See for yourself! Try disconnecting your rear brake and taking a test drive. I think you will be convinced that Mr. Brown's advice is right. Of course, be careful. Try it at slow speeds at first, and choose smooth surfaces and a dry day.

I use whatever came on the bike. I'm not a fast rider by any means - I usually travel between 10-16MPH. There's a lot of skidding involved when I have to jam on the rear brake! I think I'm pretty good at controlling it though - dating back to my BMX days when I was a kid. I just never knew any better, I guess.

I've been forcing myself to use the front brake more, but it's become immediately evident I need to do some maintenance there. The pads are pretty thin - not from my use -- this is a used bike.

You'll notice you can stop a lot quicker with the front brake. Just make sure you unload your weight as far back and low as possible, otherwise you might flip over. It might ease the transition a little if you have the LBS swap the front and rear brakes so your right hand operates the front brake. Just make sure you remember not to squeeze too hard. On the plus side, there's no transition when you're riding a motorcycle.

I get about 5,000 miles out of both of my pads on my commuter. Plenty of stops too, but never much rain, and I have fenders on (probably helps keep grit off the rims a little).

Changing brake pads is one of the simplest DIY jobs on a bike. I am a complete mechanical klutz, but even I managed to change both sets, first time trying, in about an hour. All you need is new pads and an Allen wrench. Of course, the LBS probably doesn't charge much either. It does seem like a pretty good idea to keep them working--especially the front ones.

I have full fenders on mine... only rain maybe 10% of the time. Do you stop hard a lot? I've been trying to avoid doing that lately.

Yes, I've been taking up a lot of mechanical work myself lately - did some derailuer adjustments, and such. I looked at the brakes this weekend, but realized I also need the front wheel trued. Without a truing stand and with my limited mechanical ability I was only able to get it "close enough." I want it really trued before I put on the new brakes.

With a stick and using the frame as reference, you can usually true the wheels to about 1/32nd of an inch or better.

I have full fenders on mine... only rain maybe 10% of the time. Do you stop hard a lot? I've been trying to avoid doing that lately.

I commute in Arizona, so I think that is a big part of it, and having to do minimal maintenance in general since there is less slop on the roads. I don't stop hard too often when I anticipate traffic lights, and I have been known to only slow at stop signs if there is no traffic coming. When I try to make a personal best time though I run the brakes a little harder, just to keep the average speed up. I probably only have about 10 complete stops on average though over about 10 miles.

Maybe I just ride too slow to wear out pads as often as you guys?

Haha... I counted the # of stops I have and it's once every 5 blocks on average, not like I have to unclip but enough that I have to bleed off 20-25mph of speed down to 5mph or so. 12*20=240/5= 48 hard stops each way = around 100 hard stops a day.
Combined with about 2-3 shifts per stop, I'm putting my ultegra levers and deore lx rear der. through about 250 up and 250 down shifts a day, or about 500 shifts on the right shifter. I bet people with fixies are shaking their heads and crying right about now.
Damn, they should hire me to fatigue test their crap.

I hope you mean using a stick as a guide while you use a spoke wrench to tension the spokes.

You're a very smart fellow. (Really) Are you a chef or something?

I also wore out my first set of pads in a surprisingly short time. In my case I think it is also due to the very hilly route. That same hilly route makes me shift up and down hundreds of times per day. Some places it's like a roller coaster.

Haha yeah, I usually use the depth gage on my calipers to measure the width of the fork or seat stay at the brake bridge (A), then measure the width of the rim (B). The distance to set my marker tip from the seat stay edge would be (A-B)/2-.01", then I move in from there.




Eh?

Anyway I've been reading on it and it turns out the old avid brake pads burn out real quick, the newer metallic formulations are supposed to last a lot longer.

That's how I've used my rear brake for a long time. I still use it like this...if I have to slow down, I just apply the rear brake for a second or two.

The secret to good braking is modulation, and that comes from practice.

I still think that using both brakes will result in a quicker stop *if* done properly. It might be a very, very small difference in the distance to stop compared to only using the front brake, but still a "real" difference. I say "real" (in quotes) because I imagine the difference is much less obvious on a bicycle as compared to a motorcycle (where most of my experience with experimenting has occurred).

I also disagree with some of the turning section in the article. Specifically, the part about leaning your body out with the bike more upright not having a benefit for cornering (other than the stated pedal strike avoidance). I will say that the benefit of leaning the body out more with the bike upright would not be a big advantage compared to a motorcycle where the speeds are obviously much greater. The whole point of the techinque is to keep more of the tire in contact with the road by using your body to shift the center of gravity to the side thus "making" the turn with a larger contact patch on the tire (the bike still leans, of course, just not as much). I find this technique fairly useless on the road as the speeds just aren't high enough to benefit (for me anyway), but the usefullness offroad are real, and have benefitted me on occasion.

The experiment referenced by Jobst Brandt is irrelevant, IMO. Of course the bike will follow an erratic line - you're *leaning* the bike! A better experiment would be to do the variations of the turning techniques mentioned on a bumpy road while *turning*. I think you'll find that the method of leaning just the bike with the body upright will have less traction, and the methods of keeping both body and bike in the same plain and leaning the body more than the bike will have greater traction (with slight advantage of the latter technique in some situations).

$0.02 (I hope that made sense.)

I have to change both front and back brakes every 500-600 miles. I have rim brakes. Part of my commute is on a bike path and I have to slow down for walkers and DOGS. Also by ride home is mostly down hill through the woods and a lot of sharp curves. I do go through brakes quicker in the winter because I the ice,snow,and SALT.