on my bikes.
Just now:
Just now:
Why I like 2 sets of brakes ...
- Thread starter BDC
- Start date
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Yeah, I usually stick a front hand brake on my old coasters, even if I have to drill the crown. Gives you more control even if you never have a failure. One exception is my 40s original paint Rollfast. I don't have the heart to drill it, but it only sees easy dedicated dirt path use anyway. I could step off at those speeds.
When I was a kid, a neighbor was moving and gave me their old Schwinn tandem. In my zeal to use that cool hand brake on another bike I snagged it off the tandem right away. Later, while riding the tandem by myself and going down a steep hill the front chain came off. No brakes at all and a 90 degree turn with fresh gravel to fill a pot hole was coming up fast! The heavy tandem was going too fast and too heavy to stop Fred Flintstone style!
The bike and I survived an awesome knee grinding slide. I was able to walk home with the bike.
Fun days of youth!
The bike and I survived an awesome knee grinding slide. I was able to walk home with the bike.
Fun days of youth!
Or when your are going into an intersection, at speed, and a driver doesn't check her side-view mirror before turning right.
If not for 2 well tuned v-brakes, and my bike-handling abilities, my ride home from work could have done me a lot worse than a pedal bite on the shin (the car lost its mirror).
If not for 2 well tuned v-brakes, and my bike-handling abilities, my ride home from work could have done me a lot worse than a pedal bite on the shin (the car lost its mirror).
I ride fast, but careful - Always a finger on each brake, I look well ahead, wear hi-vis yellow gloves etc. But sometimes that isn't enough. That's when good brakes, my fast reflexes (which have earned me the nickname Ninja), and the ability to do an endo turn with a locked front wheel come in handy.
I live in "the world's most bike friendly city". So drivers here are used to sharing the roads with cyclists, and most of them try their best no to hit us. In 25 years of going everywhere on my bike, this is only my second close encounter with a car. And the other one was purely my own fault (15 years old, drunk, no lights on the bike).
I actually took pity on the elderly woman driving the car, as she was very shaken by the incident and frightended that she had hurt me seriously. So after shouting "What the (colourful language) do you think you're doing!!?", I had to talk her down a bit, and assure her that I was ok, to get her to a state where she could drive on safely.
I think it was Nelson Vales that said when he was a messenger, he looked at riding like it was a video game going on around him, and he was always anticipating what was going to happen next. I ride like that. Always scanning, always trying to think what could happen.
