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Comment by deepsun | Hacker News Reader

> The coaster brake also can be prone to locking up the wheels and causing the tire to skid. For kids this is an advantage, since they enjoy putting bikes into a sideways skid.

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.

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Yep I wore holes in several tires doing skids on my Schwinn when I was a young boy. My father got somewhat annoyed at it but used it as an opportunity to teach me how to change a tire and threatened to withold from my allowance the costs of any more tire replacements. I can't remember if that actually ever happened.

> But when we switched to hand brakes, it became impossible, as you need a free hand and speed control at the same

Did y'all have only one hand?

Breaking with just the front wheel break is a very bad idea, so you always need the rear wheel hand to break

What makes the front wheel brake a bad idea? I almost exclusively use the front brake, because that's the one that'll actually stop me. (Source: when I used rim brakes I had to replace the front brake pad three times for every time I replaced the rear brake pad.)

I know some people use the rear wheel locking up as a way to sense when they have applied enough front brake, but that's not necessary. It's also possible to learn to sense that directly.

When going at a high speed, breaking hard with the front wheel alone can force the bike to rotate around it and the rider might enjoy a very short but very thrilling flight. Which I learned the hard way many years ago

You can wrench on the front brake at speed, you just can’t do it from the saddle. Gotta move your center of mass back and down.

We thought it too! But it really didn't work with hand brakes, dunno why.

Maybe because with tag you always either full accelerate or full brake with turning at the same time. And if your opponent is on the right, you are left with only front wheel brake that works very bad in turns. Maybe some pro could pull that off, but we sadly abandoned tag.

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