Those brakes are backwards

or, you are brilliant and how come others don’t do this?

He wanted it to match the front on that bike.

Or he wanted to be like Merz.

I think this was popular for about 5 minutes BITD.

Replica of Rene Vietto's ride, 1952

Vélo René VIETTO 1952 - Le blog de velosvintage.over-blog.com

Brakes mounted on the front of the seat stays makes good sense for a bike with a rear rack because it makes it easier to do maintenance with panniers mounted and reduces potential interference.

"Popular" is kind of overselling it- but yeah. And it'll come around again pretty soon.

The Merz got that because the original rack got mounted that had been built for the frame when it had canti's originally.

Jim stripped the canti's off when he sold the frame.

Sellwood cycles said "a Merz without the racks mounted?",

Not on our watch, and they put the brake on the front side.

I'm lucky the racks stayed with the frame for years without being attached to it.

I've done this before, it's obviously easier on a bike without recessed brake mounts. For a bike that does have recessed brake mounts, what I did was fit a schrader-to-presta adapter to take up the void, and using a recessed brake mount front brake on the rear. The bolt length is just right. Did that make sense?

In my use it did actually end up improving braking. I also found it helpful to get the cables out of the way of a large saddlebag. If you've got a bike you feel like tinkering on I say go for it, I found zero negatives beyond needing the parts in question.

Modolo Kronos brakes have to be done that way because the pads can only be put in one way. There isn't a front and rear brake caliper. They are both "front" so to speak.

Hanoovian? Anyone?

even Sachs did it at least once.

Hmm, does that look like an awkward cable routing?

Other than that, I see no reason why not.

Randy Smolenski preferred that style. If the half dozen or so I've seen, all had rear brakes mounted that way.

I mounted the rear brake on my Schwinn Super Sport ahead off the brake bridge because of the placement of three rear brake cable stops. It was likely originally built for "different handed" side pulls.

I can think of a couple of reasons why this hasn't caught on:

1. Positioning the brake in front of the stays requires a longer reach brakeset.This means more weight. However, even if you could just adjust the pads lower in your current caliper, the longer effective reach reduces the braking efficiency.

2. It makes maintenance more difficult, as the brake is in a more confined space. This is not a big deal for maintenance conducted at home or in the shop but it's significant for race situations. You've all seen the photos of the race mechanic hanging out the car window trying to perform a rear brake adjustment, with the rider on the bicycle. Imagine doing that with the caliper mounted in front of the stay. It would be much harder.

About the only mounting position that's worse, from a maintenance perspective, are the chainstay mounted brakes. They can be a pain even in a shop environment. The crankset results in an even more confined space and they just get caked with dirt, grime and mud thrown up by the front wheel.

Aand in a good 10 years or so the "then" classic lovers might re-quote to top this this with the addition of fork and chainstay integrated..... or if we want to stick to the current group, take a minute of silence and adore Luciano Paletti well before the pro peloton of the 2010s.... obviously was not made this way for easier maintenance when using panniers..

And if we are there, lets tick out the other side of the anomaly..... the brake caliper behind the fork on the Takhion TT bikes... where the unusual placement of the handlebars made it necessary..

By that time, the C&V crowd will more likely be arguing the merits of the market shift to disc brakes.

Possibly... but someone out there will most likely collect and love bikes from the "good old 2010's" as well.
Similar was discussed recently in a thread which started based on classic cars or rather the interest towards them and in parallel the classic bike topic was on tap for sure..
I think, there will always be a group interested in C&V, and obviously the bigger part of that group will always be on the "closer to today but classic" side...
Without brands and some unique instant classic models, the newer bikes (almost) always brought in some factors which makes them usable as well, not just collectible. And yes, I don't forget, that we are more than enough people on this forum actually riding our bikes but we shouldn't forget as well the most of were born in a mostly mechanical world whereas today's kids not (I'm not talking families but the whole world around them).

The bridge on my Ugly Betty is recessed on both sides so the brake can be in or out

Maybe true on some particular bike, but not generally. If the seatstay is pointing right at the hub axle and the brake hole is perpendicular to the stay, then forward or back mounting give identical brake reach. If the stay is pointing a little behind the axle, as often happens on small frames, then mounting the brake "backwards" (on the front of bridge) will result in shorter brake reach.

Mark B

According to a faintly-remembered Bicycling review, Havnoonian claimed that if there was any tilt/flare to the rim walls, the brake bolt flexing would drive the pads down and lower and lose power, while his reversed orientation would have the flex drive the pads up and higher and gain power.

Of course, now that we have machined side walls for rims, I'm not sure it makes any sense any more. And even with concave sidewalls, the benefit is ... untested, shall we say.