Setting Up Brakes Backwards

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Permalink Reply by andrew on June 18, 2008 at 4:13pm

you're not the only one. i've got a SS that's still like that too.

i've found that i don't often need to slow down much heading the barriers, esp. out here in norcal there are very few high speed barriers anyway. and courses don't have as many barriers nowadays either. so all those reasons make it not very compelling to reverse them.

I think for most folks who ride other bikes, it's just to hard to remember brakes are reversed for the 'cross bike, and the # of times it's helpful are so much fewer than the # of times it can cause a problem. knock on wood, i've never had a problem not remembering they're reversed, but I don't set my brakes up to stop on a dime either. and I bet next time I redo the bar tape on that bike, I'll switch it back to normal.

fran castano, the guy behind the defunct shop dreambikes in MA, used to like running them normal, saying that with a quick pop of the front brake your bike would pop up into your hands and be ready to be shouldered and carried. it was an interesting practice but I didn't really ever try it much.

do you find it very helpful?

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Permalink Reply by SuperTick on June 18, 2008 at 6:14pm

I agree with setting them up for slowing more than stopping. It drives my mechanic crazy, my levers bottom out before completely stopping the bike. One reason for maybe switching back would be the front lever flick up onto the shoulder. Check out this video of Bart Wellens at about the 2:10 mark he flicks the bike onto his shoulder...oh so beautiful to watch.

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Permalink Reply by Henry on June 19, 2008 at 5:46am

Whether the brakes are reversed or not, use them with caution on steep descents (especially the front one)!

http://www.cyclocrossvideos.com/cx/misc/Monkey_Hill_CX_Crash.html
http://www.cyclocrossvideos.com/cx/misc/Monkey_Hill_CX_Crash_slow_m...

This “sand pit” drop was at least 8 ft:

Attachments:

• oh my! ... look out!.jpg, 158 KB
• take it easy on that front brake.mpg, 3 MB

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Permalink Reply by GeWilli on June 19, 2008 at 10:43am

What it seems to come down to is running the levers the same on ALL bikes. IE brakes backwards on road, mt and cross bikes.

Like getting on and off you shouldn't be thinking about which lever you should be using to slow the rear wheel down...

consistency seems more the rule lately... back in the past the MT guys ran em reversed because that is how it worked on their motox bikes...

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Permalink Reply by SuperTick on June 19, 2008 at 8:01pm

I should have clarified, I run all my brakes backwards on all my bikes. Like you said it just makes it easier rather than trying to remember while diving into a corner on my crit bike doing 35mph.

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Permalink Reply by chr15 on June 19, 2008 at 11:39pm

You mean the 'British' way. All bikes here are like that as standard. Switching over still catches out many a British Pro on the continent, not that there are many British Pro's.

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Permalink Reply by BeardedBIker on July 2, 2008 at 2:04pm

When I got my very first bike--a Murray BMX'er from a toy store in Massachusetts back in the early 80's, the "assembler" put the rear brake lever on the left, and ever since then, EVERY bike I've owned has had their brakes set up that way. I'm taking about probably almost 100 bikes in the past 25yrs... It's also been contagious as my wife has all of her bikes set up that way as well. It seems that Child World knew that one day I'd want to race 'cross...

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