Hello,
I've seen a lot of Italian racers e.g. Francesco Moser, Moreno Argentin,
and Fausto Coppi who had the right front setup. The guy who set up my
first race bike, a Torpado, set it up right front for this reason.
The guy who set up the bike said was told this was safer if you had your
hand off the bar to drink some water and you had to panic brake for some
kind of emergency, you'd be less likely to take out other riders since
you'd lock up the back brake. However I'd rather be able to grab the
front brake, If I could only use one.
At any rate this was pretty early in my serious cycling phase and I got
used to it and couldn't change back easily (I tried after riding right
front for six months or so). I do like having my dominant hand on the
front brake since it's the one that does most of the stopping.
Since my bike was set up "different" than most guys in the US, I noticed
which riders had left front and which had right front. It was easier to
tell in the days of non-aero levers. Riding bicycles right front helped
me when I got interested in motorcycles about ten years after I started
racing bicycles.
By the way, Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche both had left front brakes.
(Don't they drive on the left in Ireland?)
I read in an interview that Davis Finney set up his bike as right front
for some goofy reason, I can't remember for sure, but I think it was
because the kid in "Breaking Away" had his Masi set up that way.
-Eric
Sheldon Brown wrote:
> Quoth Joe LoBuglio:
>
>> For fun I am rebuilding a circa 1985 Peugeot road bike. It has
>> single-pivot Dia-Compe side-pull brakes. When installed on the bicycle,
>> the part of the front brake on which the cable pulls is on the left
>> from the perspective of someone sitting on the bike. This is opposite
>> to my other bicycles and requires a longer cable that changes
>> directions if the front brake lever is on the left and the cables are
>> routed beneath the handlebar tape. I've read most of the discussion on
>> this group concerning mounting the front brake lever on the right and
>> would consider this except that my other bikes are not this way and I
>> think consistency is a good idea.
>
> It most certainly is. I once nearly crashed on a recently purchased
> used bike when I accidentally applied the rear brake, and was only
> barely able to stop in time to avoid cross traffic.
>
>> Do most folks with these brakes have the front brake lever on the right
>> or do they stay with convention? Any reason related to braking
>> performance to do one or the other?
>
> Generally, most folks run the front brake on the left in countries where
> they drive on the right, and on the right in countries where they drive
> on the left.*
>
> Japan and Great Britain drive on the left, so traditionally Japanese and
> British brake calipers used to be set up that way.
>
> The British don't make stuff anyore, and the Japanese have yielded to
> the demands of the world market, so most calipers in current production
> have the opposit "handedness" of your older Japanese ones.
>
> *Many of us consider this custom to be an error, and use the opposite
> setup. See: http://sheldonbrown.com/brakturn for a detailed discussion
> of this issue.
>
> Sheldon "Right Front" Brown
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