"asqui" wrote in message
...
rayneman wrote:

If I was going to indiscriminately squeeze as hard as I possibly could on
a
single lever, I don't think it would make any difference whether I skid
the
front, skid the rear uncontrollably and slide, or possibly even fail to
brace my hands against the bars and fly over them before developing enough
braking force to skid the front wheel.

I was talking about effective braking technique, not how to hurt yourself
by
panicking in an emergency and doing something rash.

The rec.bicycles.* faq (http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/9.17.html) and
Sheldon Brown (http://sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html) are the most likely
candidates for where I heard about the front-brake-only technique. I hope
you will agree that they are both reputable sources and present the solid
justification for this technique.

Dani


Both the FAQ and Mr. Brown are correct and I don't think they advocate
front-brake only for max braking. Max braking is a slippery ideal. Even
with full concentration it's a tricky thing. Put the purple mist or sheer
panic into the mix and it's nearly impossible to achieve consistently. Max
braking does occur when the rear wheel is leaving the ground, effectively
making the rear brake useless. But it's a tricky thing to accomplish. So
unless the rear wheel is off the ground, the rear brake is making SOME
contribution, however very little it may be. It's a sliding scale, front
versus rear brake, depending on how much deceleration is occuring and how
much weight is on the rear wheel. In a situation like Beloki's crash, these
things can easily overwhelm even the best riders. We're talking about a guy
who makes his professional living climbing and descending mountains..I'm
sure he's well aware of braking techniques and maybe he was simply in a
situation that was impossible. There may have been just too much sensory
input to decode and he just made a mistake.

Incidentally, I hit the racetrack every now and again with my motorcycle and
I NEVER touch the rear brake when at the track. However, if you watch the
good guys, you can see them sliding the rear tire into corners using the
rear brake and engine braking. These guys are able to decode the input from
the bike to do those things. I'm simply overwhelmed with all the stuff
going on and cannot do the stuff they do. So your idea of front-brake only
may be analogous to my motorcycle situation..if you can't reliably operate
the rear brake during max braking so that the rear wheel doesn't skid,
you're probably better off using the front only.

Cheers,

Scott..