I currently have a 'regular' bike, i.e. a bike with hand rim brakes but I've been more fascinated recently with single speed and fixed gear bikes. One of the reasons that I've held off on getting on is the braking.
How does coaster braking and braking on a fixed gear bike compare to rim brakes? I live in NYC and want to make sure that I can brake in all situations!
A track bike (fixed gear) has no front or rear brakes. You slow the bike down by resisting the turn of the pedals but you need to be careful to not push too hard, which can lock up the rear wheel and cause a skid.
But most fixed gears aren't true track bikes. You should be able to find one that has standard brakes on both the front and rear wheels. The front brake is especially important since that's where most of your braking power comes from on a normal bike.
A coaster brake is basically a drum brake in the rear hub. Pedalling backwards engages the brake.
Personally I would expect a bike with a normal front rim or disc brake to be "safest". Front brakes have much more stopping power because your weight shifts to the front wheel when slowing down. Plus you can control the amount of braking power more easily by hand than by resisting with your feet.
I use only a front brake on my fixed gear. Between that and resisting pedaling I have not had a problem. I don;t go very fast on the fixed gear so this also reduces the need for emergency/panic stops of the kind I have had to do with a road bike.
you can put front and rear brakes on a fixed gear, but probably not necessary. I would not ride one without a brake though.
regular (rim brakes) or disc brakes are the safest hands down, as long as you know how to.
fixie skidding limits you to either 1 or 2 pedal positions,depending on rider, to brake in and since there is no front brake it can take yards to completely stop. coaster brakes are similar to fixies because it can take a while to stop. also on a long descent using a coaster brake can actually cause it to overheat and explode.
when using rim brakes you should almost always (80%+) use the front brake. it stops you much faster but you need to learn to slightly brace yourself so you dont fly over the handlebars. use the rear brake on long descents and in wet weather.
hope this helps
Regular brakes—two hand levers, one for front and one for rear—are certainly the safest because they provide two independent means of stopping in a very controlled fashion. If one of your brakes fail, you have another to fall back on. A bike with coaster brakes or a fixed gear without freewheel, that also has a front brake is nearly as safe, but the rear braking action is a bit harder to control.
If you want to know whether you would feel safe on a bike with just a rear brake, ride your normal bike around and only use the rear brake.
Fixed gear bicycles have their advantages but I'm gonna say that braking is not one of them. The guys who uphold fixed-gear wheel braking seem to forget two major factors: A. With any form of braking, rear-wheel braking is nowhere near the power of front-wheel braking and B. With all the skid-braking on a fixed-gear, don't you create 'flat spots' and wear the tire out sooner? It's probably cheaper in the long run to regularly buy new brake pads than new tires.
I can say without a doubt that disc brakes are hands down the most powerful and reliable for any bicycle. Even when disc brake pads are worn out and not tuned... they still manage to perform better than anything else. For me the biggest advantage is wet-weather performance. You can be going through a monsoon and they will still be able to lock-up your wheel (good!). I commute all year, all seasons including winter blizzards. Are disc brake systems heavier? Sure... but we are talking ounces. Are they more expensive? Yes. Anyways these negatives don't out-weight the benefit of performance in my books. I've put my SRAM X0's through 30,000km's roughly and they are still going strong. I've gone through about 3 pairs of pads. Only thing I will say about them is I wish they used less recycled metals because recycled metals corrode faster in this salty winter environment (Canada).
Usual brakes, front and rear! because sometime i used single-speed too (i used a flip-flop hub) if the terrain too punishing therefore both brakes is mandatory for me
but in case i have no spare brakes for my bike on the workshop (i seldom recycling unused bikes to usable bikes, so i have to make all parts used carefully) , i'll only use front brake and I'll find the rear brake another day, so at least it usable and safety
If you bike a lot in bad weather conditions, having a coaster brake can be safer than only having rim brakes. When it is raining or when the ground is wet, water can act as a thin layer of lubricant on rim brakes. However coaster brakes are encased and so are unaffected by rain.
Rim brakes:
Pro: Good stopping power, easy to use, relatively easy to modulate braking power.
Contra: Brake cables can and do break. You must always have a working backup brake to ensure that you won't be caught on an unstoppable bike when your brake cable breaks.
Coaster brake:
Pro: Extremely fail-safe. Natural actuation. A well-greased coaster brake provides enough brake force modulation.
Contra: Only applicable to the rear wheel, thus limited achievable brake force. Compact design implies danger of overheating on longer descents.
Fixie bike:
Pro: No overheating possible. Mechanically the most robust system.
Contra: Brake force hard to modulate and uneven around the turn of your pedals. Only applicable to the rear wheel, thus limited achievable brake force. Dumps the braking energy into your muscles, I guess this must be extremely tiring on long descents.
A bike with a coaster brake and a front rim brake is an excellent choice, imho, as long as you do not intend to ride in the mountains with it. More hilly profiles call for overheating resistant disk brakes with large disks for heat dissipation. I would not ever want to ride a fixie in a city, though. Fixies are designed for sportive use, only.
I see two aspects to this question.
For 2. there is no comparison. Since cables brakes can be applied to both wheels, and having two brakes is always more reliable than one, cable brakes are a key component of a reliable braking system. And in fact, some bikes will have a combination of these two brakes, having a cable brake on the front and coaster brake on the rear. Now, you might think, gee, a cable can break, but a chain never will, WRONG. While I'm sure it is less common on chunkier chains found on fixed gear bikes, chains can and do break, but it is rare for two cables to break at the same moment.
For 1. there are several considerations. First and foremost again, because cable brakes can be applied to the front wheel, cable brakes can apply far more braking force to the bicycle than a rear wheel brake of any kind. When you apply the brakes, weight shifts to the front, off the rear wheel, meaning you can skid the rear wheel very easily. The front wheel, not so much. In dry conditions you can get 100% of your braking force from the front wheel. In wet conditions, you will benefit from having two brakes and get more total braking force by having both wheels braked.
As far as I understand, the main benefit of fixed gear bikes or coaster brakes is one of simplicity, they require less equipment on your bike and less maintenance. A secondary advantage is that the brakes themselves are not as affected by wet conditions. While rim brakes have significantly improved, they still function less effectively in wet weather. But rim brakes are not the only type of cable actuated hand brakes, you can in fact, use a hub brake (the same as a coaster brake) or a disk brake with a cable (or hydralics), and this in my opinion, for a city bike, is the preferred form of braking.
Besides the practical issues, you should also check the law. In many countries, bicycles must have two independent brakes. A fixie without any additional brakes would be illegal and you risk a fine, even if you do nothing else wrong. It is not even clear if the pedals in a fixie count as a brake system (in Germany, a lawsuit was needed to clarify that this is acceptable as one of the two required brakes, but fixies still need a second, independent brake).
All my life used coaster brakes and never was able to adjust to those bikes with rim brakes, you will adjust to speed, distance and be prepared - it will become your habit to always be prepared and hold your legs in position for coaster brakes, meanwhile your hands are free. This is especially great when you ride with hands off for fun and can have extra time to use your coaster brakes over hands one.
as far as stopping power...a front rim brake because : 1. disc brake require more torque cessation at the center of the wheel 2. coaster brakes even more torque 3.it's safer to lean back with a front brake than to lean forward with any brake which you could do with a rear brake, but as previously stated when stopping more weight is shifted to the front and that is where braking is most effective. so....front and rear rim brakes would ultimately be safest but for stopping power and safety at least a front rim brake is my choice. YOLO!!
Let me be the one to support coaster brakes for a real reason. For a fixed gear bike the pedals can rotate in two directions but you are required to come to a stop. For a coaster brake you can only rotate it one direction. So without loosening my pedal straps in fear of tilting and falling at a red light or anywhere I have the freedom to stand on one pedal while leaning on a light pole, wall, grabbing something, etc and just push back off on green. There you have it, speed is the perk.
Hand brakes are great for emergency stopping but horrible when you just want to SLOW DOWN your speed to round a corner. The bike jerks to an abrupt halt and you can come crashing down. I feel more in control with coaster brakes.
