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- Hacker News
- Coaster brakes are ime one of the best brakes for beginners/intermediates because they can be a reliable backup in addition to rim/disc brakes.
Had my rim brakes at least once lose a lot of efficacy during a large downpour and coaster brakes make a great backup for extra breaking power. They sure do like to lockup your rear wheel but that is still better than the alternative of only having very weak rear/front breaks.
by c0balt - They forgot the biggest downside: when you REALLY need to stop RIGHT NOW, you're not thinking about what kind of brakes you have. You're running on instinct, and that instinct probably says "do a grabby motion with your hands", but that doesn't work, and you don't brake on time.
Source: I have a bike with one coaster brake and one normal one. Have never intentionally used the coaster brake, have used it unintentionally many times.
by wheybags - I have biked with lots of coaster bikes and lockup has never been a problem. Like with a lot of things, you just need a little bit of humble attitude and trial and error to get the feel and then once you get it, it gets easier and easier. I don't think they lock up easily at all.
Same if you drive an unfamiliar car, it's more bumpy in the beginning but your brain will adapt, especially manual gears. I remember some cars did have terrible clutches and gearboxes and very low torque engines so it felt intimidating as a kid.
by Gravityloss - The worst brakes I ever used. They were on a rental bike in a relatively remote area so it could be a matter of maintenance but I remember braking on a 10% slope to lose no more than 50 m of height. I had to lock both my thighs with the same strength I would have used to climb that hill. That vs flexing my fingers with the smallest muscles I have.by pmontra
- These brakes are far more complicated then I was expecting. But do last forever.by jmclnx
- Really the only downside is that they're prone to overheating in hilly terrain.by imp0cat
- Coasters are great if you have good cycle infra, don't go very fast and don't have to go up or down hills. Which explains why they're so popular in NL.by walthamstow
- Yes, this illustrates that the merits of a technology are relative to its use.
Urban cycling in the US is a whole nother beast. It's dangerous enough without effective brakes.
by analog31 - Biggest advantage is that they keep your hands free while braking.by vantassell
- > The disadvantages of coaster brakes are that the pedals cannot be adjusted while standing over the bicycle frame.
Another disadvantage not mentioned in the post is that with coaster brakes the pedals can get trapped by the kickstand. I don't remember the details because this was a long time ago, but I accidentally found myself in a situation where I couldn't pedal forward because the kickstand was in the way, and couldn't pedal backward because the brakes engaged. I don't remember how I fixed it.
by bariumbitmap - Probably had to unbolt the brake bar to get it to spin freely backwards?by pak9rabid
- You can adjust the pedals while standing, it’s just awkward.
Take your weight off the seat, grab the back of the seat behind you and lift enough so the rear wheel loses traction and then you can push the pedals forward a bit.
Not ideal, but possible.
by nkrisc - You can get out of this situation by rolling the bike backwards. Since the clutch is engaged it will also move the pedals in the reverse direction.
Thanks for unlocking that memory for me, it's been decades since I had to know that.
by thesuitonym - > The coaster brake also can be prone to locking up the wheels and causing the tire to skid. For kids this is an advantage, since they enjoy putting bikes into a sideways skid.
Damn well it was! I remember we used to play tag on bikes. But when we switched to hand brakes, it became impossible, as you need a free hand and speed control at the same time.
by deepsun - > But when we switched to hand brakes, it became impossible, as you need a free hand and speed control at the same
Did y'all have only one hand?
by kqr - Yep I wore holes in several tires doing skids on my Schwinn when I was a young boy. My father got somewhat annoyed at it but used it as an opportunity to teach me how to change a tire and threatened to withold from my allowance the costs of any more tire replacements. I can't remember if that actually ever happened.by SoftTalker
- Brilliant for folks in flat cities riding to and from work. That's the environment in which they got popular 100y ago. For hills def need rim brakes or discs for flexibility of use. BMX racing in early 80s we used the lightest rim brakes and levers we could find. I had couple of times snapping the levers and even the brake arms before fitting with really strong machined aluminium ones which lasted me 3 years before I stopped riding.by zoom6628
- Retired cycle tourist here: Australia, China, Laos, France, Romania, Taiwan, Thailand.
This is interesting, I recall having some of these as a kid.
I'd say the key drawback not mentioned is that, in many riding conditions (such as but not limited to riding when in close proximity to vehicles, riding in high wind, riding in proximity to severe drops or road discontinuities, riding with heavy loads, riding downhill with luggage encountering sharp bends, repositioning legs for a hard ascent, etc.) you cannot always freely alter your physical stance to apply additional pressure to the braking system (as it may upset other concerns) nor can you afford a short latency to reposition to your stronger leg before applying the brake (or a short burst of climbing on difficult terrain).
So while functional in most conditions, I'd say they are in fact objectively inferior in terms of latency and control and thus safety and utility in many realistic conditions.
What could be an improvement (and may have been made already) is a speed-gated clutch, that is to say, slow reverse is permissible but a burst above the gate speed enables braking. This could solve a minority of the issues in terms of control at the cost of complexity.
- For cycle tourism I would have the coast brake AND a front wheel hand brake. Coast brake is much more resilient to elements (dirt/rain/oil), which is a major thing in bike tourism. And it's much more convenient to have one hand free to use a navigation tool, holding a camera, adjusting luggage, all while being in control of the braking.by deepsun
- Daily urban commuter here. I've had coaster brakes in the past. Bendix, Shimano, and Sturmey-Archer. I was attracted to the simplicity and lack of exposed cables. All were well maintained, by me, on wheels that I built.
Concurring with what you say, I learned all of the obscure failure modes of coaster brakes the hard way. Today I would not put them on anything but a maybe a kids' bike or beach cruiser. You can't guarantee that your feet will be in the right place at the right time to stop the bike.
Among other failures, I've experienced coaster brake "fading" on a descent when my house was at the top of a hill.
Adding a front brake is an improvement but not a panacea. You really need reliable two-wheel braking. It's not just for redundancy but for actual control of the bike during hard braking.
by analog31 - Where is all this love for coaster brakes coming from?! They are, IMHO, one of the worst brakes ever. They have caused me numerous spills and scraped knees (due to the rear wheel locking up and skidding out from under me) and have done the same to my kids. There is virtually no control over them, and they don't allow you to shift your weight around when standing on the pedals to go around sharp corners or off-road. (Nevermind trying to shift your weight backwards when stopping quickly)
I have hydraulic disc brakes on my bike, and they are the greatest thing ever! Yeah, they require maintenance, but totally worth it.
by Hobadee - I believe there's a strong, slowly growing cultural backlash to interrelated concepts of planned obsolescence, design that assumes maintenance burden doesn't matter, durability and simplicity, and hatred for depreciation.
Coaster brakes are an example of a simpler design, that requires less maintenance, that are cheaper, that are poor in some environments like hills but are fine in flat areas.
Some would rather walk their bike down a hill but have a bike that never needs brake maintenance than to have better brakes that are a point of failure.
The same drive that pushes people to trying to build offgrid homes is slowly growing in spaces of material goods and home goods and such. Add environmentalism to it also.
by ninininino - We used to call coaster brakes "torpedo" when I was a kid and, yup, they're totally horrible.
If you've got coaster brakes I don't even know if you can learn to trackstand (you need to both slightly pedal forward and brake, and adjust by slightly pedaling backward): trackstand looks like you're idle but micro-adjustments are constantly happening.
Then I take it probably could wheelie a bicycle with coaster brakes but I fear it'd be hard: same things, you do micro-adjustements and they're not only done with the rear brake. I'm pretty sure I do pedal backward a bit when I do wheelies.
And when I readjust the position of my feet on a bicycle: I do it while backpedalling.
Last time I used a bike with coaster brakes I realized how dependent I became on being able to pedal backwards.
- TBH I don't care for hydraulic disc brakes much.
My -favorite- setup for Discs, at least use to be, Avid BB7s with Avid Speed Dial levers, with Flak Jacket Housings.
That combination was super simple to 'dial in' (Hydraulic brakes tend to be a lot more inconsistent on 'feel' unless you are very persistent about bleeding and know how to use a disc tuning fork) and honestly had a lot less overall drag than I've experienced with most hydraulic discs. Replacing cables is way easier than re-doing hydraulic lines, also you don't have to worry as much about overheating janking up your fluid. Only drawback is, yes, make sure your cables are set up right and clamped down good.
But yes, Coaster brakes suck, especially since 'failure' means either rebuilding the wheel or outright replacing, because nope, not gonna do that sort of hub job.
by to11mtm - They're legally required in a lot of countries on small kids bikes and not easy to disable. I think the argument is that kids lack the strength to operate a hand brake effectively. Experts all seem to say that coaster brakes are terrible for safety and learning though.by brikym
- > They have caused me numerous spills and scraped knees (due to the rear wheel locking up and skidding out from under me) and have done the same to my kids.
Skill issue ;-) My first bike I learned to ride on was a BMX with coaster brakes that was part of the fun! Rip down the street then slam the pedal back to leave skid marks. And who didn't love slowing down a bit, then slamming the coaster brake while turning the handle bars to do a sick rear sideways skid. My next bike was also a BMX with a rotor and front/rear pegs. That lead to way more spills trying to do stunts on the pegs or spin the handle bars. Never got good at the stunts part.
Might have worked better for a smaller, lighter me but I would like to give coaster brakes a go again on a proper sized BMX.
by MisterTea - > Where is all this love for coaster brakes coming from?!
Childhood nostalgia? They are indeed terrible brakes from a riding perspective. But a) no cables or pads to mess up, b) beginner friendly and c) skidding. Great for kids riding around the neighborhood, the only real purpose.
by perrygeo - In my experience hydraulic disc brakes require less maintenance than rim brakes.
Living on a hill (like I had to go up a ~150m 23% wall to get home, and go braking down it to go places) meant I had to spend frequently on rim brake shoes and, eventually, rims. The frequent rain and mud makes it to the rim brake shoes and diminish braking power if you don't keep them clean.
That doesn't happen with hydraulics - clean them with alcohol, bleed them once each year and you're set. I agree, they're the greatest thing ever.
by Gualdrapo - As the family bike maintainer in Scandinavia, hub gears and coaster brakes are a godsend: Simple, cheap, and the only wear item to replace after a winter driving in salty sludge is a cheap chain -- and this takes half the time if there are no brake cables to detach.
This might be a Nordic thing, but being able to handle rear wheel lockups is a necessary skill when driving on winter roads. Once you overlook a section of black ice, not even the nicest hydraulic disc brakes will be gentle enough.
by japanuspus