Who uses a right-side front brake
 

Despite the fact I have not ridden a motorbike for decades, I still feel that my right hand should operate the front brake! It's stronger, I have better control and all that! I recently read of some folks in the UK who moved the brake cables so the right lever operated the front brake and I am considering doing the same thing - trouble is - I have been riding bikes for decades and always had the front brake operated by the left lever, so now I wonder if I would be all confused! Has anyone changed the front brake to the right lever; any problems?

Right-front is the standard setup over here. I think the general consensus is that either setup works just as well once you're used to it (and as long as you are aware how the bike you're riding is configured) so it comes down to preference really. If you want it on the right, do it that way. Just make sure to tell anyone who borrows your bike that they're reversed.

Yeah, I switched to right=front on my cyclocross bike after I read a tip that said this setup would make it easier to feather the rear brake and adjust final speed as you are partway dismounted and approaching a barrier. The results were a disaster. I was always braking with the wrong lever. And I too have done a lot of motorcycling, but I guess the motorcycle wiring in my brain was: foot=rear brake; hand=front brake. All my cycling hardwired front=left, right=rear. Your brain may have better luck. I was going into corners hard, confused about what lever to pull and suddenly applying the front brake with gusto. I switched back to the traditional set up after many hilarious crashes. Good luck.

A British friend of mine was asking how hard this would be recently, since he's just moved here and wanted to acquire a bike. The answer is that it's easier to recable the bike than to rewire your brain, so in his case it made sense to make the change. In your case, I doubt it's worth the effort.

Motorcyclists do.

This question has not been asked this week yet, right?

Everybody uses right-hand front brake. That's the world-wide standard, just like it is the case with motorcycles. Except that for some bizarre reason bicycles sold on the US market have left-hand front brake. (Most likely it is some sort of market protectionist measure.) If your bicycle suffers from this problem and your frame features are not heavily tailored towards left-hand front brake, than the first thing you do is recable it for right-hand front brake.

For example, US-market bikes with internal cabling will normally route the rear-brake cable inside the top tube, with cable entry point located on the left side of the tube. Cabling it from the right lever produces a nice gentle curve in the cable. Trying to make the same entry point from the left level would result in a significantly sharper and inelegant bend.

I'm considering this change for my bikes.

Its on list to do as well...


I know its going to really mess with my motorcycle riding.

Yea the other answers, to the same question, are so .. last week. :lol:

I much prefer having my main braking and my main shifting on different hands.

Yes.

No. The cable connecting brake to lever bends sharper but it's good enough.

I grew up in a British colony, riding British bikes, where the right hand controlled the front brake. I never thought about it until I came to the US. I have all my bikes set up with right hand controlling the front brake - I do that because I have better control with my right hand, and when I am signalling with my left hand, I still want to have access to my front brake. Ridden that way for many years now, and no issues.

Me too, right front for probably 30 years now. I like it better, YMMV.

Raised in the U.S. and not sure where I originally got the idea to change, but since I've been building up my own bikes for so long now, I just set them up that way from the beginning.

Rick / OCRR

Another "moto style" convert here since OCT2011. Always made sense to me and I'm finally riding that way after building my first bike. Grew up in the US and have some motorcycle expereince in the past. I think that you can adapt to whatever style given enough time.

I sometimes have to hit the brakes hard on the road for whatever reason, quick-changing light, left-hooking car etc, and I'm left having to make a couple of shifts quickly so when I'm back on the pedal force I'm not in too tall of a gear; I can't imagine making those gear changes and applying/modulating the front brake with the same hand/lever. It's ingrained into my head to clamp down on the left brake and start swinging the right brake/shift lever in to downshift.

I rode motorcycles for 25+ years and never had a moment of confusion on a bicycle.

All my bikes are set up with right-hand front brakes, except for my newest -- a Kona ***** Inc with Avid BB7 disc brakes. The brake is mounted on the NDS, so the cable is a very clean straight drop from the lever to the brake, which I don't want to screw up (given the drastic effect any friction at all has on these brakes). Cabling to the right would mean a zip-tie on the fork blade.

My brain is doing well with the switch. I chalk it up to learning Colemak and Dvorak keyboard layouts on my computers :)

It's all across North America, Canadians get their bikes cabled for left front as well. Does Mexico do this?

I always switch to Right Front, spent far too much time riding motorcycles to change my internal wiring instead.

The real pain is when dealing with hydraulic brakes, it usually requires bleeding, sometimes replacement of the the lines.

My commuter is setup with a right front brake but all my other bikes are setup US spec right rear. My theory is that it opens new pathways in your brain or something like that.

I have to swap them to the right. I ride a motorcycle every day, and when I was young back in New Zealand all bikes were setup that way. I have 38 years of programming in my brain and I simply can't get used to the front brake being on the left.

I switched mine to right-front a month ago and was amazed at how much better this fit my way of braking. I have always had more strength and control with my right hand and so it just made sense.

I keep hearing that the North American market is the only one in the world that sets up bikes with Left-Front. I am not so sure, as the Colnago I bought while living in Italy came with Left-Front set-up. I did a search for Saronni and saw that he (and most of the DelTongo team) had a Left-Front setup as well.

In any case, I am now a convert.

-G

I've thought about swapping my bicycle cables across, as I ride motorcycles a lot too. But it doesn't seem too urgent. I've never had any problem mixing up the brakes between the different vehicles. For that matter my old Triumph shifts on the right, and my old BMW shifts on the left, and that never bugs me either. I don't know why. It seems like it should.

I've been to Asian and European countries and never seen a bike with right front setup. :o

I switch to the right/front on my first bike, but on all the other bikes just kept it the same as they came. I ride motorcycles but I found I don't confuse the two. I'd probably be happier if the front was on the right, but since it's convention, I just leave it.

What's funny is I just read the sheldon brown thing on mostly only using the front brake and I really don't agree that much.. and on a sportbike I only use the front brake except in foul conditions or at super slow speeds or stopped on a hill.

It's not like riding my motorcycles I pull the clutch expecting the rear brake to engage. :)

The first change I made to my bike back when I got it was to swap the front brake to the right lever.

I've long long been setting my bikes up with the front brake in my right hand.