More on bicycle brakes

Sheldon Brown is an uber bicycle geek and a foremost expert in fixed gear bikes. With all this talk about fixed gear and braking, Sheldon has chimed in with an article. His conclusion is that learning to use a front brake properly is the best technique for stopping and that brakeless fixies are a bad idea.

Here is an excerpt from the entire article:


Conventional Wisdom

Conventional wisdom says to use both brakes at the same time. This is probably good advice for beginners, who have not yet learned to use their brakes skillfully, but if you don't graduate past this stage, you will never be able to stop as short safely as a cyclist who has learned to use the front brake by itself.

Maximum Deceleration--Panic Stops

The fastest that you can stop any bike of normal wheelbase is to apply the front brake so hard that the rear wheel is just about to lift off the ground. In this situation, the rear brake cannot contribute to stopping power, since it has no traction.