Bicycling Street Smarts, Chapter 6: Using Your Brakes (2001)
bikexprt.com
bikexprt.com
One could even argue that it doesn't even make much sense to use rear brake at all on a motorcycle: while in some cases using rear brake only might be enough (e.g. when you want to just slow down a little), you still should be using front brake every time, to develop muscle memory so that you will use the front one whenever you need to break hard. Never using the rear one forces you to develop proper habit of always using the front one. The loss of braking force from not using rear brake is rather small, especially as you can't push on it hard when you're brake using front one, because you're risking skidding rear wheel, as almost all weight is on the front tire. Recovering from rear skid is not what you want to be thinking about when emergency braking.
That said, using both front and rear brake on a motorcycle does make a difference, so if you've been practicing emergency braking (or have ABS on your bike) and are comfortable with a little bit of skidding, you can use both to squeeze some extra stopping power. Crucially, though, remember to always use the front one.
This. However, many cheaper bikes have a weird-feeling front brake, so I can understand how beginner bikers may be somewhat apprehensive to use it. But to your point, this is why it's so important that riders get in the habit of using it in non-critical circumstances, so that they learn how the bike behaves.
On a separate note, I do find the rear brake useful on automatic bikes [0], in that it feels closer to slightly disengaging the clutch than the front brake does. Of course, I'm talking very slow speeds here, and realize this isn't particularly common.
---
[0] I'm talking about Honda's DCT, so bikes with actual clutches and gears, as opposed to a CVT.
But this shift in weight can be used to initiate braking: a touch of rear brake will shift the weight forward so that your front wheel gets more traction, and then you apply the front brake. This is even more apparent on a motorcycle.
That said some bikes like cruisers and tourers have such weight distribution that the rear is much more effective compared to other bikes, but these bikes many times come with linked brakes.
Also, if you do take a Skidbike training course, you will be shocked at how good ABS is. Some friends and I took such a course a couple summers ago, and with the ABS disabled, we all low-sided the bike (outriggers prevent a full crash) hitting the front brake. With ABS enabled, none of us were able to provoke a low-side.
Lastly, using the rear brake in slippery conditions is the worst take-away from your experience. While over / abruptly applying the front brake can result in a low-side crash, the same overreaction with the rear brake can cause you a high-side crash, which is a much worse day. If you do find yourself with the rear end skidding, KEEP the brake on. The risk is in getting startled, letting off the rear brake, and regaining traction. This happens violently and is what throws the rider off the bike in a high-side.
The reason for the accident was it was a European spec bike so the brake levers were reversed. It was new and I just hadn't internalised that switch by the time of the accident. If I had hit the back brake I would have been fine.
The one time a collision was unavoidable through swerving or braking, I jumped straight up, and deflected off windsheild rather than getting walloped straight-on.
I spoke with the police after offering to testify and they did not want to take a report even saying it was an insurance matter. I twisted their arm but later after getting in touch with the hit cyclist who was nearly killed again offering to testify found out they threw my report away. The injured cyclist was so traumatized he just wanted to put it behind him.
I got lots of stories and have been hit multiple times, had a friend killed on her cycle. I hate that the narative is all about defensive cycling and not that cars kill and no one cares especially SF cops.
Weather in SF seems nice, but when it comes to bike commuting I'm happy to be in Scandinavia.
I had ample opportunity to avert catashtropy but failed to recognize them because I wasn't directing my attention to the right things in the moment prior to the collision.
I'm a big believer in situational awareness, experience and skill. I hear stories of cyclists getting into accidents and I'm aghast at all the hazards they didn't consider, and all the skills they didn't cultivate.
It's not like I'm risk averse. Quite the contrary, I make a practice of engaging with it. I was a bicycle messenger for 2 years in heavy downtown traffic. I raced mountain bikes and BMX. I've had hundreds of wipeouts in non-traffic situations.
There are skills I rely on daily while in traffic to stay in one piece, and I have a hard time convincing a certain subset of cyclists that these skills even exist. They think it's luck!
There are so many opportunities to anticipate and escape bad situations that go unrecognized by less experienced cyclists.
They're crashes, not accidents, for starters.
You can try to predict or anticipate people's actions and smugly think that you won't end up under the wheels of a truck because you're Mr. Pro Rider unlike those "certain subset of cyclists."
At the end of the day, drivers are exceptionally unpredictable, their vehicles can accelerate, stop, and turn far faster than a bicycle can, and there are plenty of actions of others that are impossible to avoid.
The problem is not that "certain subset" of cyclists aren't careful enough, it's that society has wildly different expectations from vulnerable road users compared to the people driving the dangerous machinery. Society expects someone on a bicycle headed to work to perfectly and expertly analyze everything in front of them and faultlessly predict the actions of others...while having no problem with a driver of a 4,000lb vehicle yakking on the phone while drinking a coffee and listening to the radio.
FWIW a car can not turn, accelerate and stop faster than a bicycle. I am sure our difference in opinion here is more about situation than facts. I do agree that they are more dangerous than bicycles and far less logical because of what you say.
If you're prioritizing morals at the expense of physics while out for a ride, you're going to have a bad time.
For me being experienced in traffic means I try to act as a buffer for others mistakes. If you know all of those situations that lead to bad out comes position yourself so less experienced people are herded to the safe ones.
I agree with what you said, but I think the issue is one of experience, or maybe even skill. I can remember one crash I had when better breaks would have saved me. But I do recognize now that I could have just as easily swerved. I was around 7 at the time, so still had a lot to learn. But I think many casual cyclists will try (panic-)breaking when something unexpected comes up.
But then again, if they're not used to strong breaks, they may crash on their own. Had this happen to me once while visiting Britain, and not being used yet to the brake levers being inverted.
The biggest damage anything took from three times I had to do this in the past 20 years was my bike (one time I had to exchange the handle bar).
It's easy to overuse the front brake because it has so much stopping power. The outcome of that is you'll chew through your front pads and rims much more quickly than your rear.
When approaching a stop, start lightly applying the rear brake -first- to bleed off initial speed, -then- apply the front. Your pads will last a lot longer, and they'll all wear evenly.
It's not a big deal; brake pads are cheap and easy to change, lots of bikes are disc these days and pads/rotors are easy to change. Good rims take a long time to wear in regular conditions and most aren't that expensive anyway. What really wears rims fast is wet sand/dirt
Most contemporary bikes have disc brakes (breaking won't chew on your rim) and wearing through the front pads faster than the rear pads can't really be considered to be a problem, can it?
For me, it's never worth the risk.
Everybody I know who rides bikes long enough has a story to tell.
Given the choice between choosing one mode of transportation for all, would you still say the same about bikes? The number of road deaths involving cars makes a pretty compelling case that cars are much harder for humans to control than bikes.[1] 38,680 people died because humans can’t be trusted in cars. I’d even wager that bike accidents and deaths would be fewer if cyclists didn’t share the road with humans in cars.
1-https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show...
Your odds of dying from a bicycle accident are much higher than dying from a car accident. In fact, you're twice as likely to die from a bicycle. The CDC did a study on this and a rather thorough one at that. The only activity more dangerous was riding a motorcycle.[1]
This is because engineers have spent a lot of time trying to minimize the amount of energy a human absorbs during a car collision. It's not perfect, but it's superior to the lack of protection offered when bicycling.
I'm not saying you have to stop riding a bicycle. I'm saying, you should know it is a dangerous activity and consider life insurance if you have a family.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2016/05/12/how-saf...
> engineers have spent a lot of time trying to minimize the amount of energy a human absorbs during a car collision. It's not perfect, but it's superior to the lack of protection offered when bicycling.
This is aimed at protecting the occupants of the vehicle, but some of the more recent design trends (thicker a frame pillars, higher center of gravity) make collisions even more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. I’m not saying those features of cars are a bad thing, but I feel like compensating for the extra risk to pedestrians and cyclists has not gotten as much engineering attention as it should. It’s tough because it’s a broader problem that has to do with how we design roads, and the attitudes people have when they get behind the wheel
Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark have invested heavily in road safety in general and bicycle safety in particular.
By taking many measures among which things like: physically separating bicycles from cars, reducing speed limits, introducing traffic calming, and conversely by building better highways for the cars to use instead ; these countries have been making bicycling something that is very safe for people of all ages. (and en passant may have also made walking and driving safer too)
It’s peculiar to perseverate on how bikes are so unsafe compared to vehicles when such a high proportion of cycling injuries and deaths are because humans are bad at driving or not respectful of rules meant to protect everyone on the road. I’m asserting that because it’s not like humans are just spontaneously falling off their bikes and dying. Sure an errant and reckless cyclist can get him/herself killed by running a light, but if cars were never there, would we even be having this conversation?
I know the original point was that riding a bike can be dangerous, more so than driving a car, but you can’t examine cyclist security without talking about humans in cars.
The issue is cars, the truly dangerous mode of transportation, and any solution starts with a reduction in the harm they bring. Getting rid of the most energy-efficient mode of transportation, one that has a miniscule impact on the climate, to accommodate the most destructive form of transportation, both from a human lives lost-perspective and an environmental perspective, would be completely inane.
I'm not saying we need to eliminate bicycling. People can skydive if they want to and they can ride their bicycles outdoor as well if they desire.
Traffic engineers can well and truly be proud of themselves when people simply don't bother to wear a helmet anymore (because it's not needed).
See eg:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=003-zdZA8hk Copenhagen: Few helmets
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqFDfLogw_M Strassbourg: a bit more helmets (but not a lot)
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynwMN3Z9Og8 Utrecht, the Netherlands. Very few helmets indeed.
Cars on the other hand, have been the cause of crashes or accidents for any mode of transportation. Fortunately I’ve never been hit by a car, but have had to dodge out of the way of them in situations that would have been prevented if they actually paid attention ( one time, they were driving on my side of the road while staring at their phone ).
If party A operating multiple tonnes of high-speed steel hurts party B who is not, the dangerous party is party A. They might have been careful enough to discharge any direct liability, but they are *always* the party who bought multiple tonnes of high-speed steel into the situation.
I'm blaming the design itself. If you fall at even moderate speeds, irrespective of whether it's a car, concrete, another bicyclists, or the ground, you will get hurt. Humans do not have the reaction time or biological features necessary to mitigate the damage from falling or careening over the handlebars at 10mph.
The most I've done is lost a saddle because the force of me sitting down while cycling over a pot hole I didn't see snapped it off.
I have however seen many cyclists go over car bonnits, including myself
Cars, cars are too dangerous for humans to drive.
And I am a daily bicycle commuter in a big city — while I rarely use any car in the past years. The big majority of dangerous situations on bike can be defused by a combination of anticipation and following the rules (always be in the place you should be, not somwhere else, always assume nobody notices you etc).
I had a single emergency break in the past 5 years and that was litterally someone jumping out of a bush in the middle of nowhere.
Your problem isn't with bicycles, it's with cars and bad infrastructure.
Roads, bicycle paths, and footpaths (and railroads and canals and etc) need to be designed in such a way that traveling is safe and economic for ALL traffic participants. Not just one particular type of vehicle.
So far this policy only exists in a few countries in the world, but the concepts are slowly spreading elsewhere. Never quickly enough of course!