Safety COASTER BRAKE horror stories, please add your experience

[Hello Moto!]

Yeah I destroyed a rear wheel one day when I forgot to tighten the coaster arm to the frame completely. It came loose down the road and trouble soon ensued. My pedals began to pedal furiously forward without control until by luck the coaster arm jammed against the frame allowing the pedals to stop so I could apply backward pressure and stop. Once I got it home I realized the axle was badly bent and the axle hangar on the frame also bent out of shape. I was able to fix the frame but the wheal hub was not in good shape. All because I forgot to tighten the little screw that holds the coaster arm in place! Small detail but Very important!

With that said, I still prefer the coaster brake over having no coaster brake. I wouldn't mind having front and rear brakes on a dual pull lever in addition to the coaster but I wouldn't like it much with no coaster brake at all.

 

[KCvale]

You can't use a coaster brake on a shifter, the pedals freewheel ratchet pedaling backwards :-}

 

[Hello Moto!]

You can't use a coaster brake on a shifter, the pedals freewheel ratchet pedaling backwards :-}

a shifter is a little out of my league at this point lol. Maybe down the road a bit.

 

[Trike Mike]

I have a front rim brake and a rear coaster brake on my Sun trike. Braking was scary bad, that's why I added a 90mm front hub brake.

 

[KCvale]

I have a front rim brake and a rear coaster brake on my Sun trike. Braking was scary bad, that's why I added a 90mm front hub brake.

That should help, there is no such thing as 'too much' braking power.

You have a Sun trike?
Is it this style?

I agree, the brakes sucked.
That could go way faster than the brakes could handle but the customer didn't want to go fast, just far.

Not the case with this new Sun in the secondary build bay now...

Almost 1KW of shifter geared power...
All wheel braking...
Dual rear discs and a front V-brake.

I am calling it the 'Rocket Sled', you'd have to ride it to understand why ;-}

 

[Trike Mike]

No I have the Sun Atlas Deluxe. At least your pics feature a rear disk!
http://motoredbikes.com/threads/sun-atlas-deluxe-with-subaru-4-stroke.45061/

The cool thing is the rear wheels are on a separate subframe, so I can stretch it a bit to make it more stable at speed. I'm turning it into a crank-forward set up, kind of like a lowrider, but stock fork. Low center of gravity is important.

 

[Charles Laypool]

Very convinent just yesterday i was flying around on my Murray Valiant 49cc 4 stroke

an a guy in a prius cut me off my reaction was to hit the brakes (hard) all i heard was this metal bending crunch then shortly after my tire locked up and i ended up on my ass 26mph to 0 instantly

Heres a pic of the disaster

The break arm twisted around it still works so i still ride

 

[bakaneko]

Very convinent just yesterday i was flying around on my Murray Valiant 49cc 4 stroke
an a guy in a prius cut me off my reaction was to hit the brakes (hard)

yeh, i think most drivers assume we are going a slow 10-15 mph biking pace and want to pull out quickly in front of us. yesterday, i estimated my speed for a close pass and was like almost face to face to a driver that pulled out in front of me. i think she was so surprised LOL

 

[Nanonevol]

Was that the coaster brake that came on the Murray bicycle?!

 

[Charles Laypool]

yeh, i think most drivers assume we are going a slow 10-15 mph biking pace and want to pull out quickly in front of us. yesterday, i estimated my speed for a close pass and was like almost face to face to a driver that pulled out in front of me. i think she was so surprised LOL

Haha i love the look on peoples faces when u fly past them pedaling at 40mph