Quote:
Originally Posted by geosynch
I confess I like the looks of disc brakes, but there is one thing I learned racing road bikes (the motor kind):
On dry pavement, 100% of the stopping can and should be done with your front brakes.
I've never raced cars before, but the physics of the situation is that most of the stopping power comes from the front brakes on a car (not 100%, but certainly more than 50%).
For the average commuting joe, rear discs is a show toy...but a cool one!
geosynch
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The main difference is that a bike can flip over it's front wheel and a car cannot.
If you can flip over your front wheel... braking to JUST before this happens is maximum braking. There can't be any skid. That's why the rear brakes are useless, because they will simply lift off the ground under optimal maximum braking in a bike.
Cars can't flip over their front wheel, so their front wheels will skid. This means the rear brakes will have to do some work for maximum braking.
(i know you already knew this, but it's an interesting tidbit I didn't know until I read Sheldon Brown's bicycle website)
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