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#brakes#brake#coaster#bike#rim#riding#kids#control#disc#braking
Discussion (44 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I have hydraulic disc brakes on my bike, and they are the greatest thing ever! Yeah, they require maintenance, but totally worth it.
Living on a hill (like I had to go up a ~150m 23% wall to get home, and go braking down it to go places) meant I had to spend frequently on rim brake shoes and, eventually, rims. The frequent rain and mud makes it to the rim brake shoes and diminish braking power if you don't keep them clean.
That doesn't happen with hydraulics - clean them with alcohol, bleed them once each year and you're set. I agree, they're the greatest thing ever.
I'll never forget when I was a kid (13 or so) going for a ride in the city during a downpour, slamming on the brakes because a pedestrian stepped out in front of me (mixed pedestrian/bike zone, no cars, we both assumed no-one else was dumb enough to be out), and ... nothing happened. Damn near shat my pants. Luckily the pedestrian saw me and jumped out of the way.
In retrospect that was too much downpour. Could literally see water spraying out my brakes. The hot cocoa after was fantastic tho
I wore one set out... But I bought a new old stock bike that was made the same year as me... the tubes were ok and the tires are fine, but the brakes wore through very quickly. Probably 200 miles or less.
Skill issue ;-) My first bike I learned to ride on was a BMX with coaster brakes that was part of the fun! Rip down the street then slam the pedal back to leave skid marks. And who didn't love slowing down a bit, then slamming the coaster brake while turning the handle bars to do a sick rear sideways skid. My next bike was also a BMX with a rotor and front/rear pegs. That lead to way more spills trying to do stunts on the pegs or spin the handle bars. Never got good at the stunts part.
Might have worked better for a smaller, lighter me but I would like to give coaster brakes a go again on a proper sized BMX.
Coaster brakes didn't tend to noticably drag and were easy to lock up.
When I got access to v-brakes, yeah you can lock those up no problem... Lots of fun. A little tricky to learn modulation with when you're coming from older style rim brakes though.
Childhood nostalgia? They are indeed terrible brakes from a riding perspective. But a) no cables or pads to mess up, b) beginner friendly and c) skidding. Great for kids riding around the neighborhood, the only real purpose.
It's also great for getting on tall bikes at a standstill, since you can lock the pedal and use it to step up, you do need to quickly start cycling though.
Cable disc brakes have come a very long way and there are some decent models that require very little maintenance and work great.
Also for every skid you get on a coaster brake I'll raise you a nose Endo with the front disc brake!
This guy fox!
My -favorite- setup for Discs, at least use to be, Avid BB7s with Avid Speed Dial levers, with Flak Jacket Housings.
That combination was super simple to 'dial in' (Hydraulic brakes tend to be a lot more inconsistent on 'feel' unless you are very persistent about bleeding and know how to use a disc tuning fork) and honestly had a lot less overall drag than I've experienced with most hydraulic discs. Replacing cables is way easier than re-doing hydraulic lines, also you don't have to worry as much about overheating janking up your fluid. Only drawback is, yes, make sure your cables are set up right and clamped down good.
But yes, Coaster brakes suck, especially since 'failure' means either rebuilding the wheel or outright replacing, because nope, not gonna do that sort of hub job.
The kids bikes that require them ate also made of mild steel and with more than my Enduro bike.
Don't buy a cheap, department store kids bike. You can get multiple kids through a quality bike and still sell it for like $100 less than you paid.
If you've got coaster brakes I don't even know if you can learn to trackstand (you need to both slightly pedal forward and brake, and adjust by slightly pedaling backward): trackstand looks like you're idle but micro-adjustments are constantly happening.
Then I take it probably could wheelie a bicycle with coaster brakes but I fear it'd be hard: same things, you do micro-adjustements and they're not only done with the rear brake. I'm pretty sure I do pedal backward a bit when I do wheelies.
And when I readjust the position of my feet on a bicycle: I do it while backpedalling.
Last time I used a bike with coaster brakes I realized how dependent I became on being able to pedal backwards.
Damn well it was! I remember we used to play tag on bikes. But when we switched to hand brakes, it became impossible, as you need a free hand and speed control at the same time.
Another disadvantage not mentioned in the post is that with coaster brakes the pedals can get trapped by the kickstand. I don't remember the details because this was a long time ago, but I accidentally found myself in a situation where I couldn't pedal forward because the kickstand was in the way, and couldn't pedal backward because the brakes engaged. I don't remember how I fixed it.
Thanks for unlocking that memory for me, it's been decades since I had to know that.
A-ha, I think that's why I ended up doing.
And thanks to you as well!
Take your weight off the seat, grab the back of the seat behind you and lift enough so the rear wheel loses traction and then you can push the pedals forward a bit.
Not ideal, but possible.
So if its in the way, they're backpedaling.
The way to solve it is to lift the bike's rear wheel and pedal like normal. That's it. No unbolting needed.
Very accurate.
This is interesting, I recall having some of these as a kid.
I'd say the key drawback not mentioned is that, in many riding conditions (such as but not limited to riding when in close proximity to vehicles, riding in high wind, riding in proximity to severe drops or road discontinuities, riding with heavy loads, riding downhill with luggage encountering sharp bends, repositioning legs for a hard ascent, etc.) you cannot always freely alter your physical stance to apply additional pressure to the braking system (as it may upset other concerns) nor can you afford a short latency to reposition to your stronger leg before applying the brake (or a short burst of climbing on difficult terrain).
So while functional in most conditions, I'd say they are in fact objectively inferior in terms of latency and control and thus safety and utility in many realistic conditions.
What could be an improvement (and may have been made already) is a speed-gated clutch, that is to say, slow reverse is permissible but a burst above the gate speed enables braking. This could solve a minority of the issues in terms of control at the cost of complexity.
Concurring with what you say, I learned all of the obscure failure modes of coaster brakes the hard way. Today I would not put them on anything but a maybe a kids' bike or beach cruiser. You can't guarantee that your feet will be in the right place at the right time to stop the bike.
Among other failures, I've experienced coaster brake "fading" on a descent when my house was at the top of a hill.
Adding a front brake is an improvement but not a panacea. You really need reliable two-wheel braking. It's not just for redundancy but for actual control of the bike during hard braking.
Few cycle tourists seem to optimize for using navigation tools or holding cameras while riding. Oldschool Europeans used to mount maps on their handlebar bags, but I haven't seen that in yonks. It might be common on a short-hop or produced-for-youtube thing, but to my mind it's not really the same mental space as touring, which anyone who has done it would understand: long distances, often daily goals or pre-nav, strong engagement with topographic change and natural environment = ~no need for while-riding lookups. Sure, if the road is well-surfaced and there's nobody on it, or it's a phone-photographed quickie: go for it. But unless it's a fleeting moment, most people I know would stop, have a drink, perform any lookups, maybe take a photo, then set off again. F=ma. Luggage means you have relatively large m. Fiddling with your camera while riding can be a bad idea.