Why would my bike shop do this?

[kenyonchris]

Why the back one? I would have thought the front one?

I am here to tell you (by painful experience) that if you grab the front brake only and lock it up, you are going to find out what the ground directly in front of your tire looks like. Back brake first.
We do an exercise in our bike school with emergency brake procedures. You pedal, pedal, pedal (we do it down a hill to get enough speed) then enter a cone box and lock the brakes up and come to a stop (track stand). Inevitably, someone comes down and forgets back brake. Ugly.

[VeloVT]

Pitching over the handlebars can be easily avoided by proper weighting/locking your arms when you use your front brake. People who advocate using the back brake only/first in an emergency have apparently never experienced the pleasure of a back brake skid and associated fishtailing, which is not nearly as easy to prevent as an endo. Fun stuff. If you have steady nerves you can usually get out of it and avoid a crash, but for a newbie or someone who is prone to freaking out, it can certainly cause loss of control.

So I say front brake is the one to reach for in an emergency. But of course, you still need to know which is which.

[MartianDestiny]

Pitching over the handlebars can be easily avoided by proper weighting/locking your arms when you use your front brake. People who advocate using the back brake only/first in an emergency have apparently never experienced the pleasure of a back brake skid and associated fishtailing, which is not nearly as easy to prevent as an endo. Fun stuff. If you have steady nerves you can usually get out of it and avoid a crash, but for a newbie or someone who is prone to freaking out, it can certainly cause loss of control.

So I say front brake is the one to reach for in an emergency. But of course, you still need to know which is which.

But if you ONLY reach for the front one in an emergency you are GOING to crash (that is, if your brakes are set up to actually stop your bike in reasonable time). Sorry, if it's an "emergency" then I'm going fast enough that no amount of locking my arms is going to compensate for locking the front wheel up and I'm not likely to have time to lock my body out behind the seat (and if you have that much skill and time you are going to be grabbing both brakes anyway!). You MIGHT crash if you grab just the rear. Also the crash resulting from a fishtail is much less painful than an endo the majority of the time (I'd rather slide out and get some road rash any day if the alternative is flipping over the bars onto my collarbone or head...)

Of course the answer is to grab both and learn not to lock the wheels down (if you manage that you won't fishtail or endo). I tend to grab my rear a fraction of a second sooner, just to be sure.

And that's coming from someone who routinely uses just the front brake as appropriate for non-emergency slowing and stopping. I rarely if ever use just the rear. So I'm plenty comfortable with my front brake. No way in heck I'm "slamming on the brakes" with just the front though.

[VeloVT]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, Martiandestiny .

I am not really advocating using only the front brake in an emergency stop, but I definitely use MORE front brake than rear (and engage the front first), and I have made many emergency stops (never at super crazy speeds, but probably from 30 before) and have never endoed. I think at those super crazy speeds, if you really need to stop immediately to avoid a hazard, you're probably going down no matter which brake you grab first.

To each his or her own, I suppose.

[kenyonchris]

But if you ONLY reach for the front one in an emergency you are GOING to crash (that is, if your brakes are set up to actually stop your bike in reasonable time). Sorry, if it's an "emergency" then I'm going fast enough that no amount of locking my arms is going to compensate for locking the front wheel up and I'm not likely to have time to lock my body out behind the seat (and if you have that much skill and time you are going to be grabbing both brakes anyway!). You MIGHT crash if you grab just the rear. Also the crash resulting from a fishtail is much less painful than an endo the majority of the time (I'd rather slide out and get some road rash any day if the alternative is flipping over the bars onto my collarbone or head...)

Of course the answer is to grab both and learn not to lock the wheels down (if you manage that you won't fishtail or endo). I tend to grab my rear a fraction of a second sooner, just to be sure.

And that's coming from someone who routinely uses just the front brake as appropriate for non-emergency slowing and stopping. I rarely if ever use just the rear. So I'm plenty comfortable with my front brake. No way in heck I'm "slamming on the brakes" with just the front though.

Yeah, this is right. Of course, it is a balance of both brakes that works best...and if it works for whomever to use the front brake, I guess you got the skills. But as an instructor, it is taught that back brake is the safe way to execute an emergency stop, and back brake is what you want in a steep or dangerous descent if you must (keeping the tires rolling is better). Yes, if you just lock up your back brake, you are going to slide, but this is not a tragic scenario as an endo is (and a road bike or cantilever brake scenario is not as tragic as disc brakes on a mountain bike which tend to be sharper). We do a skid and run exercise involving the deliberate lock of the back brake. A prime example is one guy in a class who chickened out at the top of a steep staircase we were practicing on...he grabbed BOTH brakes, but used too much front and, although his weight was back, the momentum carried him over the front end and down the stairs. Ouch.

Anyhow, it is important to know which is which and know what will produce what. I hope I never hop on someone's bike whose brakes are reversed!! I could survive on the road bike, where I almost always use both or front because most often I am not in an "Oh, crap" moment, but on the Mountain bike, where I often leap before I look, I'd be in trouble.

[channlluv]

My only major crash happened when my daughter swerved in front of me as I was going about 13mph and I slammed on the front break. Talk about the sacrificial mom, that was me. The next thing I remember - vaguely - is the sensation of flying/flipping, landing on my left arm and the feeling of my helmet hitting my inner elbow. Next thing was my husband telling me to lie still while he lifted my bike off me. I had some pretty major injuries, not the least of which was a damaged tendon in my shoulder that required months of therapy.

I hadn't had KenyonChris's bike safety training, obviously. Today I rarely use the front break at all.

I've also had to stop suddenly to avoid people on the bike path. This one girl was walking in the middle of a narrowed part of the path (her mom, or an older woman, was walking to her right) talking on her cell phone, coming up on a curve. I yelled out, "On your left!" and she didn't hear me, or didn't think I was talking to her, so I went to go around her to the left and a couple on skates with dogs on leashes were coming toward us at a pretty fast clip. I back-braked and skidded to a halt right behind that girl on the phone. No one was hurt.

Having done both, I'd rather skid that flip any day.

Roxy

[wannaduacentury]

I just picked up my bike from the shop where I dropped it off for a tune-up. I got there just in time before they closed. I took the bike onto the road and headed home. A couple of blocks later I noticed that the breaking was funny. I have ALWAYS (for the last 5 yrs) had my bike set up so that the right hand controls the front brake. I know that it isn't "supposed" to be like that (here in the U.S.) but I prefer the front brake and want it controlled by my (dominant) right hand. But presumably because it was "wrong" the shop switched it without telling me. Since they are closed now, and I have no tools at home, I will have to make it through my ride tomorrow morning with my brakes backwards. I am upset, because I don't think this is safe and think that the shop should have consulted with me first before making that change. I guess I am just venting, but I do think this is a safety issue that they should have thought about.

My old 3 speed was set up this way, just the way they put it together. Like you said, they have swapped so I actually swapped mine to match the other bikes which are left(front)-right(rear). I would take it back to the shop and politely make them change it, and to ask you before they make major changes to your equipment. They making a change actually could have casued an accident when you weren't aware of it in a panic stop. Jenn

[mtbdarby]

So just out of curiosity, did you have a chance to talk to the bike store about why they switched the brakes?

[msincredible]

I'd be annoyed if it were me.

I have one bike with the front brake on the right side. As I handed it to the mechanic at the LBS he asked me if I knew the brakes were reversed and if I wanted it kept that way.

[Tuckervill]

Yeah, I'm dying to know what their explanation is!

Karen

[mtbdarby]

Bump. How did this work out Chicagogal?

[chicagogal]

Sorry for not posting in a while. I just got back from vacation. I took the bike back to the shop and they put my brakes back to how they were. I asked them why they changed them, but I didn't get much of an answer. The guy who worked on my bike wasn't there, but the guy who was apologized on his behalf. I still don't know if I am going back there (there are a lot of bike shops in my area, I don't HAVE to use that one). However, the following day I was out for a ride, pulling away from a coffee shop that doubles as a cyclist hangout/rest stop on sat mornings and the guy from the shop had just arrived, recognized me (in helmet, sunglasses, etc) and said hi. I don't think I would have recognized him . . . and I like a place where I am not totally anonymous . . .