Help me slow down!

It affects the entire MB community if something suddenly requires you to stop and it makes the news cos ya brakes don't live up to expectations.
 
does your bike have the stock rear caliper brake?
mine does and it works great. it will lock up the rear wheel.
Make sure the rim is clean where the brake pads contact it.
make sure that your brake pads are good.
make sure you have the cable adjusted correctly and so there's no slack in it (i know, that's common sense).
if your brake pads are worn to about 1/2 way down, the brakes will not work very well.
You can even try to put spacers behind the pads to bring them closer to the wheel.
 
brake pads

brake pads are pretty cheep so if you need a new pair (I'd go for the back first) Kool Stop makes a good pair the seems to work well for me.

It takes more effort to stop a 20 inch wheel than a 26 inch so lookout.
 
oh yeah, one other thing.
If you haven't done this already:
take the springs off the back of the brake calipers and bend them.
you can bend them to give more spring pressure. sometimes this helps. sometimes it makes the brakes worse...trial and error.
I added spacers to my rear brake caliper on my o.c.c. which helped get it away from the chain. I also slightly bent the left side caliper up where the cable goes into it.
I'm not sure, but it seems to give the cable a slight lever effect, which seems to pull the caliper closed better.
I'm telling you, my rear brake will lock up the big fat wheel on my o.c.c.
you just have to know how to play with the entire brake set up and how tro adjust everything so it will actually work.
90% of hetting it right is trial and error tho...I can't tell you exactly how to do it because the same thing may not work on 2 different bikes.
 
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