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General: Coaster brakes!

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorjayohachen
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    Okay, my girl finally gave me the nod to build her a super pretty tarck bike. She doesn't want fixed, so my two choices are freewheel/hand brakes or coaster brake? We will be doing about 15 mile rides with hills with low grades. BTW, she already has a road bike. Are coaster brakes really that unreliable? Any input?
    • CommentAuthorthe rabbi
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009 edited
     
    coaster + front brake.
    and by all accounts, your bike with a 50mm stem and cut-off track drops is pretty tarck.
    • CommentAuthorjayohachen
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    I know!!! I guess any track/fixed bike on the street is pretty tarck.

    To her a bike is only for cardio, NOT transportation!
    • CommentAuthorthe rabbi
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    Posted By: jayohachenI know!!! I guess any track/fixed bike on the street is pretty tarck.

    To her a bike is only for cardio, NOT transportation!
    i would personally do fw w/two brakes
  5.  
    Coaster brakes give you a nice cableless, clean bar look. I'd do coaster in the back and hand brake in the front.
    • CommentAuthoreaglerock
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009 edited
     
    Posted By: Joshua A.C. NewmanI'd do coaster in the back and hand brake in the front.

    The coaster-brake Deep V wheelsets have been cropping up on Craigslist a lot lately, and it's set me to thinking about the resilience of non-driveside chainstays. When I built up this bike at the beginning of the the year, the LBS guy/ex-SF bike messenger who coached me through the build said that a lot of bike messengers busted NDS chainstays back when, at a time when they were attaching drum brake lever arms to the stay. So I did the reinforcing trick with a chunk of electrical conduit.

    It makes a certain kind of horse sense that a chainstay isn't intended to take a lot of stress in a concentrated point, but I don't know if it's true. I assume that the stresses induced by a coaster brake are similar to the drum brake mechanism in the bike above, but I've never seen a chainstay broken at the coaster brake attachment point. OTOH, coaster brakes are mostly on kid's bikes; how much stress can they put on a frame?

    What happens when a normal-sized adult rides a coaster brake, and then mashes down on the braking mechanism?
    • CommentAuthorSkidMark
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    It's fine as long as it's a Shimano Coasterbrake. All the Chinese ones like Hi-Stop, Joy-Tech, etc. are made of inferior materials and eventually destroy themselves, usually unexpectedly locking up with very little backpedaling.

    I have coasterbrakes on several bikes, and I am bigger than a normal sized adult, and when I mash down on one my bike skids. I use vintage Bendix coasterbrakes, one is a Red Band from the 60's and one is even older, and I trust them to stop me and a 45 lb. Schwinn.

    A drum brake has a larger diameter braking surface and a longer reaction arm so they probably transfer a lot more force to the chainstay than a coasterbrake does.
    • CommentAuthorlatron
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009 edited
     
    Interesting question. I rebuilt a faux-vintage Schwinn cruiser for the GF, had just a coaster brake in back -- very minimal. Look was good, but for her, utility was an issue. It was the serious lag to either stop the bike or get it going. She preferred the stop-right-now option of a handbrake, clean looks be damned. So I added a front brake (had to swap the fork), all well and good. But now she's complaining about not being able to start by pulling the pedal back, standing on it, and zipping off (a la single speed). Sigh. So now I'm thinking of swapping out the rear hub for ... hell, for another bike. Lot of work for something that's not working. That said, still like coasters....
    • CommentAuthorjayohachen
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009 edited
     
    For safety, I think I will go with the Coaster/Front Brake a la Shimano.

    Even though my GF may be ridiculed by a certain Licked that is Wicked.

    BTW, has anyone ever had a coaster brake fail on them? Or is coaster brake failures an urban myth? Friend of a friend of a friend's teacher's neighbor who lived across the street in a cardboard box.

    But then again, I don't want my GF to the first person I know to have one fail on her.
  11.  
    Posted By: the rabbijayohachen


    Yeah, what's up with those cut off track bars? Either flip them, or leave them as full bars. Whoever cut those there just destroyed them. Who cares if they are "NJS".
    • CommentAuthorjayohachen
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    Well, I like em! I wanted to specifically build an "NJS" bike after I built up my "first" bike. Which was a Peugeot U-08. Which I kinda miss. Man, it had some deep v's and a super comfy Concor saddle with super comfy randonneur bars.

    I have a set of un-cut ones laying around I could install if the picture of my handlebars offends your sensibilities and you would like me to switch them. I will even update the pictures if you would enjoy it. Unfortunately, they are also NJS.

    The thing I'm wondering is eagle-eyed "The Rabbi" saw that they were 50mm and not the 60mm. Good eye!
    • CommentAuthorthe rabbi
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2009
     
    those stems are only found in 50mm these days.
  14.  
    Posted By: jayohachenBTW, has anyone ever had a coaster brake fail on them? But then again, I don't want my GF to the first person I know to have one fail on her.


    http://velospace.org/node/18564

    I had the chain come off on this once; it was a bit scary getting stopped.
    Screw ascetics, put on a front brake...
  15.  
    Posted By: jayohachenOkay, my girl finally gave me the nod to build her a super pretty tarck bike. She doesn't want fixed, so my two choices are freewheel/hand brakes or coaster brake? We will be doing about 15 mile rides with hills with low grades. BTW, she already has a road bike. Are coaster brakes really that unreliable? Any input?


    Yeah dude front brake is the business

    and find who stole half your handlebars fool. Thieves are gettin outta hand these days!





    just playin jayochen, nothin but love. for real though put the rest of them bars on, like stat. bike's too pretty to have us idiots raggin on it.
    • CommentAuthorSkidMark
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2009
     
    Coasterbrake failure comes in two forms:

    Overheats and locks up hard and unexpectedly.

    Overheats and won't stop you, only slow you down a little, sometimes it even backpedals as you try to press down harder to get it to stop.

    Both problem are a result of not enough grease, crap grease, or grease getting so hot it evaporates. it's worse with the Chinese hubs because the inferior materials can't take it and start to wear. Once a hub fails like this there is usually a fine powder of metal in the hub mixed in with whatever grease is left over. You have to seriously abuse a coasterbrake to have this sort of thing happen, abuse like bombing hills at speeds >40mph for distances over a couple of miles, like Repack, or Zoobomb.

    I pack them with automotive high-temp disc brake bearing grease.
    • CommentAuthorwes m.
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2009 edited
     
    Posted By: stinky pete
    Posted By: jayohachenBTW, has anyone ever had a coaster brake fail on them? But then again, I don't want my GF to the first person I know to have one fail on her.


    http://velospace.org/node/18564

    I had the chain come off on this once; it was a bit scary getting stopped.
    Screw ascetics, put on a front brake...


    My lady friend dropped her chain in the middle of a down hill section of a 1000+ person group ride. She managed not to crash by flinstoning, ted shredding was out of the question due to her fenders. So yeah, get a front brake too.

    I have very little experience with coasterbrakes. The experience that I have had with them is that the adjustment between having the brake engaged and having the hub jiggle is narrow. Once you do get the sweet spot they like to fall out of tune quickly. I have never used one of the high class coasterbrakes like people are talking about in this thread though.
    • CommentAuthorSkidMark
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2009
     
    A Bendix is supposed to have 1/16" of side play. They aren't high class, they are just older and made from better materials. Amazing how old shit works fine 50 years later.
  19.  
    Aight, my bars are changed out! They thieves stole the other half!
  20.  
    Ah, BTW, I cheaped out and threw on front/rear hand brakes.

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