Anyone Using Foot Brakes?

Today I returned the analog speedo I bought recently to the bike shop. There was a scary warning sign on the box that said.....

WARNING! THE LIQUID IN THIS GAUGE MAY CAUSE CANCER!(the honest truth)

So I returned it and bought the best vee brake pads available, and a second mirror.
 
The "foot brakes" seem to work well for you, but not everyone has thick boots to wear to go riding, and I'd be afraid of getting my foot caught, because sometimes I find myself applying brakes at speed due to the occasional non-driver in a car cutting me off.

5-7, speaking of V-brakes, I have found the best solution, is to go to Wal-Mart and get the Bell extra-length performance brake pads. My mountain bike (like most) has no coaster or disk brakes, so I had to make the most of the standard V-brakes. (EDIT: I see by your prev post that you upgraded your brake pads)

The regular short V-brake pads fade REALLY bad, especially with a heavy trailer at speed, and they don't have near enough friction surface. Changing to the better pads causes more tire wear because they are actually stopping like they are supposed to. Also these pads wear much slower and last long, because they are made of harder-compounded rubber.

The best solutions for safe braking, is to slow down long before you plan to stop, so less energy is wasted in braking, and I find myself coasting to a slower speed a lot more now, so coming to a stop is easier.

Coaster brakes are scary to me, because they are so easy to lock, and I don't want the rear tire coming out from under me. :eek:
 
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The best solutions for safe braking, is to slow down long before you plan to stop, so less energy is wasted in braking, and I find myself coasting to a slower speed a lot more now, so coming to a stop is easier.

Coaster brakes are scary to me, because they are so easy to lock, and I don't want the rear tire coming out from under me. :eek:

5-7 sorry for butting into your thread.

Znsane you may have covered this before...
When you where taking about braking I was picturing your pusher set up in my head. Then I pictured every pusher out
there that people are talking about building.

I invisioned a truck pulling a travel trailer and how the trailer brakes assist in the overall breaking of the entire set up.
Have you, or anyone thought of a disk break on your pusher axle. You could have a dual hand break lever that goes to
the rear wheel and also the pusher axle. (Like the power trailer brake principle) Triple stoping power.

If I ever made a pusher I would make it with a minibike/minichopper type set up. These set ups have a disk brake.
It dosent have to be as large as my set-ups, but you'll see the basic principle.
Just an Idea. Sorry if its been brought up already.

http://www.westcoastminichoppers.com/Page5.html
http://www.bmikarts.com/predator-racingchassis-components.shtml
 

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foot brakes

my mate lintern use's his feet as brakes due to slack to use front brake on handle bars(removed to fit throttle) and **** rear brake so he just drops the feet to stop haha and almost hits cars some times
does this apply to this foot brakes, he has to ride for transport to work
haha nick
 
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Znsane, I find myself automatically applying foot brakes even while coasting. However, when mixing it up with stop-and-go traffic, not easy to coast and lose speed unless no one's behind you. Wiith the extra mirror, if I can see that no one's behind me I will coast more often.

I had a hair raising experience coasting downhill on my new electrified bike when my brake locked up in traffic. :cry:

Thankfully, I was able to bring the bike to a halt. The only damage to the bike was the coaster internals and the rim. Everything was replaced with HD top-quality parts after the incident.
 
I normally coast away from cars in bike lanes or sidewalks, so you have a really good point there.

I guess there is no bike lanes, and you go with the flow of traffic huh? I see....

Hey, I see why you have 2 engines, and you want to build that trailer, you want to go fast because you have to in Hawaii!
 
Anyone else using foot brakes?:D

No.

If I were forced to one time in an emergency, it would be the only time and I would count myself lucky.

I do know I would never factor it as a workable solution and if braking was that suspect on a particular bike I would put it aside until I reconfigured something.
 
When you ride on the shoulder or on the bike lane/sidewalk, it's less demanding on bicycle and rider than claiming a lane in the middle of the road. On these alternative paths, you can coast, stop or pull off the road. No need to apply foot brakes.

When you're in the middle of the road, the drivers behind you expects you to keep up with traffic or pull onto the shoulder. Many times it's stop-and-go traffic and you must keep up or pull over. Sometimes there's no room to coast to the next stop.

I realize that bicycles are not engineered to go as fast as cars. There was this one rider two years ago who expected to cruise the highway at 50 mph on an interstate jaunt. Now that's crazy.

So far I have seen absolutely no disadvantages of using foot brakes. When you consider the brake surface area of two steel-toed boots as compared to tiny vee brake pads, I KNOW that braking capacity has increased immensely.

Yesterday I rode my bike to and from work, a rount trip of 12 miles. At lunch time, I rode home to check the mail. Top speed was 37 mph. When traffic slowed to a crawl, I took to the bike path(slow speed of course)until I passed the jam, jumped back on the road and motored home.

The only spooky part is overtaking cars or a long line of stalled cars. Ya never know when one of them will cross your path.

Foot brakes work like a charm for me. I expect to always use it when riding wherever I go. It's just part of my braking routine. My tire, wheel or botts seem none the less for wear and I stop much faster than normal braking.
 
That's cool. I'm just imagining what it must be like in Hawaii to ride a motoredbike, LOL!


Now Hawaii would be GREAT for a souped-up bike trailer than can go FAST.

I go comfortably at 35-40, but at 45-50, my engine is going too fast in RPM to wanna keep it there for very long. 37 is a good speed. I don't drive as fast as 37MPH often, but find in spurts, you NEED top speed to be SAFE! I'll go wide open sometimes. I usually keep it only about 20-30Mph. BTW, how's your OHC Subaru-Engine'd trailer coming along? Gear that thing fast for Hawaii, and the higher revving OHC engine, should make it sweet to ride there. Hope you get 45, 50 or more :giggle:
 
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