They’re really, really good. There are lots of different types, obviously, but they’re all good in their own ways. Ones that stop you are the best, I reckon.

SO PUT SOME ON YOUR BIKES, FIXIE MUPPETS! Otherwise you’ll die horribly.

Seen a near-crash earlier; two cyclists heading straight for each other on a cycle lane, both not paying attention, both swerved in exactly the same way as the other and managed to avoid contact. Was almost balletic in it’s choreography. Surreal.

Bloke walking straight out into the cycle lane on Torrington Place is very, very lucky I have decent brakes on my pedal cycle. Mate; consider the torrent of abuse you received as a small price to pay for your stupidity, and be thankful you’re not now in A+E in UCH….

What has brakes ever done for us?

Git! 🙂

[edit]
Even though I could see this thread happening as i typed I still laughed when I saw it. Good effort.

Bloke walking straight out into the cycle lane on Torrington Place is very, very lucky I have decent brakes on my pedal cycle. Mate; consider the torrent of abuse you received as a small price to pay for your stupidity, and be thankful you’re not now in A+E in UCH….

You can hardly blame a ped for walking out there as the cycle lane layout is retarded.

It’s ‘retarded’? How d’you mean? The cycle lane has been stopped or slowed down in terms of it’s development? 😕 It appears to have been fully completed.

And it’s clearly demarcated and painted green ffs. If the numpty can’t cope with that, then maybe they shoon’t be out wandering the streets, it’s not safe for them.

It’s a pointless seperated lane from a quiet (traffic wise) street. It’d make much more sense to me for it to be marked out like a normal two lane road with limited access on one side if needed. It’s even worse further down near Gordon Square though it is fairly funny to watch the frequent near misses between confused students/tourists and cyclists.

You have no way of knowing what would have happened if you had no brakes

The crossing outside ULU on Torrington Place is my favourite place ever for watching fixies crash. Just look at all the skid marks on the cycle lane and you get some idea of the amount of ‘heavy skidding’ going on.

Still though, the brakes ruin the nice clean lines on those cool track bikes…

Unicyclists are the worse, you never see them wearing brakes. Idiots!

Yeah the bit which goes into Byng Place, the little bend, where it’s not demarcated, is dumb. But the bit the idiot stepped out on was clearly marked. In fact, he stepped out almost onto the little cycle symbol….

It’s good, imo. Gets cyclists away from the traffic. Anything which does that is both safer and more enjoyable, imo.

What would be better would be if they put up railings on the pavement, so peds could only cross at the crossing. Would be safer for everyone.

Brakes result in rotational (around the front wheel) injuries.

Studies have shown that drivers give 36.9cm more room on average to riders without brakes (though they gave an extra 47.3cm of room to riders with pink tassles on the ends of their handlebars).

If you made brakes compulsory it would simply result in less people cycling, as nobody would be seen dead wearing their sister’s jeans on a bike with brakes.

I find with brakes I just ride faster and it therefore hurts more when I crash.

Govermant stats show that 100% off all cyclist envlolved in fatatal accidents had brakes. Evidence that they povide no protection.

A similar study of track cyclists found that despite no brakes there were no fatalaties.

so the current advice is not to fit brakes.

Please don’t post anecdotes about brakes saving you or your mate. They are not evidence. Stick to the science

Also I find them uncomfortable, exspensive and unstylish

– yeah and Juan uses the shimano ones to baste his cooking.