anybody on here ride brakeless? (I don’t mean fixie as that has a brake)
if so, what do you ride?

I used to ride BMX brakeless, mostly cos hte brakes hardly worked anyway. Made me into quite a smooth rider and increased confidence

did you ride street, park or trails?

I don’t ride brakeless but I find that I teach myself not to “comfort brake” by riding certain sections with my fingers not covering the brakes, its pretty good. I’m a bit of chicken and only do it on sections I’ve done before, I have learned to scrub speed by zigzagging/attempting to drift on the way into something where I want to modulate speed (I’m crap at this so it looks lame but you can kill your speed). It’s helpful. I know its not the same thing but I can see how on certain trails you could ride brakeless..

We were riding street then. I’m also a big fan of “death grip riding” Age has made me a coward and I feather the brakes, even when I know that that is the biggest cause of crashes for me. Sometimes I just have to pick a line, grip those bars and go for it 9/10 the tyres and suspension will see me through!

when i was about 9, foot on the back wheel! I went through many pairs adidas 4 stripe! 😀

it was Doc martins for me (also bout 9)
parents just didn’t give a **** what you were upto back then.

Reason I ask is I’m loving watching brakeless BMX just now but don’t think I could get my head around doing it myself (I just run a rear brake). does anyone ride brakeless mtb? (as in offroad?) I have short local XC loops where I wouldn’t actually need brakes (and longer ones where I only need to brake maybe 6 times) but I’d have to judge when/where I could pedal very carefully to get away with it.

IMO death gripping has no advantages unless you’ve already beeen braking a lot and have seriously tired hands.

nah couldn’t do it myself either, I rely far too much on brakes to get me out of bother. I’m not anywhere near good enough..

I read an article on Chris akrigg doing brakeless trials, Just at the time my SS had no brakes on it.

I took it for a little ride brought it back and left in the garage till the brakes came.

There are that many factors you can’t control on a trail that makes me think its a bad idea mtbing brakeless.

i cover my brakes at all times and choose whether to brake or not. better than not being able to 🙂

I ride brakeless bmx, it forces you to commit which can be a bit exhilarating haha, I try and convert it to MTB though
my jump bike has one brake, tempted to take that off and ride around on that and see what it’s like ..
one brake on my ventana would be good though
hmm

only a complete and utter **** would ride without brakes……….get a grip.

I tried it for bmx for a while as the bike I bought didn’t come with a brake. Don’t really like it, I found I committed less as I was going slow everywhere, too scared of not being able to slow down/stop if I needed to.

better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them

Mrs CheeZe, earlier.

BMX dirt jumps maybe, but not for anything else. What if a kid stepped infront of you?