Forum menu
Which was exciting! Luckily it wasn't steep or deathly (ruts off the top of chinley churn) but still enough to get the heart beating when the lever hit the bar and nothing happened.
Turns out MTB with only a front brake is really hard!
Feel free to post your tales of brake failure...
A mate of mine caught a rock and tore a hole in his front hose. He still rode like a lunatic, as usual.
Not a brake failure, but I once going to cross the road in the middle of Betws on my old Marin Bear Valley, pushed down hard to set off between 2 cars and thunk! thought the chain had come off...
...looked down to see half my crank and pedal still attached to my foot, but the chain rings still on the bike! snapped the crank clean in half!? yikes!
That's what caused mine too- I have a vitus escarpe and the shift/brake cables run under the bottom bracket. Always questioned the wisdom of having them under there seeing as the down tube and my shins are peppered with dints from rock strikes.
Rental bike - Hayes Brakes, piston popped out of lever, rendering it useless, boiled the remaining break on the corkscrew on Les Gets, and ended up going flat out across the hill with neither brake working, had to bail into the grass.
Trying a drop (not that big, but was big for me at the time), rode up to it but decided not to hit it, not realizing that my Superstar pad had fallen apart, no brakes, nosedived off dro in a heap,p bike landed on top of me.
Forgot the safety pins on a set of mono minis. The long metal bar first vibrated out, so the pads just dropped out, lost them somewhere.
Went into a busy junction at speed and discovered much to my surprise i had no brakes. I now know the sound disc brakes make when you use the pistons as a braking surface against the rotor 😆
A few months ago on a night ride my front brake lever suddenly snapped back to the bar. That 'was' on sonething steep and gnarly and sent me crashing into a tree. Luckily not much damage. A quick investigation revealed an entirely new (to me) failure mode...the brake pad material on one side had completely separated from the metal plate and was nowhere to be found. Pressure of breaking hard had ripped it off!
hope x2 brakes with newish hope pads
I had half a handlebar snap off and the main steering bolt on a recumbent fail without warning on separate occasions. Both were a few seconds before I'd have been barrelling down 25+ mph road descents.
Forgot the safety pins on a set of mono minis.
I had that at Afan years ago, and a riding buddy did it last year on some rather juicy local trails. We found every single part of his brakes - pads, springs, etc - scattered down the trail he'd just bailed on.
I had a my rear brake fail just after the climb at Llandegla a few years ago. Completing the lap without a rear brake was 'interesting'. It makes line choice very important.
I got down spud alley with just a front brake, it was much less dicey than expected. But obviously not ideal!
Had someone steal my front calliper once...not the lever or the hose. Crashed into a wall in front of a big crowd of people.
The last ride on my Avid Juicy's. I was descending from the first of the Bienn A'Ghlo tops when the brakes completely boiled and spat their seals all over the (thankfully) rear disc.
Carn Liath was 'sporting' on a front brake and by halfway down I had to walk. 🙁
I once realised how quickly pads can wear out after a wet Peaks ride. Fairly new pads, and I'd not checked them after a wet ride. Off to Llandegla and rear brake was making a right racket, and no power. Eventually took a look, no pads left !
Took a tumble just going into the steep switch back section at Champery.
Bike flew down the hill taking the Strava line about 3 corners and I Tacoed the rear disc.
Bent it back enough to ride to the bottom.
You want brakes going down Champery 😂
Brake-related on the motorbike, I clipped a sign with my right hand at about the legal limit. Instantaneously the brake lever both snapped and cut the end off my little finger as it crushed it against the bar, just above the joint.
Still hasn't grown back 😐
timizere
Free MemberTurns out MTB with only a front brake is really hard!
I snapped the rear brake lever off the bars in a kinlochleven enduro once and suddenly I basically couldn't ride any of the steeps, I knew it'd make a difference but I had no real idea just how much. The rear might not do much actual braking but it does a shitload of control.
Had an apprentice topping up the reservoir on a brand new bike after swapping hoses over, he'd put a lot more fluid in than expected, and still had a spongey lever.I told him to look for signs of leaking fluid while I pulled the lever, and as he bent over, the hose burst and sprayed right into his face. Must have been kinked,split internally,and filling the sheath which split at the most inopportune moment.
Turns out MTB with only a front brake is really hard!
Only a rear brake is worse. Try it and see.
Several years ago I went on a Chilterns ride with the tandem. About to drop off the ridge line and a mate warns everyone that the trail will eventually drop straight down the fall line so don’t go crazy where it traverses before then otherwise you’ll have lots of speed to scrub off.
So we take it easy but making a point not to drag the brakes (6 pot Hopes on 200mm rotors). Sure enough the trail just plummets. I soon realise that no matter how hard I squeeze the levers, we ain’t slowing down. Arse! Some chap in a green fleece shouts that we shouldn’t be there (it was a footpath) and I yell “can’t stop”. My wife thinks I’m being cheeky for shouting that and doesn’t realise it’s fact!
We’re starting to get faster and I’m panicking. I’m looking left and right, is there a clearing to turn away from the fall line and try and traverse the slope to loose speed? Nope, trees are too big and too close. Arse! I see people stationary below me. It’s the bottom of the hill, thank ‘eff for that.
Then I see the post and mesh fence perpendicular to me at the bottom of the trail. Double arse! Hitting that’ll be like a cross between an aircraft arrestor wire and a potato chipper. Somehow I manage to bear away and pile headlong into bushes and saplings that arrest our plummet with the fence taking the last couple of mph off. With the waft of burning brakes, I’m buried in the undergrowth, luckily the Mrs isn’t and it’s only now she realises that something wasn’t quite right.
That said, despite the mayhem and terror (for me, as i said the Mrs didn’t realise) the bike was beautifully stable and controlled - brakes excepted! I still reckon it’s the best wedding present we could have asked for.
Both my SRAM guides boiled and pulled to the bars at the same time part way down the Pila/Aosta run. That was "interesting".
I had the opposite. Trying to catch up with mates and wifey somewhere on Pitch Hill, Surrey Hills on some slightly down ST. Bang... I am on the floor. Where is my bike??? Wife comes back. Where is your bike? I dont know.... eventually we find it up a tree, 15' up.
I think I caught a stone in my disc, fork compressed I went over the bars and the bike bounced up the tree. I think. Very odd.
Still hasn’t grown back
WTF!
An riding acquaintance of mine tore his front brake hose out on a stile. Didn't notice and went haring down the next hill, he couldn't stop and hit a slate dry stone wall. A piece of slate went through his calf and did some nasty damage. Has titanium plates in now. This was all before I met him.
I was in the Alps (blue down from Avoriaz into Les Lindarets if you know it) and managed to boil the rear brake on the DH bike I had at the time. We were just doing swoopy park type stuff but it was fun seeing how much speed I could carry using only a front brake.
@kayak23 unusual for a wood-worker not to have had a saw incident with a missing finger part. I did meet one or two that could do the Dave Allen sawn-off shotgun when safety consulting.
thols2
Only a rear brake is worse. Try it and see.
Nah, not when it's wet or steep and you can't pull the front brake. I'll take a brake I can use when I want over a better brake that I can't use any day.
A friend of mine rode the mega qualifier with no rear brake. He put fresh pads in the night before, when we got out of the gondola the pads had dropped out. I think the retaining pin was in the tool box when we got back. Suffice to say he looked beat up at the end of it.
Nah, not when it’s wet or steep and you can’t pull the front brake. I’ll take a brake I can use when I want over a better brake that I can’t use any day.
On steep stuff, nearly all your braking is done by the front. If you only have a rear brake, it will just lock up and skid. It's much easier to ride with only a front brake than only a rear.