Whats with all the newbies all wanting to ride brakeless?

Object17 Firstly, to ensure I highlight you of my stupidity, what's the "C+ RLJ debate"?

Cycling Plus is a weekly mag, who have a website, which has a forum, the most pointless flamewar that recurs on there is the never-ending "Red Light Jumping" 'debate'.

In which one camp of morons preach for.
One camp preach against.
Some people in the middle attempt to say "It depends on the circumstances".
And everyone else slaps their forehand against their head and declares "Not again, for fucks sake guys!" and wishing that the tool to stab random anonymous people in the face with a blunt chainring, via the internet, had been invented.

velocity boy [quote]Object17 [quote]SMEEAR i forced myself to keep a brake for at least a year, that and being able to easily skid stop/skip with either foot forward.
i said once i had mastered this i would bin the brake, i ended up ditching the brake a few months shy of a year cause i felt confident in my ability
Just done the maths. It was 9 months I rode with a brake.[/quote]

That's nothing. I've ridden with a brake for over a year now. And before that, I had TWO brakes. You can count 'em if you like.[/quote]

That nothing Hippy has 3 on his Soma (kind of).

TheBrick(Tommy) [quote]velocity boy [quote]Object17 [quote]SMEEAR i forced myself to keep a brake for at least a year, that and being able to easily skid stop/skip with either foot forward.
i said once i had mastered this i would bin the brake, i ended up ditching the brake a few months shy of a year cause i felt confident in my ability
Just done the maths. It was 9 months I rode with a brake.[/quote]

That's nothing. I've ridden with a brake for over a year now. And before that, I had TWO brakes. You can count 'em if you like.[/quote]

That nothing Hippy has 3 on his Soma (kind of).[/quote]

We're not counting the face as a brake are we now?

Two and a fixed drivetrain, or does he have a parachute in a backpack?

beer

I rode without a brake for a day. It was really scary especially becuase I was very overgeared and could hardly stop. I only did it while I was waiting for my brake to arrive. I like the look without the brake and the simplicity of the bike but I'd only ride brakeless if I were a true pro and could stop just as quickly as with my brake (impossible because my 105/cane creek setup can stop me so fast that I'd go over the bars and leave the bike 10 meters behind me if I wasn't locked in)

i rode brakeless to the bikeshop to buy a brake because i just built a bike and i didn't have one.

i damn near shit myself.

peejay78
i damn near shit myself.

Try harder. Next time you may just manage it.:)

Brakengers

I Don't Care.
fsck em, if they're out of control they'll learn soon enough.
as long as they don't ride into me and spit on my leg, whilst riding a black condor....

Millierider - have you seen our friend on the Condor, since that famous incident?

surely common sense has got to prevail. i've just got intot the fixie thing, infact cycling fullstop and was intrigued as to how people could ride with no brakes and was probably under the misguided concept that the back wheel would do all the work, stop pedalling and you would stop. Infact the whole concept of having to pedal all the time freaked me out but out of curiousity i tried it. None the less on my first build i have kept the front brake because surely someone who is nt into cycling would have concerns about having to brake hard to avoid a herd of cows or something crossing Oxford st!

Since i have tried to get a bit more confidence and use the brake less but its no easy feat and is definately an art form and one which non cyclist will not just be able to just naturally do as it seems to take incredible leg stength.If someone is foolish enough to assume that is easy then they deserve what they get and perhaps people should be guided more whern they buy the bike but thats probably a whole other issue. None the less fast moving object + no brakes has got to make alarm bells ring in anyones head and if it doesnt then good luck!

[cite] velocity boy:wishing that the tool to stab random anonymous people in the face with a blunt chainring, via the internet, had been invented.

+1

Oh, and to answer the question of the thread (hopefully ending this) is: brakeless looks cool. And everyone wants to look cool.

photoben

Oh, and to answer the question of the thread (hopefully ending this) is: brakeless looks is cool. And everyone wants to look be cool.

Fixed :)

when i got my fuji track i rode it brakeless for about 2-3 weeks until the brakes i ordered arrived (long story involving being sent MTB levers instead of road calipers). this was my first experience of riding fixed (after about 15 years riding a road bike).

it was quite a learning curve.

i had to ride pretty slowly (except up hills) and i was very glad when my brake finally arrived. riding slowly without brakes is fine on flat roads or with little traffic, but it's not much fun going down a hill with traffic lights at the bottom and a couple of buses to contend with.

Please can we continue the brake/less debate for longer. I think there's someone at the back who hasn't quite been bored to tears yet?

you need to be FULLY confident on the road, and know your bike well and be experienced (with panic stops) skip/skid/hockey etc amongst other things, before you can even consider taking off your brake

Object17 Please can we continue the brake/less debate for longer. I think there's someone at the back who hasn't quite been bored to tears yet?

I quite agree. Somebody started it off in the Bike porn thread! Blasphemy!

Me me me!

Yes, the Soma actually has five "brakes"..
Two of them are sitting on the kitchen window sill and are obviously no longer attached. They have been replace with 105s.

I've ridden without brakes.. on a velodrome.. it's exhilarating!
I've ridden with brakes down a hill at almost 100kph.. it's exhilarating!
It's... zzzzzzzzzzzz "and the last viewer falls asleep.."

Pip's post reflects things I've noticed recently; like edmundane my fear is that someone who is worrying more about what they look like than whether they're alive or not will come to a sticky end and that the rest of us will feel the consequences.
I ride with a brake, and I'm all for some riding brakeless, but all in all there is fuck all you can do to stop people ripping their brakes off cos they think its the way.
Personally I would like to see all riders, brakeless or not, strongly encouraging the newengers to stick with brakes for a while - encouraging them to the degree of saying that to ride brakeless on your first experience of fixed is for fools (whether its true or not). Just to be safe like, and more importantly, so the rest of us don't get slandered/regulated by the usual twats.
Oh sorry for stringing the thread out even more, i promise i tried to stay above the level of brake vs. brakeless

i wouldn't call myself a newbie.

when i first got a track bike it's original intention was only for use on a velodrome (no brakes), but then i decided to use it on the street and my plans for buying a brake off my friend fell through (weak excuse, i know) and i was too lazy to go get one myself.

i've ridden brakeless in nyc, boston, philly, and new haven (mostly boston and nyc though). i've done just normal cruising around, as well as brainless, balls out, aggressive as fuck alleycat racing. i've NEVER gotten into an accident during an alleycat that was a result of being brakeless (knock on wood). the few spills i've taken which 'could' be attributed to being brakeless have usually been the result of slick pavement, and one could argue that the conditions were such that i wouldn't have been able to stop in time with a front and/or rear brake before (say) slamming into the back of a cab that stopped suddenly. i ride brakeless in the above cities because i feel confident without a brake. i don't ride around london or oxford brakeless because i don't feel comfortable on the bike i temporarily have, and because i'm very foreign to these cities.

EDIT: that being said, i wouldn't advocate going brakeless unless you do feel comfortable and are willing to except the risk involved.

"accept[b][/b] the risk"

you of all people.

Their their, now....don't loose the plot.

We're supposed to be talking about breaks.

take 5

No brakes = longer stopping distance.

This will generally mean you must ride slower where there is a chance some 5 year old girl might chase a ball in to the road or some ipodestrain will walk out looking the wrong way.