But would having a front brake still slow you down faster than the drum brake in the rear?

"But would having a front brake still slow you down faster than the drum brake in the rear?"

Not in this case, no. The drum brakes are incredible, esp. in the wet, and when I really, really needed to stop, I used it. I've actually ridden on two different drum brakes: a Sachs and a Shimano nexus. The Shimano was better-- you had more fine control on the brake-- but both were excellent stoppers. Either one stopped quicker than the brakes on the front, no matter the conditions. Note that Shimano also makes a front drum brake hub, and I think Sachs does (did?) as well. I have not ridden with a front drum brake, but have seen European commuters set up with drum brakes front and rear.

In general, I agree with your assesment of the superiority of the front brake over the back for braking.

I'm not convinced that any drum/disc/rim rear brake would result in a shorter stopping distance. As you apply any brake (front or back) I think the deceleration will cause your rear wheel to unweight, reducing the downward force holding the rear tire to the road. It makes sense to me that, in order to get optimium stopping distance, you'd want to have maximum deceleration, therefore minimum downward force on the rear tire, which would make any rear brake nearly useless as you are decelerating.

The one obvious exception to me is if a particular drum or disc rear brake allowed you better control so you could get closer to maximum deceleration without skidding the tire. It would still seem you'd be better off with the best brake on the front wheel anyway.

Does anyone actually have any facts about this? Experiments?

I call it the 'fixth sense'

not really...

He most likely thought you were riding a singlespeed coaster. In which case, not having a rear brake is a bad idea.

Also, he seems smart, aware of the fact that a safe bike is more important than a shiny helmet.

nothing but a fully enclosed spider hut can save us now

I don't have any examples but if you do some searching on automobiles & racing I think you'll find that almost ALL of braking is done in front. I believe I've read somewhere up to 90%. Its a very high number. This could be due to a higher amount of weigh transfer from suspension affects though. Different dynamics might apply to a solid framed bike.

That said, I'd wager that to get any where near the same stopping power with a rear brake of any sort on a bike you'd have to drop your bum behind the seat post to keep the weight applied to the rear axel. Any other position you risk skidding/locking that rear wheel sooner than if using front braking. Meaning you could never approach the same results, despite how good of a setup you have.

But, this is just 2 cents from a newbie...

Yes, its approximately 90% on the majority of cars, due to having suspension in the front and rear and because the engine is in the front. Cars with better weight distribution (this is often given in a front/rear percentage ratio, like 62/38, a nice sporty car will have 50/50) stay a little flatter, and mid and rear engine cars are even better, but even then, only by not much more than a few percentage points. On a bike it is not as extreme but certainly noticable. For a while on my old Fuji road bike, I would use the rear brake almost exclusively, causing me to skid at nearly every stop (once again, due to weight transfer). All I can say is that rear tires weren't lasting me long. I'm thinking that the height of the center of gravity affects this as well, as the tendency for the object coming to a stop (in this case being the rider and the bike) to rotate forward (and over) would be reduced - so on a recumbent, say, you might be just fine with a rear brake only. That could be an interesting experiment, though.

That was a bit of a ramble, I'm sure there was some real information in there somewhere though.

Uh...1 second per 10MPH...so, if you are traveling at 20MPH, in general, in a motor vehicle, a safe trailing time would be 2 seconds.

Poking around I was able to find this link comparing a coaster vs rim brakes. My favorite line towards the bottom: "Smoke was suspected".

It only circumstantially mentions the front vs rear dilemma, it too is towards the bottom.

Comparison

It's all about the front brake. The ultimate shortest stopping distance is with your butt hung out back as far as it can get and your front tire at the limit of static friction with the road, and when you come to a full stop you're balanced on the front wheel a fraction from an endo.

The way friction works is that it increases linearly with forward force and with object weight to the limit of static friction, and then drops slightly for dynamic friction. This means that a skidding tire can not slow you down as fast as a rolling tire, and that putting as much weight on the front by allowing the stop to accelerate your body weight upwards throughout the stop (and hence increasing the downwards force on the ground) can decrease your stopping distance. Just don't go over the bars.

:)

I suppose if I were him, I would use two brakes too. He seems to need both of them. Some folks tell me my one front brake is redundant. They prefer no brakes at all.

A long time ago, I gave up trying to rid the world of every bit of ignorance I encounter. This guy was pretty obviously not familiar with track bikes or fixed gear street machines.

I doubt I would have explained to him exactly why one brake is safe, even if time permitted. If he would have simply asked why I had only one brake, I would have gone through the whole scenario with examples and a detailed description of how a fixed gear bike works and why I ride one.

Snide comments don't rate the same courtesy as honest questions. I would have just ignored him and let him remain foolish.

Dan