Hasn't anyone remembered the thread we had some months ago about gloving the
wheel to stop?
Only a dumbass rides a fixed gear/ stiff hub/ fixed cog/old timer referred
to 'my track bike' around in this urban area traffic at breakneck speed
without brakes or a glove.
Back pedalling could tie your legs up in knots over the long run if done
without regard to muscle strain.
Think on it: pedaling forward and then kicking it in reverse. Dumb!
Most track bikes are around 74/75 degrees seat tubes and just like same
short wheelbase road bikes your speed and weight distribution needs to be
shifted to the rear when braking.
I won't tell you what I think if you don't know this or instinctively do it
while you're riding.
Hopefully there are some disclaimers when selling 'no brake' bikes or maybe
some _)*#^&% lawyer will put a class action or whatever suit on the industry
or shop accordingly.
Some of these bikes may come with a disclaimer 'to be used for competition
only on a race course?'
The Europeans and others have long known a bike with one brake is dangerous
and have laws requiring two.
Our CPSC supposedly addressed some of that but is mostly disregarded and
unenforced now that we have all these wars extant.
40 years plus ago we rode track bikes fixed gear no brake bikes all over the
place.
But, on the same roads we're using today we only had about 25% of today's
traffic!!
Think on that.
And we ALL gloved our wheels to brake and only gently backpedaled to save
our legs while simultaneously sliding our butts to the back of the saddle to
maintain balance.
This movement distance was proportional to our speed.
If you know how to glove your wheel properly you can stop as fast for all
intent and purposes as with handbrakes on a freewheel bike.
We used to do that just to silence the doubting Thomases'
Today's efficient handbrakes may work better but not by much I'll wager to
say.
Ted Ernst
Palos Verdes Estates
CA USA
> kevin mccaul wrote:
>> As for brakes, well all I can say is if you feel the need for them, then
>> you
>> probably shouldn't be riding fixed.
> I learned about fixed wheel riding in the UK over 50 years ago from
> clubmates. Over there the law was quite strict and diligently enforced.
> You had to have two independent brakes. Nobody would ride a track bike on
> the street any more than you would drive a Formula 1 car on the street. In
> the winter time we would take off the gears and put on a fixed sprocket
> and maybe remove the rear brake. However, I actually bought my first track
> bike from an old Welshman in Canada who rode it here on club rides with no
> brakes. I don't know if they had laxer laws in Wales or whether he was
> just taking advantage of the lawlessness in the Colonies.
> --
> John Betmanis Woodstock, Ontario Canada