit never hearing this take. I suppose some out there do fear their rear brake. i just have never met them as yet. But i have met many (repeat MANY) who fear their front brake. That we replace FAR more rear brake pads (and remember you can't load a rear brake as much as a front, once the rim stops spinning the pad wear stops too) then front suggests the use rate of the rear is much more by most riders then the front. Although the learning how to modulate the brake force to be just on e edge of the skid is good advice. i just suggest that riders also learn this (modulation) with the front brake.

In fact the couple of "how to ride a bike" courses I've attended (Effective Cycling and now Street Smarts) have practice sessions that focus on heavy front braking because it's the lesser known skill and the one that might save one's life.

This has been interesting. Most of what we are discussing is the same but i think we're looking at things from the two different sides of the proverbial fence.

The above quotes are from cyccommute's post #13 . Andy.

Cars are biased to the front brakes, yes, but the rears do lock up first before the front if only for a split second. You're right, to completely different animals. There is a youtube video of a Smart4too with a gsxr engine swap that does endo's. Typically, like I said, with a car locking up the brakes causes the car to lose traction(kinetic energy to heat energy) and slide. Same with tandems and trikes because of weight. Regular bikes for there size have rather large wheels for a vehicle, high centered gravity, and even without suspension, still have weight transfer, giving the stopping tire grip, cause rear lift. ABS lets a car make a controllable stop push your cars brakes hard enough and abs shuts off, allowing wheel lock up. This is why you never slam on your brakes in a car, or a bike with properly setup brakes with good pads.
Too much rear brake will induce a skid, but in a panic stop on a bike, it's best to use the rear to slow down enough that grabbing the front doesnt throw you over the bars. Like grab the rear at 80%, then the front at 50%- increasing to full lock. You are spot on, front brake usage is a necessity. Nothing stops any vehicle faster than a front brake- that's where the weight goes.
it's all momentum and physics.
Yep, especially during a panic stop or any high speed braking, since given resistance to a large mass moving forward, changing stance isn't taking weight off the front wheel, merely moving more weight backwards. Tandems and other elongated bikes will actually skid the front wheel. It's also a lot of work for that disc or canti or sidepull to stop. I seen two people on a beach cruiser tandem once, that huge bike with only a coaster brake scared me. Most people are afraid of the front brake since it will bare 100% of the bikes weight and they don't want to be thrown. Used properly they won't. Most of the time people don't even have them adjusted properly or not have enough meat on the pad to lock up the wheel. That said, the rear brake can stop a bike just fine on it's own, granted it's a regular stop and not a car door or dog. My beach cruisers stop normally between 5 and 8 feet, at least when I'm not locking it in to a 15ft skid. Those things are fun. Then again riding position is more reclined than other standard bikes, so more weight over the back wheel. But whatever, still fun to ride.

Not necessarily. You said you've never seen a car do a "Dutch wheelie". There is a reason for that...they simply can't. It's not physically possible. Tandems fall into the same category. You cannot generate enough force on the front wheel to lift the rear of a car or tandem high enough into the air to spin it around the front wheels. The tires lose adhesion and slide first. A single bike (or motorcycle, for that matter) will spin around the center of gravity before their tires lose adhesion.

You are clearer now but you weren't before.

I think you still have some of the dynamics backwards, however. In all kinds of bicycling, you don't want to have a sliding wheel. You can control a rolling wheel but a sliding wheel is nearly impossible to keep control over. Mountain bikers know this on a more visceral level because they experience it more often than roadies do. If you are getting to the point where the rear wheel has lifted enough to lock and slide, the point isn't to release the pressure on the rear wheel...it's already off the ground and become nearly useless. The point is to get the bike back in control by putting the rear wheel back in contact with the ground. You can do this by modulating the front brake and/or moving the center of gravity rearward.

You aren't likely to find the people who fear the use of the rear brake (and a skidding rear tire) in a education session. The ones who fear their rear brakes tend to be road riders who already have some experience with riding and braking. They are the ones who often argue that you only nee to use the front brake and should avoid the rear brake as much as possible because they are trying to avoid a skid. They simply don't know how to control it so they avoid the situation. If you suggest, like I have on numerous occasions, that a bicycle rider use both brakes and modulate the front one to keep the rear wheel from skidding, they react in horror. They will also look at you like you have 2 heads if you tell them to move your center of gravity rearward get more out of your brakes.

The first statement is correct only if the brakes are balanced that way. The second statements are incorrect. ABS does not shut off. The proper way to quickly stop a car with ABS is to stand on the pedal as hard as you can (or at least hard enough to engage the ABS).

First: bolding, underlining and italicizing are useful tools for emphasizing your point but use them sparingly. Overuse is annoying. If you want to reply to different parts of a quote, you can break the quote up by cutting and pasting within the "Reply with Quote" page.

Automobiles aren't any more biased to the front brakes than any other vehicle. Bicycles, tandems, trucks, motorcycles and skateboards equipped with brakes (a really dumb idea) are all biased to the front brakes. Even bicycles equipped with a coaster brake only are biased towards the front. That's why they skid so well. It's the way that the physics works.

Based on a bit of Googling, I think you are talking about a motorcycle when you refer to a "Smart4too with gsxr engine". A motorcycle is very different from an automobile and more like a bicycle with a high center of gravity and a short wheel base.

ABS allows a car to make a controllable stop by pulsing the brakes so that the wheels don't skid. I think you are also confused about the way the ABS works. If they are working properly, you shouldn't be able to put enough force on the system so that it shuts off and the wheels lock up. The point of the ABS is to do exactly what mountain bike riders do, i.e. keep wheels from sliding to maintain control.

Nope. You are requiring too much thought and analysis for a very short time frame. Generally speaking, you should grab both brakes in a panic situation and pull. If the rear wheel starts to skid and you have enough time to remember, you let up on the front brake. Every situation where I've had to panic stop, there is too little time to actually think about much of anything outside of trying not to crash. I tend to let up on both brakes then get back on both brakes which accomplishes the same thing as just easing pressure on the front brake.

cyccomute- Having locked up a front wheel on both bicycles and motorcycles I know that endoing isn't the only result of too much front brake force. I agree that a sliding/skidding wheel is not what one wants for control. But, again, the start of a skid is a feedback that a skilled rider understands and reacts to. That i first choose to back of the rear brake to maintain rear steering control works for me and others. The key, as i tried to say previously, is to modulate the front braking force so that the rear does stay on the ground. Monitoring the rear's tendency to skid given a certain amount of rear brake application is one method of deciding how much front brake is "right". I think that the vast majority of riders who have only a front brake actually also have a rear brake, just not a caliper but a foot brake. (Fixed gear riders can slow and/or lock up their rear wheel easily enough). Another thing I don't remember ever hearing is your claim that riders will avoid using their rear brake in fear of a skid. But your circle of riding community is not mine. Just about every rider that i have taught the rear ward weight shift when braking strongly has gotten it. It only takes a few times trying it to understand. By modulating the front brake to keep the rear from skidding is not allowing full stopping force to be used. But the rider is the one who will make that choice, whether they consciencely understand or choose it.

MikeWMass- I agree completely. Having learned how to drive long before the advent of anti lock rakes and having had lots of experience driving close to the limits it took me a while to trust the anti lock brake concept.

I try to limit my posts to three per topic. By then i have found that i don't have much more to add. So thanks for the discussion all. Andy.

abs detects slippage, you stand on the brakes if a car and they will lock up. abs only modulates brakes, you dont need to stand on them to engage abs. unless you have a manual porpotioning valve, the rears engage first. even fwd cars with their crossed brakes do it. one exception is trucks with a load sensing rear brake system. the setup also keepd the rear from spinning around. i had a truck with no rear pads, every panic stop whipped the rear end around.

In my shop we only install brake handles without the slotted stop. Your best bet is to upgrade to a modern lever wherein the brake cable is inserted through a hole in the stop.

Yea, yea, I know the slotted set-up has been around forever and is very reliable with good cables/housing, regular cleaning/lubing, and regular service & inspection, but...

99% of the time I'm on my phone, a tiny Galaxy Discover. All the snazzy reply things are extremely hard. So it was easier for me, I've had internet since 1999, I know how it's done.



I never said they were more biased. I am a mechanic by trade. The Smart4Too I was talking about has a gsxr engine swapped in it, I can link the youtube video, it did endo's. You are confusing abs with traction control, both control wheel slippage, yes. ABs modulates braking, it can be overcome by slamming on the brakes, thats how cars slide x amount of feet because of wheel lock up.I can also tell you the proper way to bleed an ABS equipped car. I don't know what you meant about the beach cruiser. Not trying to sound like an ass, honestly. how can a bike lacking a front brake have a front brake bias? Weight transfer and momentum allows one to skid especially if you're off the saddle because it has less weight. I can lock mine up and it'll slide maybe five feet, out of saddle leaning forward, I might get that fifteen feet.

I'll give you this, it sounds a lot better than what I said when the situation is more instincts than thought. just yank them both and shift your weight towards the rear. You're right, I did put way too much thought in to it. I guess you'd say it was the engineer or something like that in me.
This is the video of the smart car- which did a wheelstand despite having ABS.

+1 get everything in the brake system working smoothly. You can't be too anal, because it all helps modulation.

+1 don't baby your brakes; you need to know they'll brake instead of break when you really need them.

+1 the rear brake is practically useless. IMO its biggest contribution is to the rare evasive manoeuvre where you skid the rear around for oversteer. Maximum braking is achieved with your belly on the seat and the rear wheel off the ground.

You, along with the "only front brake" crowd, are misunderstanding the physics. If your rear tire is starting to skid, that means that it has lost contact with the ground. You've already shifted all the weight that you can shift to the front and still maintain contact of the rear wheel for control purposes. Backing off the rear brake does nothing for putting the rear wheel back onto the ground. The rear wheel is still in only nebulous contact with the ground at that point. If you want to put the rear wheel back on the ground, you need to stop the weight shift forward. You can move your center of gravity further back or you can get off the front brake. If you've already moved your center of gravity rearward (you, as opposed to most people I have this discussion with, understand that part of braking), your only recourse is to back off the front brake and stop the forward weight shift.

Given that you said

I think you really do understand the idea of getting off the front brake to reduce rear brake skidding on a functional level, i.e. while on the bike but not at a theoretical level. I also monitor the skid of the rear wheel to know how much front brake pressure is "right". The only difference is that I recognize that it's the front brake that causes the rear wheel to skid and that to stop the skid, I get off the front brake.

Further, if you do modulate the front brake (a little), you lose a tiny amount of deceleration but you gain a huge amount of control.

The riding community that doesn't get the rearward brake shift isn't mine. It's the road bike community on the Bike Forums. If I show someone how to do this is person, I can see the lightbulbs going off. On-line, the roadies will react like you said their bikes were heavy. It really is astounding to me how they react.

We get a lot of newbies on the Bike Forums who don't understand how to use the tools available. Given your low post number, I was assuming you fell into that category. On how easy it is to do a "snazzy reply thing", I post from a regular computer, a tablet and a phone. An regular keyboard is easier to use but the tablet and phone aren't that much more difficult to cut and past the "QUOTE" part of a "Reply With Quote" than using underlining and bolding and italicizing.


Your "advice" on how to use ABS is counter to every single bit of advice you can find on how to use an ABS equipped car. Everything I've read on ABS says to push on the brake firmly and continuously. Don't pump the brakes nor let off on pressure when the ABS valve starts to pulse. The "A" in ABS does stand for Anti-lock which isn't all that useful if the brakes lock the wheels. Now my truck has a really crappy ABS system that is mostly useless. The "Anti-lock" part is on the rear wheels only so when you apply the brakes like advised, the fronts lock and slide while the rears pulse. That keeps the truck from spinning but it doesn't help too much with stopping...especially on snow and ice.

Where does the weight go when you get off the saddle and/or brake? You have less weight on the rear wheel but there has been no weight change to the vehicle (unless you fall off). All vehicles, no matter their size or braking system, transfer weight to the front when the brakes are applied. When you use a coaster brake only, the weight is still transferred to the front wheel and the rear wheel lifts off the ground. That's what makes coaster brakes so ineffective. You transfer all the stopping power to the front wheel and you have nothing to stop with. You can do the same thing with a caliper equipped bike by just applying the rear brake.

The SmartCar, by the way, is a special case. It shares many attributes with motorcycles and bicycles. It has a short wheelbase and a high center of gravity so lifting the rear wheels would be easier than in a "normal" car. It's more a side-by-side motorcycle than a "car". I also suspect that the ABS in that car had either been shut off or that the car is equipped like my truck...with ABS rear only.