they don't work well.

If the owner-mechanic is clueless ...


or expects their brakes always to stop them as abrubtly as a stick in your wheel, or running head-on into a wall



the old Arai tandem drum brake was very large and had a really big heatsink all around the drum.

it was brake number 3 on tandems a companion to rim brakes ..

Purpose was add some drag on downhills rather than stopping , the cantilever brakes were for stopping

I laughed when I saw this.

So when someone tells you to "go to he11", you can say, "been there, got the Strava records to prove it!" LOL

Isaid he was dragging them thats why all i said originally was to not drag them for a long time.

Been down some pretty steep hills loaded down. My discs have never failed me. Takes a lot to
overheat a hydro with a 160mm rotor.

Surely you're not saying that idiots misusing their equipment isn't a real world condition.

Lol, yeah, unfortunately that's the major problem - noteably less stopping power with drum brakes. I've also read that they made removing the wheel (say, if you got a flat) a much, much larger pain than with traditional brakes.

Not that these make drum brakes completely useless, but they are big drawbacks.

i think drum brakes a good choice for someone who does not mind the weight, rides a relatively flat route, and does not get flats. in fact, for that use case they are probably a better choice than disc brakes.

over 25 years and the SA drum brakes have zero service and never needed pads

and the only adjustment was when I put the wheel back in

then its simple turn the barrel adjuster in till the wheel wont turn, then back it out just as far as it take till ir will

true all the marketing money, and adrenaline sports are about disc brakes ..

simplicity and reliability are not as sexy .. ..

In the real world,you need to do something abusive to blue your discs or boil your fluid. In reality,you're going to have a much better chance of tacoing a wheel in a pothole or bad curb hop than you will in trashing your discs.

Roller brakes suck. Period. They're heavy,don't work well,and are a pain to install/remove. I mention this because they get confused with proper drum brakes all the time. I personally wouldn't run drums because I live in a very hilly area,but if you're somewhere flattish and are looking for minimal maintenance,then drum brakes are ok.

Washington DC may have a little rolling elevation change , but out west , where the 'hills' spew out volcanic ash .

and bury whole towns with an occasional mudslide , I'm harder to impress . I've visited there..

New Hampshire and North Carolina holiday in the Appalachian range , then you may be able to make different claims ..

There's no one who "does not get flats", however, I agree it's possible that they have their use if you live somewhere where you can catch a bus/call a taxi/call a friend if you do get a rare flat, and you ok with exchanging the low long term cost and lack of maintenance in exchange for needing to hit the brakes sooner.

Disc brakes can definitely be fiddly annoying - they make noise if they get wet, they tend to rub a little if you're taking the front wheel on and off. I prefer rim brakes for summer riding, but as others have pointed out for winter riding they'll wear down your rim. Drum brakes sound like the lowest maintenance - but they do have their drawbacks.

Centering a disc caliper takes two minutes and two bolts. No a big issue.

Just like that? They don't stop? Are they hard to adjust? How don't they work well, I'm curious

I think the people who are attracted to drum brakes often run wider tires which are much less prone to flats. In the 80s when I commuted on mtbs I would go many years without a flat on my commuter.

stopping power is lower than decent rim or disc brakes. the modulation is also often very soft/mushy.

Aren't drum brakes also heavier?

The drum brakes on my wife's shopping cruiser are horrible, but I'd blame it on the bike being cheap and most everything being sub par rather than the brake design. My 50cc scooter has drums front and back and they are quite effective.

With oil not much can be done, it can soak into the pad material depending on the material used. My friend got oil splashed by a broken hose from a car that was on a drag strip in the next lane over & he had to change his pads out to get stopping power back.

Interestingly enough, yesterday i rode a bike i bought for a friend years ago. Its way too small and needs its shift mechanism tuned up, but i used it to ride out into the park nearby & observe the effects of local flooding. The rim brakes worked pretty well even when 100% submerged in silty water....




Water was over the path past here & didnt wanna risk getting stuck in the muck.


Rode through this... it was 3-4 inches deep.


I may put a disc on rear of my new bike, but not sure yet.

- Andy

This guy?



- Andy

How fast were you going?

Yea those .. I'm supposing it's a Bike Friday Tandem.. or triple..

Now that the Arai Drum is not available, they have gone to using a drum brake hub in the front wheel , + rim , probably V brakes ..

Drum brakes might be a pain, but they're definitely not a "call a cab because I got a flat" pain... More of a ten second cuss fest as you mess with getting the brake unhooked

That sounds a lot like a "after extensive training in the olympic sport of drum brake removal, the gold medalist was able to remove it in 10 seconds" kind of answer.

From a quick search, here's a guy who had to go to 4 bike shops to find a guy who had the right tool to remove his drum brake -
https://www.bikeforums.net/tandem-cyc...e-removal.html

Yeah,ok.

Nebraska/Loughboro,Mass Ave,Wisc Ave...yeah,rolling hills.