this has been my thing for two years and i have never posted on tarck about it
it is my campaign called save the brake pads
the goal is to do an entire one-way commute without using the brakes
if you are riding a brakeless bike congrats, but that doesn’t really count
i find it to be surprisingly difficult, i have only succeeded nine times in about ~300 commutes of attempting it
it usually goes like this:
50% of attempts fail at the end of my street by the office
35% fail at the light at the bottom of the really long hill
5% fail at one of the lights on the way home but they are short and i can usually time it right
5% fail at the blind off camber right hander at the bottom of the hill onto a main road (shocked that it’s not higher there)
5% fail trying to turn out of the neighborhood to get into my own neighborhood
my commute is just over 3 miles long so i have it pretty easy
curious to see what you folx can put together
this is the kind of shit i think about a lot while riding
i could easily do it without a full on halting stop
but i modulate the brakes too much because of all the 4 way stops and crossing pedestrians around my apt
No, I bought the fixie for pure fun purposes and also winter maintenance laziness.
The point is to literally not touch the brakes at all
You’re allowed to roll a stop but running red lights is frowned upon
Yeah you have to either roll to a stop or cx dismount at your destination
For example if I’m successful I often blast into my driveway and cx dismount at a high rate of speed
It’s risky
In college I would do the opposite of this and try to get all the way home from campus without pedaling. It worked maybe 20% of the time. The crux was the crosswalks at the main intersection on campus, or maybe the left turn followed by a flat (slightly uphill?) block just before my house.
If I get a lucky light I can do this on my (short) commute in, slightly uphill, and sometimes I try to get past this 4 block multi turn stop signs and lights section of the way home without pedaling. I stop pedaling at a certain address and can coast the whole way home with a little bike english and a lucky light.
I missed on one real sharp turn that I expected to have trouble on
But I think I can do it if I descend on the grass instead of on the path
I cleaned the other sharp turn, which was sketchy and v fun
Thx fix for the idea