Two front brakes

Martin Dann said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same lever.
The lever had two cabels comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

Has anyone else seen this setup, as is there any good reason for it?

Martin.

was it a trike? one of the giffers in our club has one on his; two
callipers on the front; one operated by each lever

"MartinM" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin Dann said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same
lever.
The lever had two cables comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

Has anyone else seen this setup, as is there any good reason for it?

Martin.

was it a trike? one of the giffers in our club has one on his; two
callipers on the front; one operated by each lever

No definately a bike. One lever pulled both. As I see it, they would have to
very well, and regularly adjusted to make both brakes operate at the same
time. Otherwise only one would brake, and the other do nothing
Martin

In article said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same
lever.
The lever had two cables comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

[..]

Quoted message said:

No definately a bike. One lever pulled both. As I see it, they would have to
very well, and regularly adjusted to make both brakes operate at the same
time. Otherwise only one would brake, and the other do nothing

You could set up the linkage so that once one brake hit the wheel, further
movement of the handle takes up slack in the other before applying significant
force to the first. But in that case if one cable breaks, the other does
nothing. I suppose it means you can brake for twice as long before overheating
of rim or hub is a problem. (There was a quad on eBay a while back where both
wheels had both rim and hub brakes, but both captain and third stoker had
two levers.)

On the other hand, if it is to provide two brakes for backup (for someone
with no strength in one hand?), then it doesn't matter if one brake does
nothing normally, so long as it works if the first one fails.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Martin Dann said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same
lever.
The lever had two cables comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

Has anyone else seen this setup, as is there any good reason for it?

Martin.

As I was collecting the Brompton from its service the other day, another
customer was collecting his bike that the shop had just built up.

It seems that the customer had lost a lot of the strength in one arm and
hand, so the shop had set up both brakes on a single lever (from a
tricycle?), and a mixture of a thumb lever for the front changer and a
twist grip for the rear.

The customer had a five-mile shake-down ride home.

Martin Dann said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same lever.
The lever had two cabels comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

Has anyone else seen this setup, as is there any good reason for it?

Martin.

In the UK, bikes are required by law to have two functioning brakes. If
you only have one functioning hand you will need a different
arrangement. A fixed wheel counts as one brake, backwards pedalling
coaster brakes do not (I'm not certain why). If you don't like fixed
wheels the double activation is essential.

Dia Compe make levers to activate two brakes. My tandem used to have
front and back activated from the right lever and the drag brake from
the left. I now have a more conventional set up, although the drag
brake is activated using a gripshift instead.

regards,
d.

Martin Dann said:

"MartinM" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin Dann said:

I saw a bike today that had two front brakes operated from the same
lever.
The lever had two cables comming from a plate just in front of the brake
lever. One pulled
a cantilever brake, the other a hub drum (roller?) brake.

Has anyone else seen this setup, as is there any good reason for it?

Martin.

was it a trike? one of the giffers in our club has one on his; two
callipers on the front; one operated by each lever

Quoted message said:

No definately a bike. One lever pulled both. As I see it, they would have to
very well, and regularly adjusted to make both brakes operate at the same
time. Otherwise only one would brake, and the other do nothing

It's a self adjusting system. The brake that does all the work wears
its pads down until both brakes are wearing down at the same rate.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]