Long distance fixed brake question
 

A recent proof-of-concept 80 mile ride on my fix went well (neither I nor the bike broke despite the best efforts of all the hills), so I am contemplating both an upcoming century and a 200k. Both rides are not terribly hilly. My question for the groups concerns brakes:

Is there a general consensus as to whether two are a good idea for century and longer distances? I did my recent ride with a single tied to a cyclocross lever -- my normal around-town setup. I certainly use the brake more on longer routes to preserve my legs. I'm in Chicago, so most of my training routes are pancake flat, and I'd rather not have the brake clutter if I don't need it.

I can see the theoretical pros and cons (i.e. a second brake would be nice for redundancy), but I am more looking for first hand accounts (i.e. "dude, you're gonna hate mile 110 without a second brake" or "I have ridden 600k brevets and almost never used the rear brake" etc.)

Two brakes are a lot easier on your hands if you have lots of long descents.

I learned this on one of my hilly double century rides.

Ii use the rear brake as a "drag brake" on downhills to keep my cadence to a reasonable level; I like my knees and will do all I can to preserve their condition, including *not* using them for rear-wheel braking. The front brake is my "serious brake" when I need top-notch stopping power.

This is what I suspected. The need to use the "drag brake" to keep cadence under control seems to get more pressing when your doing more miles too -- to keep from using up your legs in the downhills.

Another question then: do you both (or all if anyone else wants to relate) use standard drop-type brake levers? I don't know that I could get by in the city without my cyclocross lever. It works from all hand positions except in the drops, and I'm rarely in the drops while training in town. I was thinking of just adding a second lever of the same type. I worry that the smaller lever might be fatiguing on really long stuff, though I haven't had much problem with that on my longer rides at this point.

I run a front brake only, 2 standard dropbar levers, only 1 with a cable. That has been fine up to 600 km so far. There aren't many long descents in my part of Oz. The Great Dividing Range isn't the Alps.

If you can't comfortably use the drops, why are you using them, particularly on a long ride? Lift the bars a bit and use all the positions, you'll want to do so sooner or later.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't clear. I do use the drops comfortably on long rides away from the city or on bike paths, but a large chunk of my miles come from in-town street riding. On the streets (in Chicago) I don't generally feel comfy for long in the drops both from a visibility and a maneuverability standpoint. I can see better and twitch to avoid cars much better while up on the top of the bars.

I believe cross levers are designed to give quite a bit of leverage so hand fatigue shouldn't be much of an issue. Road levers give you an extra hand position on the hoods--great for climbing out of the saddle, and for resting your neck and back from using the drops on long level stretches.

I use both brakes with road levers. I did a 250 mile Fleche ride this Spring with a fellow who used the same setup LWaB described. He didn't mention any problems from not having a rear brake.

my only advice is to keep the skidding/leg-slowing down to a minimum - i did a two-day double-century on a pista & the second day my knees were killin me!

(due to lots of skidding/slowing down with my legs - i had a front brake but never used it, but i should have to save my knees)

I have made a pretty concerted effort to lay off the skidding and leg braking lately as I've been working on building distance. Both my upcoming century training ride and the intended 200k brevet are pretty flat so I shouldn't have too much trouble relying on the brake.

I think I am going to go with the single brake for the time being. It got me through recent rides on some pretty massive hills in WI so it should be sufficient for now. I'll revisit the idea of a second brake for longer rides if I find myself wishing I had one at the end of one of these.

Thanks for all the help! It's kinda odd that there isn't really a single web locale for long distance fixed riding (is there?). I'm an ultrarunning vet and could not have done the ultras that I did without a few of the key repositories of ultra info (gear, pacing, nutrition etc). Anyone want to start one?

http://www.fixed.org.uk/ is a pretty good place to start, although there isn't really a lot of difference between riding brevets on gears or on fixed.