Is this a good bike to use?

Coaster brakes work fine for a pedal bike being ridden slowly. But they are totally inadequate for any bike going fast, whether motorized or not. Disc brakes don't really seem to work any better than rim brakes, which, as I pointed out, are themselves a type of disc brake, with much larger discs, the rims themselves. Over applying a front caliper brake will quickly put you on the ground. They use caliper brakes in the Tour de France, where they attain the highest speeds attainable on a bicycle. In fact, disc brakes are banned in that race. I don't think I have ever seen a road bike with disc brakes. Even the $5000 ones. No one has ever proven that cable operated disc brakes are superior to quality caliper brakes. If a brake will easily lock the wheel, then you have enough brakes. If you have good caliper brakes, or even just a caliper brake in the front that will lock the wheel, your fine. It's time to start looking at other safety issues, like weak wheels, rag joint sprockets, and POS chain tensioners.
 
Caliper brakes don't work well in the rain and mud..... My MB's go every where. They should be able to do anything when I want it too how I want it too
 
Coaster brakes work fine for a pedal bike being ridden slowly. But they are totally inadequate for any bike going fast, whether motorized or not. Disc brakes don't really seem to work any better than rim brakes, which, as I pointed out, are themselves a type of disc brake, with much larger discs, the rims themselves. Over applying a front caliper brake will quickly put you on the ground. They use caliper brakes in the Tour de France, where they attain the highest speeds attainable on a bicycle. In fact, disc brakes are banned in that race. I don't think I have ever seen a road bike with disc brakes. Even the $5000 ones. No one has ever proven that cable operated disc brakes are superior to quality caliper brakes. If a brake will easily lock the wheel, then you have enough brakes. If you have good caliper brakes, or even just a caliper brake in the front that will lock the wheel, your fine. It's time to start looking at other safety issues, like weak wheels, rag joint sprockets, and POS chain tensioners.

The highest speed human powered bicycles on roads are heavily loaded touring tandems going down hill. Definitely not lightweight single rider bicycles.
They use disc brakes and rim V brakes because of dangerous rim heating and brake fade.
Modern road bikes use caliper or U brakes for better aerodynamics. Either one has about the same limited power due to lack of leverage in the brake arms. The leverage has to be produced in the lever on the handlebars so they suffer from cable stretch. A V brake has much more leverage in the brake arms and less in the lever so the cable is not stretched as much, and more force can be applied to the rim, more accurately. Modulation is important, not just the power.
As for disc vs rim brakes.. Discs will work well even when the rim gets slightly out of true. They barely need any adjustment. They don't suffer from loss of power in wet weather because the pressure they exert cleans all water off the rotor. They don't wear the rim down and cause blowouts. They don't heat the rim and cause blowouts.
Hydraulic disc brakes have no cable to stretch so their modulation is second to none, so you can avoid locking up and skidding tyres.
V brakes work okay in dry weather on brand new, clean, dry, perfectly true wheels as long as you're not doing a lot of braking on long descents or requiring great modulation. ie most unloaded commuting.
 
I have been looking for a good bike to use for my first build and this seems to be a great bike. I just want to check with you guys before buying it.
http://www.firmstrong.com/products/...-mens-26-beach-cruiser-bike?variant=743163251

This is way better than the huffy my neighbor used.


Mine is a Firmstrong Urban. If you do get one look at the crank retaining nut and threads. Mine has some thread issues there. I may need to get a new crank arm. Threads are bit messed up.
 
I've never had a coaster brake failure, never known anyone who's experienced brake failure, I've determined that the whole conversation is paranoia hype if there was a true issue it would have been resolved decades ago.
 
Viewed the link above, seems to be overkill!!! Must be nice to have so much money to throw at a futile idea, yeah they designed brakes for the 1% of the bike community, shark tank would give a definite thumbs down, I'm sorry, Rolls Royce and bicycle don't belong in the same sentence.
 
While I think disc brakes are a bit ridiculous on anything other than maybe a downhill mountain bike (which is actually more like skiing than cycling) I also don't believe a coaster brake is sufficient for a motorized bike. They don't fail, they just don't work very well. A coaster brake is basically a tiny drum brake, operated by a bendix mechanism. The small amount of actual brake surface area, combined with the fact that coaster brakes are on the rear wheel make them not very effective at higher speeds. By standing on the pedal, you can usually lock the rear wheel. But a front brake is WAY more effective. Even if you rigged a coaster brake on the front wheel and operated it with a lever and cable, it would be far superior to a rear brake, because of it being on the front wheel. You can lift the rear wheel off the ground by applying a front caliper brake hard. In a sudden stop, most of the weight of the bike and rider transfers to the front. Remember, no bicycle was designed to have a motor installed. A motor puts a lot more stress on every part of the bicycle than it was designed for, especially a cheap bicycle. Walmart bikes fall apart without motors. I'm on my third motorized bike. Rather than buying cheap new bikes, I got older high quality bikes off Craigslist, which had front and rear caliper brakes. They were old school round tube steel framed mountain bikes. You can get high quality cruiser style bikes as well. The Electra Townie is a very popular bike to motorize.
 
I agree with you on the front/rear argument. The 112mph Rourke/Hope human powered (slipstreaming) bike in the link above has only a front brake and fixed gear. However, using its front hydraulic disc brake allowed the rider to slow down from 112mph on a sandy beach without lifting the rear wheel or losing traction. Modulation, accurate control of the braking power, "feathering" (no idea if that word is used in USA) allows you the best chance of survival in a critical situation.
Even a V brake has far better modulation than a caliper, cantilever or even U brake. Due to the extra leverage from the brake arms there is less leverage required from the lever on the bars. That means a longer cable pull, that means less cable stretch, that means much better life saving modulation.

Cable actuated disc brakes use the same lever as V brakes, plenty of cable pull (low leverage at the bars) so they have a comparable stretch and drag but with the added benefit of being unaffected by imperfect/dented/bent rims, water, mud, oil from the road, so they can be closer to the disc (they move less) for even more pressure which is what cleans the disc surface.. And they don't wear down the aluminium rim by scraping grit into it so your wheels last. The disc is steel, never wears down noticeably.
Hydraulic actuation just gives you a drag free, stretch free, virtually maintenance free system but the difference is like night and day. True one finger braking and modulation like nothing else.

My refurbished 20 year old Hope C2 hydraulic disc front brake cost £15 ($20) from an eBay seller. $20 to stop me ending up under a truck sounds okay to me.. Even $10 for a V brake would be money well spent IMO compared to dumpster erm I mean caliper brakes. Maybe I'm just fancy, but I think overkill is better than being killed.
Spend your $10 on a wreath if you want.

p.s. there are plates that you can bolt on, so you can mount V brakes and disc brakes to old frames that only have the caliper hole. :)
 
I've said all I have to say on this subject, the ability to spew a high count of already stated views out of your finger tips doesn't make a persons opinions anymore valid than a brief sentence so at this point I think we can just agree to disagree.
 
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