Continental brakes - Wrong way round

[levarg]

I never realised I was opening such a can of worms when I originally created this thread. Some great comments coming out though. Thanks guys!

[bovlomov]

It took me several years of cycling before I thought about it, but once I had tried the front/left set up, I preferred it.

Something to do with riding position on dropped bars, something to do with signalling right... ...and probably other reasons. The front brake does about 90% of the work.

Also, I've never had the sort of front brake that could throw me over the handlebars.

[Mick F]

The front brake does about 90% of the work.

We've had discussions about this subject a few times on here, and I don't agree. More like 50% or 60% with me. I use both brakes equally and rarely - if ever - locked up the rear wheel. Yes, the front brake seems to be more powerful, but it's not. It's the fact that during hard braking it's the rear that would skid and the front that wouldn't.

Also, I've never had the sort of front brake that could throw me over the handlebars.

I naturally shift my weight rearwards when I brake. I do it automatically so that's probably why I use the brakes equally.

[pwa]

The front brake does about 90% of the work.

We've had discussions about this subject a few times on here, and I don't agree. More like 50% or 60% with me. I use both brakes equally and rarely - if ever - locked up the rear wheel. Yes, the front brake seems to be more powerful, but it's not. It's the fact that during hard braking it's the rear that would skid and the front that wouldn't.

Also, I've never had the sort of front brake that could throw me over the handlebars.

I naturally shift my weight rearwards when I brake. I do it automatically so that's probably why I use the brakes equally.

I think I have my weight relatively far back, preferring a short stem and the saddle far back. So it is going up steep hills that has a wheel lifting (front), not going down and braking. The last time I went over the bars was about fifty years ago.

[PDQ Mobile]

The front brake does about 90% of the work.

We've had discussions about this subject a few times on here, and I don't agree. More like 50% or 60% with me. I use both brakes equally and rarely - if ever - locked up the rear wheel. Yes, the front brake seems to be more powerful, but it's not. It's the fact that during hard braking it's the rear that would skid and the front that wouldn't.

Also, I've never had the sort of front brake that could throw me over the handlebars.

I naturally shift my weight rearwards when I brake. I do it automatically so that's probably why I use the brakes equally.

The "power" of the front brake is due to more weight being thrown forward when braking.
Especially downhill.
A fully laden touring bike can therefore exploit wieght over the back wheel and rear becomes more powerful.
But on an unladen bike most stopping power is at the front.
Try the "line on the road" brake test and see which brake stops in the shortest distance.

I am a "right hand front" person, died in the wool. I gain power on the front because my right grip is strongest and I am arguably more dextrous for sensitive modulation.
I cycle frequently on the Continent so gain the signalling advantage when there. I sometimes ride a motorcycle and like all my diffent "two wheels" the same way round.

[mjr]

Jan Heine's opinion: "Early bikes had only a rear brake. In France, this usually was a rim brake. The early brakes were not very powerful, so you needed lots of hand power to stop the bike. Most people are right-handed, and it made sense to control the single brake with the right hand. In Italy and Britain, the single brake was a coaster brake, and there was no brake lever at all. [...] Whatever you do, I recommend being consistent. During a panic stop, your instincts will take over, and if you are used to pulling on one lever, you’ll find that if the brakes are reversed, you are skidding the rear wheel without slowing down significantly."

Dave Moulton's opinion: "The explanation for this could be as simple as the rod operating the rear brake went down the left side of the frame to keep it clear of the chain and chainwheel on the right side"

[Mick F]

Try the "line on the road" brake test and see which brake stops in the shortest distance.

Done it, and posted my findings on here. I may try and find the thread, but it was a few years ago now.
"Front brake only" was better than "rear brake only", but nowhere near as good as "both brakes together".

I did that experiment to disprove Sheldon Brown's statements that front brake is better than both brakes. He was wrong - totally wrong.

Actually, I have D brakes on Mercian. (differential)
Front brake is dual pivot, and rear brake is single pivot. This is designed so that the rear brake doesn't have as much power available as the front. Perhaps Campag in their wisdom think this is a good thing. I certainly like them.

Generally though, front and rear brakes are identical and therefore have the same power.
The only thing limiting the rear braking effectiveness, is the rear wheel locking up and skidding. If you can limit the skidding, you'll stop quicker using both brakes.

[Brucey]

SB was correct, but only if you can bring the front brake to the limit instantly. Most folk can't (or instinctively won't) do that, not within a fraction of a second anyway. Given that you should be aiming to stop in a little over 1s from about 20mph, that doesn't leave much time to get the front brake on very near the limit, and until you do that, the rear brake can contribute usefully to you slowing down.

Motorcycle racers do get the front brake on near the limit virtually instantly. They can do this after years of practice and they crash often learning how. As soon as the front brake is on fully, the rear brake has no capacity to assist slowing down at all; there is no longer any weight over the rear wheel. Thus motorcycle racers often don't bother with the rear brake at all, or just use it for steadying the bike, or slowing the rear wheel when it is actually off the ground. Modern GP bikes often have a thumb-operated rear brake on the left. A big difference in motorbike racing is that the braking phases can last several seconds, simply because speeds are higher to start with. On a bicycle they shouldn't (from normal speeds) last more than a second or so if you really mean to stop as quickly as you can.

So for practical reasons the rear brake does usually assist usefully with slowing down if you brake from a normal speed on a bicycle, even in an emergency stop. As discussed in another thread, this arises because riders cannot instantly apply the front brake close to the limit 'by rote' as it were; the brake performance varies too much for that and by the time you have modulated the brake you ought to be stopped anyway.

cheers

[Vorpal]

Try the "line on the road" brake test and see which brake stops in the shortest distance.

Done it, and posted my findings on here. I may try and find the thread, but it was a few years ago now.
"Front brake only" was better than "rear brake only", but nowhere near as good as "both brakes together".

I did that experiment to disprove Sheldon Brown's statements that front brake is better than both brakes. He was wrong - totally wrong.

I think that it depends upon how fast you need to stop. If you aren't going to brake hard enough to risk throwing yourself over the handlebars, you are probably correct. But in my experience, if I really brake hard, the rear will skid, rather than help. It's the point at which the rear will skid that front-only braking becomes the most effective. This point is not identical for all of us. It depends upon weight, weight distribution, and how much one shifts weight back during braking. You have said that your naturally shift your weight backwards during braking, so it is likely that you can obtain higher decceleration under two-wheel braking than most folks.

[Brucey]

even if the rear is skidding, it is still helping to slow you down to some extent. If you are upright (rather than leant over) it doesn't cause a catastrophic loss of control either.

My guess is that most folk don't manage to get the front brake on 'by rote' (i.e. initially) to any more than 70-80% of what is required to lift the rear wheel off the ground fully. This being the case there is still 20-30% braking capacity possible in the rear wheel.

cheers

[The utility cyclist]

To answer your question I have no idea. However I swapped by brakes around nearly 40 years ago because I used to find on my daily commute that I had a right turn on a fairly steep downhill section where I would easily lock up the rear wheel, particularly in the wet, braking with my left hand and signalling with my right hand. I've run my brakes that way ever since.

Surely you would rather lock your back wheel up as opposed to your front brake, particularly with only one hand on the bars, having seen the pros panic brake when coming up to a bend at too fast a speed and/or poor line and lock a front wheel up it wasn't pretty, a back wheel that has locked up is far easier to control.

Personally I back brake a lot more than the front for most of my riding, whether that be giving it the beans on the carbon racer, tootling with the grandkids, commuting/utility riding or touring. I'm comfortable with the brake being on the left as the most often time one really needs to indicate* is for right turns/changing lanes to the right.
I've had bikes with brakes run the other way around and honestly I didn't mind, just adapt to it and if you're actually thinking about speed, hazards, distance etc then rarely should you be in such a position where you need to grab a massive handful and 'forget' which lever leads to which brake and that have a significant influence on retardation of speed.

*even though road position should dictate where you are going anyway so is frankly pointless to all but the clueless who'll ignore hand signals anyway.

if you are on a bike (esp with dropped bars) which has a powerful front brake, using it to slow down in a controlled fashion whilst one hand is on the handlebars (and the other one is signalling) is kind of tricky. Even moreso downhill. I can understand why someone changed their brakes over if they found they had to make that exact manoeuvre every single day.

In fact this is so awkward to do that when making a left turn downhill, I usually don't even try to brake and signal at the same time.

cheers

Aren't left turn signals unnecessary in any case, as you intimated, keeping control is far more desirable than a signal that may unbalance you and/or give you less control particularly in less than ideal conditions or road surfaces. It doesn't do much except for someone maybe exiting the turn, one should have already slowed and taken a further right position in the lane so that you open the turn up so that it's safer for you and others possibly hidden if you were to take a tight angle in hugging the kerb. So it doesn't bother me a jot that someone exiting has had to consider for a second or two more when to exit at the expense of my and others safety.

[The utility cyclist]

I have a bike with LH front brake and all the others have RH front. I've grown used to swapping. Same as you'd have to when riding a hire bike in the US or mainland Europe.
I brake mostly using the front. Although it could skid in extremis the weight transference under braking will make this much less likely than locking the rear.
When I was a kid several mates said they'd been told never to use the front brake for fear of going over the handlebars With 1950s brakes

I don't know about the 1950s but by the late 70s plenty of kids could do what would later be termed as an 'endo' either by design or by misfortune.

[Debs]

I don't know how it came to be but over the years the motorcycle industry has more or less standardised the front brake lever for right hand.

So anyone coming form riding a motorcycle to a riding bicycle, or hybrid bikers who ride both pedal and motored version of said single tracked vehicle, will automatically take to having a front brake on the right hand.

As far as bicycles are concerned, the only thing that really matters is the rider is aware and automatically capable of functioning the braking action with the way the brakes present themselves.
Personally, being an ex-motorcyclist, i find having a rear brake on the right-hand lever to be cack bleeding awkward and even dangerous, so i never have them this way around on my bikes.
The good news is that bicycles are fairly ambidextrous for brake levers, so we can choose to swop them either ways around to suit oneself.

[bovlomov]

...and if you're actually thinking about speed, hazards, distance etc then rarely should you be in such a position where you need to grab a massive handful and 'forget' which lever leads to which brake and that have a significant influence on retardation of speed

Indeed. If it's not a rare event, you should probably rethink your riding style. Anticipation is ambidextrous.

[Mick F]

Kids are more likely to do a header than a 13st middle-aged bloke.

I had rod brakes when I was first riding in the 1950s, and they were very good indeed. Yes, very good indeed.
Had I been a 13st middle-aged bloke back then, I may have felt very differently about them.