Let's talk about brakes

[Hillhater]

I'd really like to see a video of you locking up a front wheel with a "V" brake in the dry.

Front lock ups are not my party trick, (too much pain!).... but "stoppies" are a close equivalent (just use less brake !..)
..still not me tho' ! :wink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkQuLuNcajM&feature=related

 

[amberwolf]

I've got a Sachs 3-speed hub with drum brake (coaster style, I think) that I will be installing in a rear 24" wheel for CrazyBike2, just so that I have a rear brake at all, and so I can see if 3 speeds is enough for me (only have one front chainring usable now). We'll see how it works out in the next few days, I hope. Might be longer if the other stuff I have to get done for the Undead Race takes too much time.

 

[rebelpilot]

I rode a Japanese market bike for a couple years, common to see rear drum brakes. It was fine, but didn't experience any clear advantage to it over good rim brakes except perhaps less delay during rain/wet soak conditions?

There are so many posts on this forum dismissing the importance of quick brake response.
What do you say when a kid darts out in front of you on a wet day? I wasn't ready?
Less delay when wet is a clear advantage IMHO.

 

[Ykick]

I rode a Japanese market bike for a couple years, common to see rear drum brakes. It was fine, but didn't experience any clear advantage to it over good rim brakes except perhaps less delay during rain/wet soak conditions?

There are so many posts on this forum dismissing the importance of quick brake response.
What do you say when a kid darts out in front of you on a wet day? I wasn't ready?
Less delay when wet is a clear advantage IMHO.

Do the same thing we did when motorcycles adapted to disc brakes and before they figured out the drilling/slotted thing. Slow down according to conditions, lightly test your brakes every so often so that you never carry much of a water barrier on brake friction surfaces. Maintain constant awareness at all times so that you're not surprised when a kid, adult, animals, and/or any space junk comes your way.

Basically, take many MSF courses, practice and be prepared about what to do for every situation.

 

[spinningmagnets]

We can construct an obscure scenario to argue any point of view...Imaging its drizzling, not raining hard, there a pothole ahead you don't see because its full of water...when you hit it, the bike still rolls, but the wet rim is bent a little, and the rim-brakes are suddenly non-op....etc...

I still vote for front disc, I like how they wipe off the splashed mud and stay cleaner longer, compared to the rim splashing near the road surface. It might not have been raining when you started the ride, and a car may force you to bail into a pathway that you would have avoided on your own.

I have crashed before, in a sudden and unexpected manner. I was lucky I didn't break a hand bone in the fall, but not having gloves on, it gave me a road-rash that was very debilitating for a long time (its OK now). If you end up with a broken hand through no fault of your own, much better to have a broken bone with no road rash...so I wear gloves (plus helmet) and I recommend all reasonable safety measures. Front disc is well worth the extra price...(and nothing wrong with drum, either)

 

[BIG BEAM]

I was going to get eggs from a friends house about 2 mi. outside of town today.It was a rainy pissy upstate NY day but not raining when I left.While at my friends house it started raining and on the way home I had to make a quick stop when a guy backed out of his driveway.I hit the front brake and for a second nothing happened so I used the coaster brake.Buy the time I hit the coaster brake the rim brake started to grip so all was well.

My question is why don't more people use front drum brakes ?they don't get wet or dirty and will stop in all weather(like my coaster brake).

DON

 

[wookey]

I was going to get eggs from a friends house about 2 mi. outside of town today.It was a rainy pissy upstate NY day but not raining when I left.While at my friends house it started raining and on the way home I had to make a quick stop when a guy backed out of his driveway.I hit the front brake and for a second nothing happened so I used the coaster brake.Buy the time I hit the coaster brake the rim brake started to grip so all was well.

My question is why don't more people use front drum brakes ?they don't get wet or dirty and will stop in all weather(like my coaster brake).

DON

I don't know. They are common in Holland (I have a Batavus dutch bike with hub brakes front and rear - the type is a shimano roller brake). They work well and appear to last more or less forever without maintenance, making them a good choice for commuter and utility bikes. In the UK bikes are mostly rim brakes for one sort or another (caliper, cantilever, v-brakes), although disc brakes seem to be steadily taking over, first in mountain bikes and increasingly in all bikes. Roller, drum and coaster brakes are almost unheard of here. BIke brakes do seem to be one of those things that varies significantly from country to country.

 

[neptronix]

In cars, drum brakes are far less effective than disc brakes.
That's probably why!

A better solution would be some type of covering over a disc brake to prevent it from being soaked. That is why cars do not have this problem! I suppose why they do not have covers is that they would be an inconvenience.

 

[John in CR]

I suppose why they do not have covers is that they would be an inconvenience.

A cover would reduce cooling air flow. I suspect that the drum brakes would be more susceptible to fade, though I haven't used them to know.

 

[neptronix]

I suppose why they do not have covers is that they would be an inconvenience.

A cover would reduce cooling air flow. I suspect that the drum brakes would be more susceptible to fade, though I haven't used them to know.

It would, but the question is how much air do disc brakes really need? in a car, they get far less passing air, yet they function fine.
One could devise a sort of air channeling system. Or simply put a cover on top; sorta like a fender.

 

[blueb0ttle2]

The drum brake is in!
The verdict: hmmmm. Not as good as I hoped. It feels different. I'm not going to say it's any worse than the D-brakes, but it did take some getting used to. I was able to commute safely today, and if you are careful it should be fine. I'll fiddle around with it some more, and post pictures as soon as I can.
These brakes are NOT for the 40 MPH club by any means
I wanted something that was workable, easy to adjust, and functional in the rain.

I suspect that I need to change my brake handles, oddly enough. The Ezip's are made of plastic. Any recommendations for nice steel ones with the safety switch?

 

[Drunkskunk]

The drum brake is in!
I suspect that I need to change my brake handles, oddly enough. The Ezip's are made of plastic. Any recommendations for nice steel ones with the safety switch?

You'll need a good stout brake handle. I'm going for a set of Moped brake handles to use with my drum brakes. they have a brake switch built in. Drum brakes normaly feel weird, sort of spongy and wooden compared to rim or disk, and much harder to lock up

 

[BIG BEAM]

I suppose why they do not have covers is that they would be an inconvenience.

A cover would reduce cooling air flow. I suspect that the drum brakes would be more susceptible to fade, though I haven't used them to know.

That's another reason why 2 types of brakes are an advantage.They both have different attributes.
DON

 

[dingoEsride]

Drum brakes normaly feel weird, sort of spongy and wooden compared to rim or disk, and much harder to lock up

I went to the LBS recently to pick up spokes for my mtb and they had a nice looking new cruiser style bike with drums and gave the levers a squeeze they also felt a bit soft or spongy but curios to know how they perform, maybe i shoulda looked interested and take her for a ride

 

[Drunkskunk]

Drum brakes normaly feel weird, sort of spongy and wooden compared to rim or disk, and much harder to lock up

I went to the LBS recently to pick up spokes for my mtb and they had a nice looking new cruiser style bike with drums and gave the levers a squeeze they also felt a bit soft or spongy but curios to know how they perform, maybe i shoulda looked interested and take her for a ride

I've found them to be more consistant than rim brakes, but less than disks. you can feather them to scrub off small amounts of speed much easier on hills, and they will handle more heat than any thing else. But they take more hand pressure, and they "feel" less effective even if the actual stopping distance is the same or better than other styles of brakes.

 

[miuan]

I've used various rim and hydro disc brakes before on my commuter, then switched to quality V-brakes. Wow, these rock. They are the older Shimano XT's with parallelogram, BR-M750. Wonderful brakes with immense power.

 

[blueb0ttle2]

I've been using the hub brake for some weeks now, and I'd like to put a little caveat out there...
make sure your cable is TIGHT. I've had the cable work loose a couple of times fortunately not on emergencies! But be prepared!

 

[blueb0ttle2]

I've found them to be more consistant than rim brakes, but less than disks. you can feather them to scrub off small amounts of speed much easier on hills, and they will handle more heat than any thing else. But they take more hand pressure, and they "feel" less effective even if the actual stopping distance is the same or better than other styles of brakes.

It does takes some getting used to, but they do stop me in a good amount of time. I'm quite happy with their performance in the 15-10 MPH range.

Edit: Unclear phraseology

 

[Dingo2024]

I have been using Shimano Nexus roller brakes on my build and they are 'pretty good'

I have used 4 finger brake levers to get more leverage and replaced the stock cables with Shimano XTR to reduce cable stretch this has definatley helped..but as the bike is capable of over 40mph I think caution is the important factor to consider

Ian

 

[tom2slow]

Apples to Crab apples time:

I have 2 trikes, 1 is a Wizwheels that has discs up front and my love is a ICE T, my every day ride.
The ICE has SA drums and I totally love them. The dealer I bought from has never ever had to replace a pad and they will stop my heavy butt on my heavy trike with all the heavy junk I carry no sweat. I have found the maintenance to be so easy, and adjusting them can be done in just a heartbeat.

YMMV

--T

 

[llile]

Most of what I know about bicycle components comes from taking apart bikes. There are a lot of new types of components out there that don't show up on the 80's and 90's junk bikes I find in garage sales to cut up into recumbents and E-bikes, so I don't understand them yet. At one time, brakes came in two flavors - center pull or side-pull. Now there are a dozen kinds of brakes. There has been a real welcome revolution in bike components in the last ten - fifteen years!

I go to a bike shop, and get quotes on setting up a bike with disk brakes, it is like $180 in parts! Yow, I have built whole recumbent bikes for less. That keeps scaring me off. I am willing to spend a wad on electric motors and batteries, but brakes have always been a "free" commodity, and it wrankles me to have to fork over so much for a setup.

Of course you have to weld on some tabs to mount the disc brake actuators, that isn't too intimidating. But a big part of the cost is spoking up a custom wheel around a special hub made to accept disk brakes.

I understand there are disk brakes that can screw onto a hub. Are they made for the same hub as the gear clusters? If this is the case, a 20" rear wheel (a commodity I have available) would turn into a 20" front wheel with disk brakes. Anybody used them?

 

[dogman dan]

I've seen the screw on's used only on rear wheel motors, that have the same threading on the non gear side. Pretty hard to find good disk mount wheels in the junk stuff. Most of em I've found were pretty dang bent. But it at least gets you halfway there, junk bent disk wheel + junk straight rim + lacing.

There must be screw on hubs that aren't motors, but I have only seen disk wheels with the bolt on in pedal stuff. It gets very very hard, I've found, to mix parts between bikes from the 80s-90s with anything new. Pretty cheap calipers can be had though, in so so cable pull stuff.

As for using the rear cluster threads on existing wheels, I think you would have it threaded the right way for one wheel, and the other would unscrew when the brakes were applied. So your disk would have to be on the same side on both wheels, whichever orientation tightens the screw on disk would be the same way on both wheels.

 

[amberwolf]

I have not yet used them, but plan to: Flipping a rear hub left-to-right so the threads for the freewheel are now on the left does result in a threading direction that will automatically tighten when braking (although it would loosen if driving the wheel from it, like with a gear cluster).

There are also existing front (and rear) thread-on hubs designed for thread-on disc adapters; I have one of these from Karma, along with it's matching plain rear hub (threaded only on the right side). Mine are steel, but I've seen them in aluminum, too.

In my case, I wish to take that front and rear hub, cut in the middle, and mate the two threaded halves together in the middle so I now have a "flip flop" hub (threaded on both ends), so I can put a gear cluster on the right side and a disc brake on the left. That way I get disc brakes for CrazyBike2 (or it's descendant, more likely). These hubs are also sold new, designed this way, for the rear, but I don't know what pricing is.

Sometimes at thrift stores you can find disc-brake bikes; After some time of searching I did finally find a cheap Mongoose with such, using bolt-on front disc, cable-calipers, etc. Was more than I would normally have paid for any thrift store bike but worth it for all the parts on it, and the bike itself was actually rideable right then and there, except for a flat tire (easily fixed with Slime and an air pump).

Police auctions often have such bikes, too, and sometimes they go cheap. Depends on who else is there and what else they are spending money on.

 

[dogman dan]

For some reason I was picturing in my mind a tadpole trike. one wheel would be ok, as amberwolf points out, with the disk on the left. Do tadpoles have both brakes on the left? if so no problem then.
There might be some issues with dishing though, using a rear hub on a front wheel, so sorting out the disk alignment could be a pain.

 

[blueb0ttle2]

While we're on this subject, does anyone have a reccomendation for steel front disc-brake forks?
It needs to be affordable yet reliable, a friend of mine has an alumium disk-brake fork that we are replacing, so we can mount a motor
Cheers.