Why would you take a brake off seasonally?

Brakes are not a fashion statement...


I have a brake on mine...on both my bikes I almost never use the back brake. I rode brakeless for a little, but with all the hills here I either run a front brake or buy a new tire every few months from skidding...with a brake is much cheaper. There is a hill on my commute where I get to around 40mph daily. Because of the turn at the bottom (and the fear of a car pulling out in front of me when I am going 35mph) I simply need a front brake. It is impossible for me to stop in time without one. I can see brakeless if you don't have hills, but to ride safely at speed, brakeless doesn't work.

I ride with front and rear brakes and hoods on my road conversion for Century rides and Central Park Triathalons. I ride brakeless on my track bike.

I ride brakeless - it's cleaner and easier to lock up a bike. I flip my front wheel toward the frame (think bar spinz) and lock my u-lock thru the rim and the downtube. You can't do this with a brake caliper on your fork or if your stem or bar hits the top tube. Mine doesn't with a zero rise stem and riser. The ability to lock up like this is a real consideration when you live in a city with one of the highest bike theft rates in the country. When I lived in a hilly part of Portland, I rode a front brake. It's ultimately faster with a brake for sure because the deceration is better, but I'm not out to win races on my fixed gear. I bring out my geared bikes for going fast and far and those bikes never get locked up, just ridden.

yes

I'll be running a break soon, but currently I do not.

http://www.papermag.com/blogs/limp_l.jpg

"JUST GIVE ME SOMETHIN TO BRAKE!!"

i've been riding "brakeless"(brake is still on the bike) since monday when I ****ed up my brake trying to adjust it and couldn't figure out how to fix it and rode to the store to get it fixed, just for them to be closed. Since i'd never actually ridden brakeless and I live in a pretty hilly area, it was a bit nerve racking. I have a few friends that ride brakeless here and i guess they're either morons or stick to near the river where its flat.

Off Topic

Homtown *****

So... after riding 6 months brakeless in a town that is fairly bike conscious, I put a brake on this winter. I don't know why I ever rode without one. No matter how much I tried to justify it as O.K. I was just kidding myself. The 'zen' of brakeless or the rush or the need to be a better biker is just BS. It is elitist.

There is no reason not to have a brake in my opinion.

P.S. In two months I have yet to touch the brake

Changing my original answer to "yes" right now.

With the winter, my v-brake cantilevers didn't get much use and ended up freezing up. Turns out that me not being bothered to do something about this when one seemed to 'stick' was a slippery slope to no-brakes territory, they're now firmly ceased onto the fork bosses.

I soaked them with WD and smacked the crap out of them with a hammer but they just weren't coming off, so I've had to leave them on.

The brake system now being totally useless, I stripped the rest of the brake assembly (pads, lever, cables) off and just hammered the levers away from the wheel and left them and the headset cable router/guide on.

It's a little hairy without a brake, but as I've been riding without using my brake for a couple of months through winter anyway, I'm kinda used to it. I might need a new fork, or just get a road caliper to re-fit a brake to my bike. Epic fail for lack of care/maintenance!

nvm

This is a "hot topic" about every two months and there was absolutely no need to bump this thread, especially considering all you did was link to the current discussion.

Sorry. I haven't been here very long :(
Now we've both bumped it twice :P
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in case any one missed the original



http://stupidhurts.org//cpg14/displa...121&fullsize=1
http://stupidhurts.org/wp-content/fl...27-08_1444.jpg
http://stupidhurts.org//cpg14/albums...l__MG_1531.jpg

and yes i ride with brakes
I used to be pretty

Hit a curb face first during an alley cat in atlanta. My bottom teeth went through my top lip after a hipster clipped my front wheel he was riding brake less.

http://stupidhurts.org//cpg14/albums...27-08_1444.jpg

Sounds like a perfect example of "**** happens".

Maybe.

But options other than "moron" and "stick to near the river" exist.

Perhaps some of them gear way down, or, perhaps they go downhill no faster than they go uphill.

"Moron" and "stick to near the river" work, too.

I'll ride brakeless if I have my bike geared in the low 60s, but typically im in the low 80s running a brake. It takes all of 20 seconds to remove a front brake from your bike so I don't really see any reason to not run one if your riding in traffic.

Meh.

Who needs brakes?

All they do is slow you down.

I'm 40 years old (to speak to the earlier post saying older riders are more likely to use brakes) and I've been riding brakeless for years.

One observation -- pro-brakes people often like to argue that they get all sorts of grief from brakeless riders for having brakes, and yet in discussions like these, 90% of the name-calling and insults are from the pro-brake riders. Its like, why can't you just be okay with people riding the way they want? True fact -- I've never once heard a brakeless rider insult and pro-brake rider, but I've heard pro-brake riders insult brakeless riders dozens and dozens of times. Read this thread if you don't believe me.

No brakes

I think most of it stems from the fact that your average brakeless rider is much more dangerous to other cyclists and their surroundings (peds, pets, children, etc.).

The local fixie kids are a good example... never stop for red lights, stop signs, basically ride like jackasses, making the rest of us look bad.

I ride brakes because the 'coolness' of everyone going "OMG, your bike has no brakes!" wore off. Also, i've had some close calls where I couldn't stop fast enough without brakes.

I was doing a group ride with some local guys who all ride fixed maybe three weeks back. A car pulled out in front of the group pretty quickly and caught everyone off guard. I threw my weight back and bit and laid on the front brake as to not smash into it. None of the brakeless guys could stop that fast and one ran right into me (another hit the car). He had bull horns angled down just a bit. To add to brakeless, this guy was riding without tape on his bars as well.

Put two and two together, the guy ran into me at a decent speed with pointed down bullhorns that were not tapped. I had riding shorts on, a nice little piece of the back of my thigh got clipped off by his handlebar. No stitches or anything, but some skin was gone and a nice bruise was there for a bit. Brakes make me feel safer in situations where i must react very fast. Do I hate people who do not rock brakes? No, not at all. It just sucked when you ran into me..haha

.Chris

I ride brakeless because I know when to get in the zone and ride fast/when to cruise slowly and be in tune with my surroundings. When I'm riding through downtown where there are tons of pedestrians, clueless drivers and other bull**** happening, there's no need to be hauling ass (even with a brake). But, if I ride across town one block behind the main streets that run through downtown, it's a quiet residential street where there is no traffic.

There are plenty of roads where I live that aren't congested with traffic, delivery trucks and people running stop signs. Those are the roads where I open it up.