BIG UPDATE! The CPSC is accepting public comments about removing the footbrake requirement for kids bikes. Go to this link to submit a comment: www.regulations.gov/commenton/CPSC-2023-0023-0001 The more people that go there and post that they support revoking the footbrake requirement, the better. This was an initiative championed by Woom, a large manufacturer of children's bikes. Good on them for getting the ball rolling, and putting some real dollars into getting the message out.
This is great info after watching your push bike video. Would be great to have more options as a consumer to decide what's best on our own. And by the looks of it, there are lots of options, and many of them are good!
It will be harder than you think, at the first serious effort you're going to see two different lobbyist groups crawl out of the woodwork defending these zombie laws. Helicopter parents and law enforcement. Helicopter parents are the obvious one, but law enforcement use weird bicycle laws as a way to extort revenue out of poor people
Obviously the regulators forgot to get an engineer involved. An engineer would have specified a minimum stopping distance in rain with a given force applied on a specified handle determined to be within the capability of a 3year old. We would have had hydraulic brakes 20years sooner.
Rarely laws are made by the people who should make them. This is why politics as a whole are broken. Education in the hands of people who want to destroy it, women's rights in the hands of mentally deranged men, child bicycle part compliance made by people who've likely never used a bicycle in their entire life, as is often the case with rich politicians... yet another pudding to prove the point of the system's broken nature. I swear, the further in time we go, the clearer it gets, politicians as they are, is the wrong way to go.
With bicycle brakes, there’s too many variables; take for example plastic mag wheels - see, traditional bicycle brakes *non coaster* work by friction of the brake pad rubbing on the rim… however, plastic mag wheels, wear increasingly more smooth (the friction of the brake pads effectively Polish the surface which it’s supposed to be slowing with friction), so the brakes become literally less effective after every single time the brakes are applied…it’s like rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, the friction makes the sticks’ rubbing area more & more smooth & friction becomes proportionally less as the surfaces become increasingly polished…
would that really be practical as a law though? Do all breaks sold on the market have to undergo some standardized test to certify their minimum stopping distance in the (simulated?) rain with a standardized setup and standardized force applied to a standardized handle? I guess that's not insane given the german StVZO bicycle lights requirements being rather detailed as well, and that apparently do get enforced, but still also seems non-trivial to regulate.
I love riding my daughter's Prevelo. When we ordered it, the rear disc brake upgrade was $1. It was clear that was how Prevelo intended to sell the bike.
@@thunderb00m I see your point that Prevelo bikes they are pricey, but most equally pricey kids bikes don’t offer an extra rim+plus tire for $20! ($50 now)
I'm aware that few different manufacturers have found clever ways around this law, but it usually means doing something confusing or expensive. How many other laws do you know of like this? Example: requiring new mountain bikes to come with reflectors preinstalled
@@Hotch-B plus you get given grief by motorists for riding on the road then you get given grief for riding on the pavement so no matter what you do, you can’t win in the uk, the government needs to change the policies and add more bike lanes
@@andrewsouthern3517 dont get me started on how others treat you, ive been sideswiped multiple times on the road, threatened on the path, no matter where you cycle theres always someone with an opinion or a grudge against you
Seth, don’t just complain! Petition your state legislature to have the law updated. Participation is the core of American democracy! Plead your case for why the law is outdated and how to write it so kid’s bikes are safer. If you don’t find the process educational, hopefully at least you’d find it entertaining 😅.
Here in Indiana reflectors are required if riding at night...few follow that law. But no real odd requirements equipment wise. While looking into it I discovered that it's apparently illegal to stand up and pedal while riding and you must be seated....thankfully much of indiana is flat.
I always hated coaster brakes on kids bikes. Never knew it was because of a law, though. The first thing a kid does when panicking is take their feet off the pedals, and try to use their feet to stop. Hate coaster brakes almost as much as training wheels, and try to dissuade people away from both. Love your videos, Seth, both as a mountain biker, and a fellow parent.
I actually have a recent experience with my 4 year old... she started at around 2 on a balance bike and then a pedal bike with a coaster brake at around 3. She learned how to pedal without stabilizers, but the coaster brake was nothing but problems, and her first instinct was always to put her feet on the ground to stop. Finally switched her to a freehub v-brake bicycle and she is enjoying it more than ever, I actually have trouble keeping when running after her. It also helped that we went from 8kg heavy specialized riprock 16 to a
Hi from Australia, I learnt to ride with those stupid brakes and would lock up on me causing many a scraped knee. The 1st time I rode a mountain bike my friend forgot to tell me about the hand break and I was rapidly pedaling backward and ended up sailing right into someone's tent
I used to rollerskate when I was young. On skates, you do a 180 and go up on your toes to stop because that's where the brakes were. I got rollerblades as an adult, and when I came up to a road across the bike path, I automatically did that. Going up on your toes doesn't work so well on rollerblades. Luckily, I had enough coordination that I didn't end up eating the pavement, but I figure the person who stopped at the crossing may have found it amusing.
I'm 74 and have been a serious cyclist for over 50 years. In my stable of bicycles I have two '70s Raleigh Sports, one of which has a coaster brake (and a front caliper brake). I use the English bikes with it's raining, because they have fenders and a chain guard, and I ride the coaster brake model when it is really wet, because it absolutely will stop even if it's pouring, whereas the other Sports with two caliper brakes may not stop.
You know that Brooks came out with some specially made Chrome plated leather brake pads specifically designed to stop chrome/steel rimed bikes in the rain, right? The Brits made some interesting and clever bicycle invention fixes for riding bicycles in the normal seasons of their green and pleasant lands.
Definitely. I mentioned if you buy any used bike on craigslist those brakes are gonna be total crap most likely. And if they're not crap, they're gonna be hard to pull for little kids. Heck half the times my kids burn through their shoes instead of using the brakes anyway.
@@wsams very simple to adjust brakes, if their parent actually gave a damn that is. But that might be asking too much from your average walmart shopper.....
@@srobeck77 Still junk when adjusted. You have to factor in the cheap rims as well. And the pads. Adjustments are just part of the issue. Surely you've tried given your knowledge. I think hydraulic disc brakes for kids are the only way to go. Mechanical can be way too hard to pull. My kiddos can barely pull them. That's another huge issue. They have to be lubed and clean at all times.
@@wsams not really following this long and incorrect rant. Surely all I commented on was adjusting the brakes and btw you do not "lube" cheap brakes on a walmart bike. You can youtube all this maintenance stuff instead of lubing your kids brakes or changing the fluid in the bike tires. 😆
you are correct and exactly what I was thinking. Rural towns and area's often do not have any kind of bicycle shop. So Wally World we go. I had my kids grandmother and great gran come home with her first bike at very young age with two flat tires. So I had to change the tubes immediately while doublechecking for fasteners or parts mis-installed. So the tubes being underinflated from store and immediately flat upon sitting on it with the gran grans at least got me looking closer at it by default. I'm sure that was why they didn't bother to put but half a pound in each tire lol. for our safety of course lol
This brought back a memory from my childhood from the '50s. I learned to ride a bike on a hand-me-down with coaster brakes. When I got my first new bike for Christmas, I have a vivid memory of taking off down the street and when I tried to stop there was no Coster brake. There were no handbreaks either! I ended up colliding with a parked car so I came out okay. When my mom caught up with me she figured out that the bike was direct drive. Kind of like the penny farthing (great video, BTW). My other vivid memory was my mom's rage at the bike shop owner who said that's just the way they came. If we wanted brakes, it would be an extra charge. I suspect that's the kind of bike the whacko law was intended to outlaw.
@@LiterallyCensoredDaily odd. My takeaway was how profiteering businesses lacking any combination of ethical intention, basic logic, an influential R&D team, or a confident retribution-free self-policing policy create the unfortunate necessity for an under informed, less emotionally invested, more easily influenced by corrupt actors outside resource to deal w the angry parents demanding "fixies". The list of resources is pitiful when attempting to reach a tone deaf producer.
As a kid I used to love my coaster break, burning rubber for hours. I’d literally drive up and down my driveway locking up the back and turning. So fun.
My neighbor across the street was pissed when I taught his kids how to do skids with the coaster brake. He came home from work and there were about 150 rubber streaks on his new driveway, and a blown tire on his kid's bike.
@@BigDish101 yes, but they would cost as much as some people's whole bike, require special tools for maintaining, one of several shapes of brake pads instead of a universal design, and simply didn't exist on bicycles in the late 80s and early 90s when I was little. For that matter, I have been able to lock up every type of brakes except side pull with plastic levers,even when I weighed 400 lbs!
@@BigDish101 The issue with coaster brakes and skids is that because they are also direct drive, and most people tend to brake with the pedals in the same spot, the SAME SPOT on the tire gets all the wear from the skid.
As a non-bike guy who was recommended this randomly: “hand brakes” are what made a bike a “big kids bike”. Graduating from “foot brakes” was the equivalent of getting your training wheels taken off. Had no idea it was a law
coaster brakes are the reason I got 28 stitches as a child. The chain fell off and I couldn't stop and I went over a 6ft cliff. (not big to me now but back then was quite big) Thanks for the information about this law, I agree with you on this subject and hope there is change in the future.
I had that happen more than once as a kid (the chain coming off the gears, not the cliff). I resorted to "alternate" stopping methods, like turning uphill if there was room, jumping off the bike and into a run while turning the bike toward a yard or bushes, doing a Fred Flintstone with the sole of my shoe as a brake against the front tire, and once I jammed the toe of my shoe into the front spokes. - I do NOT recommend that last one to anybody!
I have never seen bike with coaster brakes without a front brake, but my childhood was in the early 2000s. And here in Poland they can fine u if you don't have working brakes
@@96HUDY My childhood preceded yours by 20-30 years, and back then, there were coaster brakes on every bike with wheels smaller than 24 inches in diameter and caliper brakes on everything larger than the coaster brake bikes. Oh, and often caliper brakes turned into NO brakes after a year or so of leaving the bike outside in the elements, causing the cable(s) to rust up, or rust through, or the rubber pads to dry rot away. - The 1970's had some fun danger!
@@MonkeyJedi99 Yep, as a teenager I sometimes used to have bicycles with no brakes on daily usage, as the caliper brakes were prone to faults and bothersome to fix, so most of the time I just didn't bother. I found out that usually the best alternative way for braking was to press shoe heel against ground while supporting leg against pedal. That was my main braking method for long times and once learned, worked routinely well enough - or at least felt so, not very powerful nor safe though. But it was the careless teen age. Needed just new shoes every so often - and also used rubber glue and pieces of rubber to "renew" shoe heels. Then I grew up and lost interest into those chain gears which are also troublesome per se, and have since made sure every bike I acquire have coaster brakes. And about the original comment, the coaster brake was not the reason of your stitches - the reason was not having alternative brakes. And handbrakes have failed on me way more often than chain has fallen.
As a matter of fact, mountain biking pretty much STARTED with coaster brakes--look up the Repack Race, which is named for re-packing the grease in a coaster after you've smoked it out by using it downhill. A strange but important footnote to this video.
I still know people who build coaster brake mountain bikes to bomb around on in the desert. You don’t see any racers on them these days 😂 but they’re fun and nostalgic.
@@moonshinershonor202 Yep. I'd post a link to the Park Tool article titled "Coaster Hub Overhaul" that explains in detail, except YT blocks comments that link external websites.
@@SethsBikeHacks i like to ride trails with a coaster mullet; disk up front, CB in the rear. If you understand and respect the limitations of the machine, it works just fine. There's a semi-annual race in the Valley called the "coaster brake challenge," put on by Atomic Cycles in Van Nuys. No front brakes allowed, no IGHs, not even kickback 2 speeds. Try to open your mind up a lil bit.
Take the three push plates out and shim the gap with two washers, then you have a freecoaster which you can adjust by removing a washer! Roll back tricks and flatland tricks, when you don't want the cranks moving backwards become easier😎
You should issue a challenge to all visitors to Berm Peak - run that kids bike (with the freehub and disc brakes of course) through the place, and their times up on a leader board.
7:23 having reflector on mountain bike actually makes sense - because if reflector wouldn't be oligatory on it, you wouldn't be allowed to use it mountain bike in a "normal" environment, so only people with car could be able to use it (as they would need to transport their mountain bike on car from home to the mountains)
=COASTER BRAKES TAUGHT ME HOW TO CONTROL DOWNHILL SPEED BY UNDERBRAKING,KIND OF ...........IN ACTUAL IT'S MUCH BETTER IN TERMS OF CONSERVING ATTENTION ON WHAT'S GOING BEFORE YOU WITH SOLID SEPARATION LIKE HANDS FOR STEER,LEGS FOR PEDALING/BRAKING.......
@@robotnikkkk001 thats a bad argument, you have 3 things you have to do and 2 inputs to do those things with, so one of them is always gonna handle 2. "hands for steering, legs for pedaling/braking" is the same as "hands for steering/braking and legs for pedaling" by your logic. Coaster brakes are shitty, you dont have as fine of a control on the force applied and the inability to spin freely backward can screw you up on turns and can cause accidental braking. Theres a reason you dont see normal adult bikes sold with coaster brakes, theyre a crutch for children to learn, and thats about it.
@@SpydersByte .....THERES 2 INPUTS ANYWAYS SO ALREADY IT'S EQUAL .......ALSO CONTROL ON THE FORCE APPLIED IS AS FINE AS IT'S ON "NORMAL" BRAKES........JUST IT'S ABOUT PRACTICE........ .....ARGUMENT ON "CANNOT SPIN FREELY BACKWARDS" IS *_PURELY_* SUBJECTIVE...........AS DOWNHILL SPEED FAR MUCH EXCEEDS PEDALING SPEED,SO POSITIONING PEDALS BY SLIGHTLY MOVING FORWARD WONT CAUSE ANY INCONVINIENCE........IT'S ONLY BECAUSE OF HABIT...........LIKE WASD VERSUS ARROW KEYS........ARGUMENT IS ABSOLUTELY INVALID,JUST BECAUSE OF IT'S ABOUT FOLLOWING HABITS ..........IN ACTUAL,COASTER BRAKES EVEN HAVING 2 ADVANTAGES OVER "NORMAL" ONES......LIKE FORCE OF BRAKING ITSELF.......ABOUT FINGERTIPS VERSUS LEGS........SO BRAKING WILL BE 100% ALMOST INSTANT AND FULL...COMPARED TO HOW MUCH FINGERTIPS MUST VE BEEN TRAINED TO ENSURE ENOUGH GRIP FORCE...AND ALSO MOVING THROUGH WET CONDITIONS.......WITH OPEN BRAKES........U KNOW WHAT I'M ABOUT,RIGHT????......WHEN COASTER BRAKES ARENT SUBJECTED TO THAT KIND OF PROBLEM .......REACTION TIME ALSO THE SAME..........THANKS TO HOW POWERFUL LEGS ARE............ ......ALSO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT ABOUT FINGERTIPS ARE BECOMING SORE REALLY FAST,AND THAT IMPACTING WHOLE HAND,THOUGH............WHICH CAN BE DANGEROUS AT PINPOINT ACCURATE STEERING DOWNHILL.........THAT'S FROM MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE,THOUGH.....OF COURSE IT'S ABOUT TRAINING BUT THE SAME THING GOES AGAINST,LIKE WHY NOT TO TRY TRAINING COASTER BRAKES MASTERING INSTEAD ...........SO,ALL THE ARGUMENTS FOR "NORMAL" BRAKES ARE COUNTERED WITH "IT'S JUST A HABIT" .......WITH 1 SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT ABOUT WET CONDITIONS........ .........SO,BASICALLY.......IT ALL DEPENDS........ .....ALSO HAVE U EVER MEET PROFESSIONAL COASTER BRAKES THAT TO MANAGE OUT BETTER CONTROL OF APPLIED FORCE??--NOO........ONLY PRIMITIVE ONES,RIGHT????? ...........ONLY THING THAT CAN BE FOR "NORMAL" BRAKES IS LIKE IT'S APPLIED ON FRONT WHEEL........WHEN COASTER BRAKES ARE ABOUT TO DO ONLY WITH REAR WHEEL........SO,COMBINING THESE 2 IS ACTUALLY IDEAL THING,I GUESS.......GETTING BEST FROM BOTH WORLDS.....AND ONLY A BIT OF ADDITIONAL TRAINING IS NEEDED....... ......SO,AGAIN,COASTER BRAKES ARE BLAMED FOR NOTHING...................ONLY FOR NOT FOLLOWING HABITS......SAME AS WASD........ESPECIALLY IF THERE'D BE A PROFESSIONAL COASTER BRAKES..........
When my son was three years old, my wife bought him a bike for his birthday. We never checked it for a brake system. The only brake that it had was a lever mounted to the frame that a little kid was supposed to pull back and a pad rubbed the tire and that would eventually stop the bike. My son only had it a short time and, unable to stop, drove it off the deck and fractured his arm. We got him a bike with a coaster brake. When we took it back to Toys R Us and explained the problem, they refunded our money and we noted that the bike was not being sold the next time we went in.
The first mountain bikes to ever be made used to be nicknamed re-packs, because they were just modified cruisers with coaster brakes and you had to re-pack the bearings after each run down the mountain. The grease would all burn up by the time you were done
@@InventorZahran Yeah, it's very situation dependent. In flat country coaster brakes are often maintenance free, reliable for literaly decades and you can still brake in an aerodynamic position.
I really loved the simplicity of coaster brakes as a kid, never did mountain biking though. I always had front and rear brakes too. They were just simple, reliable, and fun. When i did upgrade to a mountain bike it was easy to get used to free hubs.
I don’t get what your point is. You said it yourself. It’s because most people are buying a cheap bike for their kid to ride for a summer and likely don’t know how to work a screwdriver. Hence the reliable coaster brake… You want to get around the coaster brake and your kid gets hurt because, no brakes. That’s on you. No lawsuit allowed.
@@elijahrebello1 You want to get around the coaster brake and your kid gets hurt because, no brakes. That’s on you. really loved the simplicity of coaster brakes as a kid.
the problem now is the newest and cheapest of these brake hubs are not even in the same quality category as the older Shimano coasterbrake hubs. These are the brake hubs that wear out in a couple months time if improperly adjusted, which most of them are from their factories.
I naturally leveled my pedals from the get go, my father had to find a bike shop to remove the coaster brakes because it was actually preventing me from learning how to ride a bike. Once it was gone I was riding like crazy.
I had the same problem as a kid, but my parents weren't that knowledgeable about bikes. After I managed to end up bloodying my knee for the 3rd time in a week because I couldn't level off without braking OR break the inclination, I stopped riding. Trying to get back into biking again as an adult has been embarrasing...
@@KiraSlith eh some can't swim some can't ride. I've met adults that can't drive. I wouldn't fret to much to the point it embarrass you. You'll get it.
Actually the founding fathers of MTB used to ride the coaster brake bikes down the mountain. Repack Ridge takes its name from repacking those back with grease which was necessary after each ride...
Yes, at that point in time the caliper brakes in use on road bikes were too weak to do much for a 50lb klunker flying down a fire road. Cantis are what finally gave MTBs safe levels of stopping power.
Given the choice between coaster brakes or old caliper brakes I'd choose coasters too. they suck but at least you can stop, not just slow down slightly. Even most old cantilever brakes are so bad I wouldn't dare send it down any real trail.
I’m not going to say it’s a good idea to have both a toddler and a novice use coasters though, when feet position is the difference between having fun and having to give like, a thousand daddy kisses.
First rode a bike with cruiser brakes in Key West at the age of 39, after more than 3 decades of riding with hand-lever brakes. It almost killed me. Never again.
This brings back memories of hopping off my old Huffy & getting on my mountain bike just to realize I forgot it didn't have a coaster brake. Foot would slip off, nuts hit the bar, and I'd drag my feet to the curb 😂
@@norezenable It's finally picking up! There is the Specialized Roll, Trek Verve, and I know Cannondale has something extremely similar. Even though it's not the predominant style it's no longer difficult to find one at a local shop.
Coaster Brakes were amazing when I was a kid, All my Bikes had them up until I got my 1st Mountain Bike when I was about 14. I never had any trouble adapting to the hand Brakes but part of me has always missed the awesomeness of what we called foot brakes back then.
During high school (the 60's) I had a garage business servicing coaster brakes. It made me a small amount of money, was more fun than working at the grocery store, and it gave me a head start on an engineering degree. 👍
My first bike had a coaster brake. The first time I rode my sister's bike with only hand brakes, I didn't know how to stop. I started rolling toward a major road, so to stay safe I turned sharply into a curb and flipped over the handlebars. Needless to say, it hurt a lot.
I actually gave my kid his first bike without coaster brake today, showed him how to use the v-brake, ran with him up and down the road, brake and pedal, then completely forget how the brakes worked and tried to stop by putting both feet on the ground, but the seat was to high for this to be effective so he got to choose between crashing into my car or the fence, and chose the fence. luckily he remembered (or heard me shouting "use the hand brake") and was able to brake a lot before crashing, so he didn't even fall over, just stopped suddenly with the front wheel in the fence.
My kid's first bike - a priority start 16, highly recommend - had dual hand brakes. He's never used a coaster brake, and there's a good chance he never will.
I grew up with coaster breaks and was very confused and had to relearn how to ride when I got my first hand-me-down mountain bike. Which was also pretty steep since it was "If you do it wrong you'll fly over your handle bars" oh, that's scary. Today my dad hates hand breaks because he's so used to coaster breaks. He's confused why they got rid of them and I'll certainly be sending him this video later because I'm sure it'll answer a lot of his questions. We really like either not teaching at all or teaching you how to do it wrong first then figure out the right way later.
Ah that "If you do it wrong you'll fly over your handle bars" is soooo familiar. People are actually afraid of well functioning brakes!! We have a bicycle sharing service here in Hungary and ALL of them has shitty breaks. You cannot do an emergency stop. All I could think of is that they probably rather give you subpar breaks than actual good ones people may not use correctly go over the handle bars. Also interesting: we also had a thing people said which goes something like "yeah, take my bike for a ride, but please do not shift" - that was because we had a lot of very low quality "mountain bikes" with badly configured / bad quality derailleurs and shifters, so using the shifter actually could cause issues.
@@Pityke4 Oh crud that makes sense. I had a hand-me-down MT bike and I recall at one point the derailleur didn't like shifting, if you did you'd get the click but then it'd linger on the gear for 10+ seconds before it finally CLONK-D over. My family had zero exp with mountain bikes so there wasn't a lot of maintenance that went on with that bike. Despite that it was still the best bike I had at the time given we were poor and the odds of me getting a new bike were zero unless someone was tossing out their old one. But yeah I get the idea behind 'please do not shift on my bike' because I wasn't even sure if something would break. I think eventually it got sorted, but it was ages ago. But on your first point, yeah IDK what's up with that statement "you'll go over your bars" like- how fast are you going and how hard are you hitting that front break where that'd be a worry right? I swear it was just a myth that perpetuated. I'm really happy to have even the basic mechanical disk breaks, it's a lot better for emergency breaking.
Yes. Coaster brakes are bad! No need for them. One downside is when you have stopped and your pedal is not in the right position try getting it there. You'd have to lift up your back wheel or roll forward, which is not always possible on say, hills. Also deraileurs and coaster brakes are a nightmare
@@Snotnaroknot to mention but 70% of braking is done with the front brake. It works better than the back, and there's no coaster brake for front wheels
@@joneinarmattiasvisser6113 Yeah, that much I recall from my childhood, I had zero interest in coaster breaks after using even my cruddy rim breaks (as in they were of poor quality not saying rim breaks are just bad). Better stopping, none of that nonsense with stopping with the pedals at a bad spot. My dad insists they were better but I'm like- dad, in no way they were better in any, way. He still has a bike from the . . . IDK 1960s that is for an adult and has coaster breaks. Hasn't been used in 30 years at least but, still sat around in the shed.
I grew up a 70’s BMX kid with nothing but coaster brakes until I think I was 12. Despite everything you said, I still want to build a adult sized BMX bike with coaster brake. Nothing beats a power skid from jamming back your right leg 😁
Been living in England since I was born and would travel to finland 3-4 times a year to visit my grand parents as a kid, some of the most fun I had in the summer over there was riding my little bike with the coaster breaks and doing power slides at the bottom of the hill haha. They aren't the best but definitely fun for sure 🙏
I'm with Dan on this. It might not fit the expectations of the entire adult world, but I loved the control having that coaster brake gave me. I am sure there are alternate techniques one could develop to level with a coaster, like pedaling forward since the bike is moving toward the turn. Another thing about safety is I've had cantilever, V, and disc brakes fail on bikes a lot more often than I've had a chain fall off and remove coast brake function. If anything, coast brakes shouldn't be the only brake, because why not have both? I think they're more reliable than represented. If they weren't that regulation would be gone, because of all the extra dead kids.
@@GreenLegendRanI have never, I mean never...had a brake failure. I maintain all my bikes personally, and I dont see how you could lose front and rear brakes at the same time...i just dont. How did it happen? Honest question.
Yep i agree, i had this cheap ass bike with coaster brakes when i started bike channel and before i got my cheap ass bike, and that had a free hub, so i was used to moving the pedals to the other side to make clearance for a really sharp turn you have to really lean for, and you can probably guess what happens next, turned the corner moving the pedals to the other side drifted into a tree, i got a concussion, but im ok now
@@treky0 of gas ⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽
I agree it is a stupid law...but I think the coaster brakes put the fun in bike riding like for the ultimate skid turn around when you slam the pedals back to put the brakes on for example. I wish I could put coaster brakes on my "adult" bike; it much rather have the good old fashioned pedal brakes than the brakes on the handlebars and then get rid of the handle bar brakes...sounds like a plan if only I knew how to work on bikes!
When i was growing up (90's) my front brakes were almost useless but i had the coaster brake and it stopped the bike fine and could always be useless. I made sure that when i got my kid's first bike it had coaster brakes mostly because it was easiest to teach "forward to go back to stop"
When I was a bike mechanic I would always offer to modify the coaster brake bikes for any parent buying a kid bike if they wanted. Either right away or during the free first service. We never charged, it’s super easy to pull the hub apart and remove the ‘pads’ and the best part is they become a free coaster hub so your kid (or if the bike is sized correctly, you) can learn to roll back like a bmx god.
Back in the late eighties. Some of the kids bikes had coaster breaks and we would take the hub apart and take the brakes out of it. There were 2 pieces that you could take out and have it free will... I'm sure you could still do that... Love your videos.
At 7:23 you negatively mention reflectors. I have been riding since I was 6, got my 1st mountain bike at 16 and have been riding ever since. I am now 64. I rode off road alot but, some days I stayed in town. So what's wrong with reflectors while in town. While driving, reflectors are an added advantage for both rider and driver.
There’s a couple of modifications that can be done without replacing the entire hub to disengage the coaster brake - however I’d only recommend doing this on bikes that already have alternate front/back brakes such as the Prevelo shown here. If you’re confident in bike maintenance you can open the hub and remove the pawls and/or brake shoes. Pay attention to how the hub is held in alignment. A second more straight forward option is to remove the reaction arm. This provides the counter-lever that engages the pawls and brake. The downside of this is the weight/drag of the brake shoes are still present. We have the same laws to bikes here in NZ and I did the above to my 4/5yr olds BYK E-350 MTB and it made a huge difference in his trail riding and confidence.
If you only remove the reaction arm, the hub will try to rotate in the frame along with the rim when the pedals are turned backwards. This is potentially bad.
Taking the pawls out is the way to go. I did this for both of my kids bikes immediately. My son struggled to learn to pedal until I got rid of the coaster brake. He would get going and accidentally pedal Backwards and kill all momentum.
@@zanecatterall6783 Again, no. You don't want the hub axle to twist in the frame when you pedal backwards. The brake will still work with the arm cut off, only now it will grind your axle locknuts against the frame when you use it.
Heh, I remember the first time I used disk brakes on a mountain bike. I was about 7 and I went right over those handle bars so fast and the rest of the bike followed behind to land on top of me 😂 there was of course a crowd of people to enjoy that sight 😂 ouch. Very ouch
I bought a state bicycles Klunker with a coaster brake and mountain bike tires. The thing is a blast and I absolutely love flying around with sketchy AF brakes. 😆
@@dylan-5287 fair warning if you get one, their QC isn't the best so really look over the bike front to back and have all the tools needed to rebuild on hand. I got one of their single speeds and it took me almost as much time to set it up as it took me building a bike from parts and I've had to do a lot of maintenance over the year of riding I've put on it.
@@kuma_score7536 I bought mine from a local bike shop, they went over it and it has been fine. They did tell me to check the crank arm bolts every few rides. I guess they have a habit of working loose. Doesn't matter for me though because I've already ordered a new external bearing bottom bracket......
I didn't even know what a coaster brake was before I watched this! Here in the UK, the law states that a bike should have two working brakes. It doesn't state what kind of brake, it just says "a brake". If you ride a fixie, the rear wheel counts as a brake, in which case you're only required to have a front brake. We don't really have coaster brakes over here. Also, lane splitting is legal (nothing to do with brakes, but I love that lane splitting is legal over here!)
Yep, never used fixed hub when I was learning to ride, only on really early trikes and such that were made to just be toys and toys only. Always had that freewheel and it is so much better.
Growing up in the 1970's in the uk i had a few bikes with the back pedal brake, i never had any issues with it nor did any of my mates who rode the bike. Are they banned in the US because the majority of Americans dumb and hurt themselves? I can't think of any other reason why
I grew up with coaster brakes obviously and I loved them. They were so fun doing burn outs, but I grew up in the mountains. When I got my first mountain bike as a 12ish year old, the free wheel was crazy to me. I thought it was so cool, but it took literal years for me to understand that I wouldn’t break the bike if I peddled backwards. It also took me much longer to be confident braking with the hand brakes. Now every bike I ride is a free wheel, and when I ride coaster bikes I always accidentally engage the brakes at full speed!
The coaster breaks messed me up when i was a kid. I was going fast down a dirt hill on a turn and it all locked up and the bike cane out from under me. And I couldn’t unbreeak either.
I feel like a loophole for this would be the bike manufacturer offering a swap when the customer buys the bike. The manufacturer could send them a wheel/tire combo for the customer to swap on, and have the customer send the original wheel/tire back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer could then use that on a new sales bike, or swap the hubs out (since they have the tools/know how) and sell/swap it to another customer. The only cost would be shipping for the rimset.
Fun Fact if you stip out a coaster hub, it can then be fitted to the headstem thread on an old set of forks now it becomes a huge axle. this feature can be found on some side carts (3 wheel/2 person racing BMX) Cut and weld these to build a trailer, one sided fork or 4 wheeler that is has a stong axle without a frame to conect to the out side of the axle, like a wheel chair.
When I lived in the Netherlands I had a one speed bike with a coaster brake. As I was going down a slope (towards a bike roundabout) my chain fell off and I went over the roundabout and almost hit someone else. I personally don't like those things anymore
Good video! The problem with the law is that it sets requirements on HOW to achieve something instead of specifying PERFORMANCE requirements. Pretty much any laws that do so don't allow for improvements on how things could be done so we get straightjacketed into old thinking instead of better/faster/cheaper/more reliable/yadda-yadda.
The US has an outdated law regulating rechargeable batteries. It specifically states that lead-acid and nickel-cadmium batteries must be easily removable from devices. I don't recall if it mentions nickel-metal-hydride. But since it doesn't specifically mention lithium-ion, lithium-ion-polymer or other chemistries, Apple and other companies can do things like use proprietary screws, glue, ultrasonic welding, resin encapsulation etc to make those types of batteries non-removable or extremely difficult to remove.
One way around this is is to sell “bicycle parts” meaning a complete bicycle missing its back wheel and some totally unrelated yet tools-free compatible rear wheels alongside those bikes.
You know I always liked those brakes where you can pedal backwards. And i was even thinking about whether or not I can get some for my bike now but you brought up some very impressive points about how your chains slips and mines do sometimes it would leave you with out breaks. This opened my eyes 👀
I remember my first bike and even back then I was appalled how bad the front caliper brake was, as I felt like it would be really good to have a powerful brake on the front. I think I even tried to adjust it to be better at around 6-8 years old. If that bike had a freewheel and cantilevers... I'd probably have understood the idea of mountain biking earlier.
I absolutely brought my 4-year-old sons bike to the local bike shop had them order me a 12-in free spinning wheel. Took the training wheels off and he immediately caught on and started riding that thing. Thank you for this video!
When I was a kid 40+ years ago, I figured out that you could take the rear hub apart, remove the shoes inside the coaster brake and boom - instant freehub. I did this modification on a few friends' bikes. But I agree - those early cheap caliper brakes were sketchy AF. I was also called upon to tune them as I was pretty good at setting them up to work reasonably OK.
Very good discussion of an important topic. Thank you Seth, for showing the pros and cons of coaster brakes. Over here in Europe, bikes are not only leisure sport items. There are some people who commute to work with a bicycle. And this is where a coaster brake can absolutely shine. I have gone through dozens of brake shoes for cantilevers, v-brakes and disc brakes, but I have never worn out a coaster brake, not a single one. These humble things are true workhorses. And they're absolutely unaffected by weather. Rain? Snow? Mud? Cold? Hot? The brake works just the same. This only applies for drum brakes and roller brakes, but they don't even match coaster brakes. Snapped brake cables I experienced a few, but I never lost a properly tightened chain. In the sports niche I understand the safety argument against coaster brakes. For my two kids, I want coaster brakes on their children's bikes. If this doesn't apply to your riding situation, I'm fine with that. Protect your kids, choose wisely. ❤
This has been my general experience with the various hand brakes as well. either they're always wearing out, or they're not clamping down enough to begin with. lots of fiddling, very little consistency. It really makes me miss the old coaster brakes, they were always very consistent. I have lost a couple chains, but it was due to heavy use, and they just wore out.
Living in the UK, I've never experienced a coaster brake. Until I bought an Electra Classic Beach Cruiser. OMG, it's horrid! So I got the shop to "delete" the coaster brake mechanism from the hub. Then I fitted some proper brakes, so I can actually ride it now and not constantly have to remember not to back pedal!
@@GrantJohnston-dr9rt That's interesting, I do sort of remember some UK bikes having coaster brakes many years back, but I guess they didn't become popular. Just checked Raleigh's website, and even their smallest kiddy bikes have both cable brakes these days.
When i was a kid i was going downhill and i engaged my coaster break which is a more or less on/off system. I lost traction and ended up with major road rash as i slid into a ditch. I had to have my dad pick gravel out of my skin.
16” bike with freewheel took me forever to find that wasn’t super expensive. But it really is the best way to go from balance bike to pedals. My now 7YO was able to go from balance to pedals and never have to deal with a coaster. I gutted the coaster and added clamp style brakes before finding a freewheel 16”.
I remember the first time I was on a bike with a freewheel as a kid, I tested it out after my dad had built it. When I was going to stop, I tried to use the non-existent coaster break since that's what I was used to. I hit the curb and fell over, damaging the rear derailleur, breaking the bike within 1 hour after I got it. Thankfully dad understood, even the guys at the shop felt sorry for me.
IIRC this law came into play after a young boy broke both of his arms when he couldn't stop a "chopper" style bike. The story was printed in an issue of Consumer Reports (I want to say, late 60s, early 70s) he couldn't apply the brakes with enough force, rolled downhill, out of control, and into the side of a house. So the solution? Coaster brakes for all children's bikes. Ironically, there was a similar story involving a child's bicycle fitted with the old Sturmey Archer "Tri-Coaster", a 3 speed hub with a built in coaster brake, the problem was the brake mechanism was linked through the gearing, so if the 3 speed got stuck between gears, no brakes! This time the bike had a single handbrake on the front wheel, which again wasn't strong enough to be stopped by grip of a 6 year old. SA discontinued the hub almost immediately, and the replacement (which I think is the same mechanism they still make today) appeared a couple years later.
Grown up as a kid almost all my bikes had coaster brakes on them and I kind of miss it because it was so much fun just to lock up the bike and slide on the gravel.
me and my friends used to ride around a turning point that always formed a puddle at the edge and compete who could splash it the furthest. it promptly stopped once we went over to rim and disk brakes not cause we couldn't do it anymore but because it was now easier to go into the forest behind our neighborhood or bomb the big hills without worrying about or breaks going south
Oh so it is called a coaster bike? Mine is like an 18 to 20 inch bike, it looks like a bmx or mtb. So is it by default a coaster or could it still be a mtb?
I'd love to see an adult sized coaster brake mtb video for comparison! I had a flat bar SS 29er w/ coaster for a few years that was downright terrifying but also felt like surfing when you really slammed backwards in the corners. I loosened the kickback to give me closer to a quarter turn before it bites; made a huge difference.
I was one of the few people at the company I worked for years ago that could service coaster brakes, so after fixing one , I pretty much had to do all of them ( on busy days I wish someone else would have been trained to help handle the workload)
When I was very young, I didn't have the coordination to operate handbrakes while maintaining control. The coaster brake allowed me to stop the bike without affecting the front wheel and also simply put my feet on the ground to stabilize it if I needed to. It actually does still have a place for kids who aren't yet able to coordinate multiple things with their hands and feet at once. The hands have one job, to manage the front wheel, and the feet have one job, to work the pedals (including backwards to stop if need be).
My 4yo has no issues riding with no training wheels on a bike with normal disc brakes. He's been hitting the pump track sans training wheels with hand brakes since he was 3 without issue and is riding bike parks now. Every other kid on our street has the same story. One kid is on a Forth Park 14. Ours is on a Commencal RMNS 16 now (started on a 14). Another pair is on a WOOM 2 and 3. I know there is a kiddo on a Norco Storm, not sure if it's a 14 or a 16. All have hand brakes and all are ripping the local singletrack network without issue. I suspect your issue wasn't that you didn't have the coordination, but rather that you never had the opportunity to learn. My kid has his first hand brake when he was 2 on a Shotgun 12" balance bike.
As a fellow advocate & subscriber since the first 2 or 3 vids, this is my favorite video & as a Dad I comment your use of your platform for the greater good. I hope a viewer with political insight & influence steps up to help advice, even take action to help get corrective actions moving forward. Along similar lines, if you are not yet familiar with All Kids Bike, please check it out & consider helping us move this initiative to get kids off screens & on bikes forward. I got my wife’s school in Orlando area to take of the Kindergarten PE program to teach every kid to ride a bike in PE. They start their first lessons this next week. You may be surprised to learn that kids riding bikes is down 50% & 35% of kids don’t know how to ride a bike. As a trails & kids on bike advocate I’d love to talk to you about making an impact on kids off screens @ on bikes. Thanks for all your hard work.
I worked at a bike shop where we had beach cruisers with coasters only, I still trip on the coaster brakes everytime I try out a newly assembled one and it's still an annoying thing to deal with, cause I always rely to back pedal before dismounting. Plus I had a funny encounter with a customer looking for a modern mountain bike but he specifically asked for a coaster brake 🤣
When I was a kid I had a bike with a coaster brake, and it was fantastic. After some short time muscle memory becomes so precise that you develop confidence to try anything with the bike. That was 15+ years ago and I was never as confident with the brakes as with that bicycle until last year when I bought my first mountain bike with disk brakes.
Same here but, as I dimly recall, what I did with the brake was get the bike into a slide so I could go where I wanted. I don't believe I actually tried to stop the bike with the rear brake.
As a child of the 70s, my experience gives me a little different perspective. Coaster brakes were positive and reliable; when I hit the brakes I got brakes, when I hit em hard enough that real wheel locked and it stayed locked until I reverse pedal to release it. Very predictable very reliable. You can't freewheel, you have to think a little more forward about pedal position as a result, but if that's the only type of bike you've ever ridden you don't really have to think more, it's just part of your basic skills to think that out one rotation in advance rather than assuming you can make huge adjustments at the last moment. The alternative braking system was caliper brakes, and they were not good at all. Some bikes came with coaster brake on the rear and a caliper on the front, and when I got one of those I thought that was so smart! so good to be able to use the front brake together with the rear, I would be able to stop even more quickly. But after a couple weeks of experimentation, the calipers just got pulled off and thrown in a box. Too fiddly, too inconsistent. Often a gentle squeeze intended to produce light breaking had no appreciable effect, while squeezing just a little harder risked suddenly locking the front wheel (and flying right over it.) Now if I had lived somewhere flat this might have all been experienced quite differently, but I lived on a mountain, and biked some pretty steep grades. Going up them the legs work hard, but going down them the brakes got the workout, and a lot of times if the brakes were to fail there would be no question of wreck or not, just a matter of how badly and how powerfully I would wreck. So brakes were very important to me. I remember when the 'mountain bike' style appeared, it was thought from the name these might be more suitable to my usage, on the mountain. One was brought home and I eagerly hopped on it and started putting it through the paces, but within half a mile I had wrecked. Applied caliper rear on a downhill, insufficient braking, bike continues accellerating. Added caliper front, squeezed harder on rear, get enough braking at that point that I'm no longer accelerating at least - but I'm almost out of straightaway and still moving way too fast to take the turn. In desperation I squeeze even harder on the brake levers - and suddenly the front wheel locks and I am flying over the handlebars! So early caliper brakes did not impress me at all. And my first mountain bike got the thumbs up when I was climbing uphill, but it just wasn't equipped to descend the same path safely. So that bike was returned and I kept riding what I had been riding, confident that when I needed brakes the brakes would brake. I'm in no way saying that the situation then justifies the law today, but I do think a nuanced understanding needs to acknowledge that brakes have to be more than just a tick-box, yes we have brakes. Not all brakes are equal. A beginners bike in particular needs to have not just brakes with sufficient strength, but brakes that are sufficiently simple in application that a green rider in a panic situation can reliably engage them properly, and stomping a coaster brake seems a lot closer to foolproof than squeezing handlebar levers could ever be, even if the levers are now hooked up to much more capable brakes the levers themselves are kind of fiddley and difficult.
Appreciate you sir, my kids are all teenagers now, but as a bike dad, I had them on freewheel bikes as soon as I could! Thank you for highlighting what the laws say and also highlighting that they’re archaic, as many are.
back in 1975 i was riding my bicycle downhill on old logging trails every day. it had coaster breaks on it and i had no issues with it, you just had to set the pedals in a neutral position at the top of the hill. all it takes is a little forethought as to pedal placement. the coaster brake offers more control in a steep downhill the ability to navigate hairpin corners at high speeds is quite handy when you are riding in the woods. with proper technique and a little pre planning it is quite fun and is easy to learn
Seth, to me this is one of your best videos of the last 2 years or so. I don’t have kids and I live outside the US (not sure about the legal requirements for kids’ bikes where I live), but I feel like you absolutely nailed it on this one. Your passion for biking really comes through (fueled by your passion for your daughter I guess :D - love the zombie line!!!) and to me this video had much of the more off-the-cuff feel that your earlier videos used to have. Really enjoyed it. Have a good one. :)
This is just the thing with Seth's content, none of the stuff discussed was relevant for my daily life either. Still a top notch video and Ab amazing viewing experience!
my son learned to ride a bicycle, i.e. to pedal, within exactly 13 minutes at the age of 3. before that, we had him ride/roll on a running bike. there were hand brakes mounted and he also mastered the hand brake on the bicycle. He hated the coaster brake system and never wanted to use it, so we bought a new bike for him and now everything is in butter :) Greetings from Germany
I remember as kids asking each other if you can pedal backwards on your bike lol. I actually remember it being harder to ride the bike whenever I wanted to stand up.
This reminds me of a letter to the editor in the October 1985 issue of BMX Action magazine: Q: When I look at all the bikes advertised, the fine print says "CPSC equipment not shown." Now what in the world is CPSC equipment? And what is it for? And why don't they show it? A: CPSC stands for the Consumer Product Safety Commission and they are the guys who make laws to ensure that manufacturers make safe products, including bikes. The CPSC equipment not shown in advertisements are those real keen chainguards and shiny spiff-o-matic reflectors. The reason why the factories don't put the guards and reflectors on the bikes for ads is because they look too bogus and everyone would laugh at 'em. - Ed
I just got a beach cruiser with coaster breaks and took a little while to adjust, but I'm glad to avoid the maintenance. Using the right technology for the right circumstance is key. I'd like to see a lot more people out biking and this seems like an easy step in the right direction.
@@devon12346 The grease sticks everything together and it's not THAT hard... but adjusting a coaster brake is an iron plated whore due to the need for a stupidly thin wrench.
Love that you acknowledged this issue I built a motorized bike from a beach cruiser bike and they all have coaster brakes had to sell it cause I HATED coaster brakes as a mountain biker accidentally engaging the brake at 40 mph ain't a fun time 😂
Sorry but sliding the rear wheel like a motorcycle would is a coolest thing ever as a kid, and that's far more important than getting used to trivial change of using hand for back brake later on. But agree on law being silly there, as long as it brakes well enough who cares the type.
Any crashes I had as a kid on a bike with coaster *brakes* (not *breaks*) was because I was intentionally locking up the rear wheel to skid it... Play stupid games, win stupid prizes...
The level of excitement my nephew displayed on his 6th birthday when I got him a Freewheeling hub and better V-Brakes for his BMX was worth the price. He instantly became the coolest kid in his first grade class with a Freewheel hub. This was about 12 years ago by the way. Now he's into MTB's like his uncle and can afford his own parts. lol
50 years ago there may not have been "mountain bikes" but we were riding insane trails long before the term mountain bike came around. Knobby tires and rubber grips like dirt motorcycles had were the first things, then came cross bars.. then cross bar and goose neck pads. 😄All we had were coaster brakes and we pioneered mountain and off road biking back in those days.
50 years ago was 1973. Teenage boys in our area were all riding ten-speeds with thin tires and dropped handlebars. BMX bikes appeared in our neighborhood suddenly around 1980. I remember the first time I saw an older boy on one. I had never seen a teenager ride a 20" bike before and thought he was goofing off. Shortly after that they were everywhere.
@@david672orford Yes! During the later 70s we had BMX races in between motorcycle races at the local dirt track. Suddenly it became a high dollar niche for more specialty BMX bikes. Good times.. 😌
It important they have CB brake. They kids can’t operate the handbrake when they are so young. Their motor skills aren’t developed enough and their hands aren’t strong enough to no have a CB until they are 6,7,8yrs old.
BIG UPDATE! The CPSC is accepting public comments about removing the footbrake requirement for kids bikes. Go to this link to submit a comment: www.regulations.gov/commenton/CPSC-2023-0023-0001 The more people that go there and post that they support revoking the footbrake requirement, the better. This was an initiative championed by Woom, a large manufacturer of children's bikes. Good on them for getting the ball rolling, and putting some real dollars into getting the message out.
This is great!
This is great info after watching your push bike video. Would be great to have more options as a consumer to decide what's best on our own. And by the looks of it, there are lots of options, and many of them are good!
Seth , you're having more fun on that little bike than your 2 year old . Ha Ha.
It's not accepting comments.
Nice you saved 1$ on that bike 😂😂😂
Next time use metric; kg and celsius sistem because europeans wach these videos too
Finally Seth has found a bike that looks small on him. Tearing down zombie laws like this should not be so hard for sure.
Walmart 5 minutes after repealing this law… “We don’t need to put brakes on kids bikes anymore? That’ll save us 50 cents!”
@@gvr41510 😂 lol
It will be harder than you think, at the first serious effort you're going to see two different lobbyist groups crawl out of the woodwork defending these zombie laws. Helicopter parents and law enforcement. Helicopter parents are the obvious one, but law enforcement use weird bicycle laws as a way to extort revenue out of poor people
Unless there's the weight of some big tech lobbyist, it'll never happen. So stupid
Haha
Obviously the regulators forgot to get an engineer involved. An engineer would have specified a minimum stopping distance in rain with a given force applied on a specified handle determined to be within the capability of a 3year old. We would have had hydraulic brakes 20years sooner.
Sounds just exactly like an Engineer
Rarely laws are made by the people who should make them. This is why politics as a whole are broken. Education in the hands of people who want to destroy it, women's rights in the hands of mentally deranged men, child bicycle part compliance made by people who've likely never used a bicycle in their entire life, as is often the case with rich politicians... yet another pudding to prove the point of the system's broken nature. I swear, the further in time we go, the clearer it gets, politicians as they are, is the wrong way to go.
I’m an engineer, I’ve also reiisrbYeah right, I’ve ridden BMX bikes with coasters…they’ve skidded for like 60ft before…
With bicycle brakes, there’s too many variables; take for example plastic mag wheels - see, traditional bicycle brakes *non coaster* work by friction of the brake pad rubbing on the rim… however, plastic mag wheels, wear increasingly more smooth (the friction of the brake pads effectively Polish the surface which it’s supposed to be slowing with friction), so the brakes become literally less effective after every single time the brakes are applied…it’s like rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, the friction makes the sticks’ rubbing area more & more smooth & friction becomes proportionally less as the surfaces become increasingly polished…
would that really be practical as a law though? Do all breaks sold on the market have to undergo some standardized test to certify their minimum stopping distance in the (simulated?) rain with a standardized setup and standardized force applied to a standardized handle? I guess that's not insane given the german StVZO bicycle lights requirements being rather detailed as well, and that apparently do get enforced, but still also seems non-trivial to regulate.
"if it's not working properly, you can just counteract it with brute force"..... 😂 I feel like you've just summarized my entire life.
I love riding my daughter's Prevelo. When we ordered it, the rear disc brake upgrade was $1. It was clear that was how Prevelo intended to sell the bike.
You'd be a fool not to pay that $1
Yeah Prevelo sold me an entire rear wheel with freehub for super cheap, no way they made money on it. LOVE our Prevelo Zulu 2
@@mattspen they made money elsewhere
@@thunderb00m I see your point that Prevelo bikes they are pricey, but most equally pricey kids bikes don’t offer an extra rim+plus tire for $20! ($50 now)
@@thunderb00m they probably baked the extra cost into the base price.
I'm aware that few different manufacturers have found clever ways around this law, but it usually means doing something confusing or expensive. How many other laws do you know of like this? Example: requiring new mountain bikes to come with reflectors preinstalled
here in the uk , law says anyone over 10 must ride on the road, which i think is absurd.
@@Hotch-B plus you get given grief by motorists for riding on the road then you get given grief for riding on the pavement so no matter what you do, you can’t win in the uk, the government needs to change the policies and add more bike lanes
@@andrewsouthern3517 dont get me started on how others treat you, ive been sideswiped multiple times on the road, threatened on the path, no matter where you cycle theres always someone with an opinion or a grudge against you
Seth, don’t just complain! Petition your state legislature to have the law updated. Participation is the core of American democracy! Plead your case for why the law is outdated and how to write it so kid’s bikes are safer. If you don’t find the process educational, hopefully at least you’d find it entertaining 😅.
Here in Indiana reflectors are required if riding at night...few follow that law. But no real odd requirements equipment wise. While looking into it I discovered that it's apparently illegal to stand up and pedal while riding and you must be seated....thankfully much of indiana is flat.
I always hated coaster brakes on kids bikes. Never knew it was because of a law, though.
The first thing a kid does when panicking is take their feet off the pedals, and try to use their feet to stop.
Hate coaster brakes almost as much as training wheels, and try to dissuade people away from both.
Love your videos, Seth, both as a mountain biker, and a fellow parent.
my dad put training wheels on mine and then slowly bent them up more and more as I got better till I didn't need them anymore
I actually have a recent experience with my 4 year old... she started at around 2 on a balance bike and then a pedal bike with a coaster brake at around 3. She learned how to pedal without stabilizers, but the coaster brake was nothing but problems, and her first instinct was always to put her feet on the ground to stop. Finally switched her to a freehub v-brake bicycle and she is enjoying it more than ever, I actually have trouble keeping when running after her. It also helped that we went from 8kg heavy specialized riprock 16 to a
Hi from Australia,
I learnt to ride with those stupid brakes and would lock up on me causing many a scraped knee. The 1st time I rode a mountain bike my friend forgot to tell me about the hand break and I was rapidly pedaling backward and ended up sailing right into someone's tent
I used to rollerskate when I was young. On skates, you do a 180 and go up on your toes to stop because that's where the brakes were. I got rollerblades as an adult, and when I came up to a road across the bike path, I automatically did that. Going up on your toes doesn't work so well on rollerblades. Luckily, I had enough coordination that I didn't end up eating the pavement, but I figure the person who stopped at the crossing may have found it amusing.
“Good day sir! how is your day going?” In all seriousness I hope you and the tent owner where alright and unharmed
"Aim for the bushes? Oh look, even better!"
Since it's Australia and not LA, hope someone was just camping in there and you didn't destroy their home
@@amosbackstrom5366 underrated lol
Ah, the ~~joys~~ (hazards) of being forced to learn what mostly isn't in the real world.
I'm 74 and have been a serious cyclist for over 50 years. In my stable of bicycles I have two '70s Raleigh Sports, one of which has a coaster brake (and a front caliper brake). I use the English bikes with it's raining, because they have fenders and a chain guard, and I ride the coaster brake model when it is really wet, because it absolutely will stop even if it's pouring, whereas the other Sports with two caliper brakes may not stop.
that brings the lack of antiskid on bikes into thought.
If you need any sort of anti skid device on a bike maybe riding a bike isn't your thing.
You know that Brooks came out with some specially made Chrome plated leather brake pads specifically designed to stop chrome/steel rimed bikes in the rain, right? The Brits made some interesting and clever bicycle invention fixes for riding bicycles in the normal seasons of their green and pleasant lands.
You need disc breakes 😁👍👍
Gotta remember a lot of people buy their bikes at Walmart where the normal brakes might be defective or installed improperly out of the box
Definitely. I mentioned if you buy any used bike on craigslist those brakes are gonna be total crap most likely. And if they're not crap, they're gonna be hard to pull for little kids. Heck half the times my kids burn through their shoes instead of using the brakes anyway.
@@wsams very simple to adjust brakes, if their parent actually gave a damn that is. But that might be asking too much from your average walmart shopper.....
@@srobeck77 Still junk when adjusted. You have to factor in the cheap rims as well. And the pads. Adjustments are just part of the issue. Surely you've tried given your knowledge.
I think hydraulic disc brakes for kids are the only way to go. Mechanical can be way too hard to pull. My kiddos can barely pull them. That's another huge issue. They have to be lubed and clean at all times.
@@wsams not really following this long and incorrect rant. Surely all I commented on was adjusting the brakes and btw you do not "lube" cheap brakes on a walmart bike. You can youtube all this maintenance stuff instead of lubing your kids brakes or changing the fluid in the bike tires. 😆
you are correct and exactly what I was thinking. Rural towns and area's often do not have any kind of bicycle shop. So Wally World we go. I had my kids grandmother and great gran come home with her first bike at very young age with two flat tires. So I had to change the tubes immediately while doublechecking for fasteners or parts mis-installed. So the tubes being underinflated from store and immediately flat upon sitting on it with the gran grans at least got me looking closer at it by default. I'm sure that was why they didn't bother to put but half a pound in each tire lol. for our safety of course lol
This brought back a memory from my childhood from the '50s. I learned to ride a bike on a hand-me-down with coaster brakes. When I got my first new bike for Christmas, I have a vivid memory of taking off down the street and when I tried to stop there was no Coster brake. There were no handbreaks either! I ended up colliding with a parked car so I came out okay. When my mom caught up with me she figured out that the bike was direct drive. Kind of like the penny farthing (great video, BTW).
My other vivid memory was my mom's rage at the bike shop owner who said that's just the way they came. If we wanted brakes, it would be an extra charge.
I suspect that's the kind of bike the whacko law was intended to outlaw.
Wait! You're telling me that you got a brand new bike with NO brakes! WTF, yah no duh a law gets passed that's f'en stupid.
Proof that "fixies" ruin everything.
@@LiterallyCensoredDaily odd. My takeaway was how profiteering businesses lacking any combination of ethical intention, basic logic, an influential R&D team, or a confident retribution-free self-policing policy create the unfortunate necessity for an under informed, less emotionally invested, more easily influenced by corrupt actors outside resource to deal w the angry parents demanding "fixies". The list of resources is pitiful when attempting to reach a tone deaf producer.
my reflectors are long gone
@@LiterallyCensoredDaily Fixies with no brakes are fine on the racetrack, but have no place on public roads!
As a kid I used to love my coaster break, burning rubber for hours. I’d literally drive up and down my driveway locking up the back and turning. So fun.
Depending on the use on pavement i get it
My neighbor across the street was pissed when I taught his kids how to do skids with the coaster brake. He came home from work and there were about 150 rubber streaks on his new driveway, and a blown tire on his kid's bike.
Hydraulic Disc will lock up too...
@@BigDish101 yes, but they would cost as much as some people's whole bike, require special tools for maintaining, one of several shapes of brake pads instead of a universal design, and simply didn't exist on bicycles in the late 80s and early 90s when I was little.
For that matter, I have been able to lock up every type of brakes except side pull with plastic levers,even when I weighed 400 lbs!
@@BigDish101 The issue with coaster brakes and skids is that because they are also direct drive, and most people tend to brake with the pedals in the same spot, the SAME SPOT on the tire gets all the wear from the skid.
As a non-bike guy who was recommended this randomly: “hand brakes” are what made a bike a “big kids bike”. Graduating from “foot brakes” was the equivalent of getting your training wheels taken off. Had no idea it was a law
coaster brakes are the reason I got 28 stitches as a child. The chain fell off and I couldn't stop and I went over a 6ft cliff. (not big to me now but back then was quite big) Thanks for the information about this law, I agree with you on this subject and hope there is change in the future.
6 foot drop is one of the leading causes of workplace deaths in the US. Don't under sell it 😅
I had that happen more than once as a kid (the chain coming off the gears, not the cliff).
I resorted to "alternate" stopping methods, like turning uphill if there was room, jumping off the bike and into a run while turning the bike toward a yard or bushes, doing a Fred Flintstone with the sole of my shoe as a brake against the front tire, and once I jammed the toe of my shoe into the front spokes.
- I do NOT recommend that last one to anybody!
I have never seen bike with coaster brakes without a front brake, but my childhood was in the early 2000s. And here in Poland they can fine u if you don't have working brakes
@@96HUDY My childhood preceded yours by 20-30 years, and back then, there were coaster brakes on every bike with wheels smaller than 24 inches in diameter and caliper brakes on everything larger than the coaster brake bikes.
Oh, and often caliper brakes turned into NO brakes after a year or so of leaving the bike outside in the elements, causing the cable(s) to rust up, or rust through, or the rubber pads to dry rot away.
-
The 1970's had some fun danger!
@@MonkeyJedi99 Yep, as a teenager I sometimes used to have bicycles with no brakes on daily usage, as the caliper brakes were prone to faults and bothersome to fix, so most of the time I just didn't bother. I found out that usually the best alternative way for braking was to press shoe heel against ground while supporting leg against pedal. That was my main braking method for long times and once learned, worked routinely well enough - or at least felt so, not very powerful nor safe though. But it was the careless teen age. Needed just new shoes every so often - and also used rubber glue and pieces of rubber to "renew" shoe heels.
Then I grew up and lost interest into those chain gears which are also troublesome per se, and have since made sure every bike I acquire have coaster brakes.
And about the original comment, the coaster brake was not the reason of your stitches - the reason was not having alternative brakes. And handbrakes have failed on me way more often than chain has fallen.
As a matter of fact, mountain biking pretty much STARTED with coaster brakes--look up the Repack Race, which is named for re-packing the grease in a coaster after you've smoked it out by using it downhill. A strange but important footnote to this video.
I still know people who build coaster brake mountain bikes to bomb around on in the desert. You don’t see any racers on them these days 😂 but they’re fun and nostalgic.
@@SethsBikeHacks Haha, nice. A good flat desert sounds about right for a coaster brake.
They're supposed to be greased?!
@@moonshinershonor202 Yep. I'd post a link to the Park Tool article titled "Coaster Hub Overhaul" that explains in detail, except YT blocks comments that link external websites.
@@SethsBikeHacks i like to ride trails with a coaster mullet; disk up front, CB in the rear. If you understand and respect the limitations of the machine, it works just fine.
There's a semi-annual race in the Valley called the "coaster brake challenge," put on by Atomic Cycles in Van Nuys. No front brakes allowed, no IGHs, not even kickback 2 speeds.
Try to open your mind up a lil bit.
When I was a kid in 70’s I had a coaster brake that also had 3 speeds internally by changed by clicking back on the coaster brake. Loved that feature.
Scwhinn kick back 3 speed I traded a garter snake for one rear rim as a kid
@@AndyAlusha
I have a Schwinn orange Krate in the shed. Coaster brake no gears. I’d love to find a 3 speed coaster rim to put on it. 🤘
As a kid in the 80s my big brother taught me how to dismantle the brakes and turn costers into freewheel. Learned so much from that guy still do.
I used to do the same just from being curious. We used to call it changing the guts.
Take the three push plates out and shim the gap with two washers, then you have a freecoaster which you can adjust by removing a washer!
Roll back tricks and flatland tricks, when you don't want the cranks moving backwards become easier😎
You should issue a challenge to all visitors to Berm Peak - run that kids bike (with the freehub and disc brakes of course) through the place, and their times up on a leader board.
That sounds like a top gear rip off.
In which case. Who's gonna be stig?..
@@TheWebstaff SingleTrackSampler dressed in a onesie, complete with an oversized pacifier and bonnet?
I want to do it on my 77 stingray
@@krazi77 That sounds like an entirely different board.
Would you be up for doing it on his Swing King Elite?
@@MrMartinSchou YES this!!!!
7:23 having reflector on mountain bike actually makes sense - because if reflector wouldn't be oligatory on it, you wouldn't be allowed to use it mountain bike in a "normal" environment, so only people with car could be able to use it (as they would need to transport their mountain bike on car from home to the mountains)
Coaster brakes taught us all how to throw a bike sideways too, they're an educational aid!
=COASTER BRAKES TAUGHT ME HOW TO CONTROL DOWNHILL SPEED BY UNDERBRAKING,KIND OF
...........IN ACTUAL IT'S MUCH BETTER IN TERMS OF CONSERVING ATTENTION ON WHAT'S GOING BEFORE YOU WITH SOLID SEPARATION LIKE HANDS FOR STEER,LEGS FOR PEDALING/BRAKING.......
Coaster brakes on a motorized beach cruiser taught me how to have a near death experience on a steep hill.
I never dechained a bike until i rode a free hub.
@@robotnikkkk001 thats a bad argument, you have 3 things you have to do and 2 inputs to do those things with, so one of them is always gonna handle 2. "hands for steering, legs for pedaling/braking" is the same as "hands for steering/braking and legs for pedaling" by your logic. Coaster brakes are shitty, you dont have as fine of a control on the force applied and the inability to spin freely backward can screw you up on turns and can cause accidental braking. Theres a reason you dont see normal adult bikes sold with coaster brakes, theyre a crutch for children to learn, and thats about it.
@@SpydersByte .....THERES 2 INPUTS ANYWAYS SO ALREADY IT'S EQUAL
.......ALSO CONTROL ON THE FORCE APPLIED IS AS FINE AS IT'S ON "NORMAL" BRAKES........JUST IT'S ABOUT PRACTICE........
.....ARGUMENT ON "CANNOT SPIN FREELY BACKWARDS" IS *_PURELY_* SUBJECTIVE...........AS DOWNHILL SPEED FAR MUCH EXCEEDS PEDALING SPEED,SO POSITIONING PEDALS BY SLIGHTLY MOVING FORWARD WONT CAUSE ANY INCONVINIENCE........IT'S ONLY BECAUSE OF HABIT...........LIKE WASD VERSUS ARROW KEYS........ARGUMENT IS ABSOLUTELY INVALID,JUST BECAUSE OF IT'S ABOUT FOLLOWING HABITS
..........IN ACTUAL,COASTER BRAKES EVEN HAVING 2 ADVANTAGES OVER "NORMAL" ONES......LIKE FORCE OF BRAKING ITSELF.......ABOUT FINGERTIPS VERSUS LEGS........SO BRAKING WILL BE 100% ALMOST INSTANT AND FULL...COMPARED TO HOW MUCH FINGERTIPS MUST VE BEEN TRAINED TO ENSURE ENOUGH GRIP FORCE...AND ALSO MOVING THROUGH WET CONDITIONS.......WITH OPEN BRAKES........U KNOW WHAT I'M ABOUT,RIGHT????......WHEN COASTER BRAKES ARENT SUBJECTED TO THAT KIND OF PROBLEM
.......REACTION TIME ALSO THE SAME..........THANKS TO HOW POWERFUL LEGS ARE............
......ALSO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT ABOUT FINGERTIPS ARE BECOMING SORE REALLY FAST,AND THAT IMPACTING WHOLE HAND,THOUGH............WHICH CAN BE DANGEROUS AT PINPOINT ACCURATE STEERING DOWNHILL.........THAT'S FROM MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE,THOUGH.....OF COURSE IT'S ABOUT TRAINING BUT THE SAME THING GOES AGAINST,LIKE WHY NOT TO TRY TRAINING COASTER BRAKES MASTERING INSTEAD
...........SO,ALL THE ARGUMENTS FOR "NORMAL" BRAKES ARE COUNTERED WITH "IT'S JUST A HABIT" .......WITH 1 SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT ABOUT WET CONDITIONS........
.........SO,BASICALLY.......IT ALL DEPENDS........
.....ALSO HAVE U EVER MEET PROFESSIONAL COASTER BRAKES THAT TO MANAGE OUT BETTER CONTROL OF APPLIED FORCE??--NOO........ONLY PRIMITIVE ONES,RIGHT?????
...........ONLY THING THAT CAN BE FOR "NORMAL" BRAKES IS LIKE IT'S APPLIED ON FRONT WHEEL........WHEN COASTER BRAKES ARE ABOUT TO DO ONLY WITH REAR WHEEL........SO,COMBINING THESE 2 IS ACTUALLY IDEAL THING,I GUESS.......GETTING BEST FROM BOTH WORLDS.....AND ONLY A BIT OF ADDITIONAL TRAINING IS NEEDED.......
......SO,AGAIN,COASTER BRAKES ARE BLAMED FOR NOTHING...................ONLY FOR NOT FOLLOWING HABITS......SAME AS WASD........ESPECIALLY IF THERE'D BE A PROFESSIONAL COASTER BRAKES..........
When my son was three years old, my wife bought him a bike for his birthday. We never checked it for a brake system. The only brake that it had was a lever mounted to the frame that a little kid was supposed to pull back and a pad rubbed the tire and that would eventually stop the bike. My son only had it a short time and, unable to stop, drove it off the deck and fractured his arm. We got him a bike with a coaster brake. When we took it back to Toys R Us and explained the problem, they refunded our money and we noted that the bike was not being sold the next time we went in.
The first mountain bikes to ever be made used to be nicknamed re-packs, because they were just modified cruisers with coaster brakes and you had to re-pack the bearings after each run down the mountain. The grease would all burn up by the time you were done
Yet another reason why coaster brakes just don't work for mountain biking.
@@InventorZahran Yeah, it's very situation dependent. In flat country coaster brakes are often maintenance free, reliable for literaly decades and you can still brake in an aerodynamic position.
I really loved the simplicity of coaster brakes as a kid, never did mountain biking though. I always had front and rear brakes too. They were just simple, reliable, and fun. When i did upgrade to a mountain bike it was easy to get used to free hubs.
I don’t get what your point is. You said it yourself. It’s because most people are buying a cheap bike for their kid to ride for a summer and likely don’t know how to work a screwdriver. Hence the reliable coaster brake… You want to get around the coaster brake and your kid gets hurt because, no brakes. That’s on you. No lawsuit allowed.
@@elijahrebello1 You want to get around the coaster brake and your kid gets hurt because, no brakes. That’s on you. really loved the simplicity of coaster brakes as a kid.
the problem now is the newest and cheapest of these brake hubs are not even in the same quality category as the older Shimano coasterbrake hubs. These are the brake hubs that wear out in a couple months time if improperly adjusted, which most of them are from their factories.
Man this was informative as I guess I didn’t really think about a kid needing a freewheel but you are right.
I naturally leveled my pedals from the get go, my father had to find a bike shop to remove the coaster brakes because it was actually preventing me from learning how to ride a bike. Once it was gone I was riding like crazy.
I had to do the same thing on my kids bikes, it was literally keeping them to ride correctly as well..
@@oliebimbol7371 yep real easy to engage the brake and end up over the bars and into traffic and get run over..... coaster brakes are horrible
I had the same problem as a kid, but my parents weren't that knowledgeable about bikes. After I managed to end up bloodying my knee for the 3rd time in a week because I couldn't level off without braking OR break the inclination, I stopped riding. Trying to get back into biking again as an adult has been embarrasing...
@@KiraSlith eh some can't swim some can't ride. I've met adults that can't drive. I wouldn't fret to much to the point it embarrass you. You'll get it.
@@scubamech707 plenty of adults that can't drive, sad thing is most of them have their license 😂
Actually the founding fathers of MTB used to ride the coaster brake bikes down the mountain. Repack Ridge takes its name from repacking those back with grease which was necessary after each ride...
Yes, at that point in time the caliper brakes in use on road bikes were too weak to do much for a 50lb klunker flying down a fire road. Cantis are what finally gave MTBs safe levels of stopping power.
Given the choice between coaster brakes or old caliper brakes I'd choose coasters too. they suck but at least you can stop, not just slow down slightly.
Even most old cantilever brakes are so bad I wouldn't dare send it down any real trail.
Yeah but sadly a lot of people ignore the bay area roots of mtb
Atomic Cycles still host the Coaster Brake Challenge MTB event
I’m not going to say it’s a good idea to have both a toddler and a novice use coasters though, when feet position is the difference between having fun and having to give like, a thousand daddy kisses.
First rode a bike with cruiser brakes in Key West at the age of 39, after more than 3 decades of riding with hand-lever brakes. It almost killed me. Never again.
Seth’s one to talk about safety, he’s the king of sketchy stuff! 😂
When the guy that does the sketchiest shit says "This is too sketchy" you know that shit's sketchy!
@@MxCrab too true 😆
Does he wear Skechers?
@@SummitMTB what else would he wear?
To fight evil you must become evil ;)
This brings back memories of hopping off my old Huffy & getting on my mountain bike just to realize I forgot it didn't have a coaster brake. Foot would slip off, nuts hit the bar, and I'd drag my feet to the curb 😂
Nuts hit the bar! I know that feel!
To this day I still don't understand why they don't make all casual/kids/commuter bikes more like women's bikes.
@@norezenable It's finally picking up! There is the Specialized Roll, Trek Verve, and I know Cannondale has something extremely similar. Even though it's not the predominant style it's no longer difficult to find one at a local shop.
Coaster Brakes were amazing when I was a kid, All my Bikes had them up until I got my 1st Mountain Bike when I was about 14. I never had any trouble adapting to the hand Brakes but part of me has always missed the awesomeness of what we called foot brakes back then.
During high school (the 60's) I had a garage business servicing coaster brakes. It made me a small amount of money, was more fun than working at the grocery store, and it gave me a head start on an engineering degree. 👍
You can get hub brake for front wheel as well using hand lever.
My first bike had a coaster brake. The first time I rode my sister's bike with only hand brakes, I didn't know how to stop. I started rolling toward a major road, so to stay safe I turned sharply into a curb and flipped over the handlebars. Needless to say, it hurt a lot.
Rode
But you learned right?
This happened to a good majority of kids if they started out w/ coaster brakes.
I actually gave my kid his first bike without coaster brake today, showed him how to use the v-brake, ran with him up and down the road, brake and pedal, then completely forget how the brakes worked and tried to stop by putting both feet on the ground, but the seat was to high for this to be effective so he got to choose between crashing into my car or the fence, and chose the fence. luckily he remembered (or heard me shouting "use the hand brake") and was able to brake a lot before crashing, so he didn't even fall over, just stopped suddenly with the front wheel in the fence.
My kid's first bike - a priority start 16, highly recommend - had dual hand brakes. He's never used a coaster brake, and there's a good chance he never will.
Omg my first bike had a coaster brake. You had control on how hard and how suddenly you could stop, unlike hand brakes
I grew up with coaster breaks and was very confused and had to relearn how to ride when I got my first hand-me-down mountain bike. Which was also pretty steep since it was "If you do it wrong you'll fly over your handle bars" oh, that's scary.
Today my dad hates hand breaks because he's so used to coaster breaks. He's confused why they got rid of them and I'll certainly be sending him this video later because I'm sure it'll answer a lot of his questions.
We really like either not teaching at all or teaching you how to do it wrong first then figure out the right way later.
Ah that "If you do it wrong you'll fly over your handle bars" is soooo familiar. People are actually afraid of well functioning brakes!! We have a bicycle sharing service here in Hungary and ALL of them has shitty breaks. You cannot do an emergency stop. All I could think of is that they probably rather give you subpar breaks than actual good ones people may not use correctly go over the handle bars.
Also interesting: we also had a thing people said which goes something like "yeah, take my bike for a ride, but please do not shift" - that was because we had a lot of very low quality "mountain bikes" with badly configured / bad quality derailleurs and shifters, so using the shifter actually could cause issues.
@@Pityke4 Oh crud that makes sense. I had a hand-me-down MT bike and I recall at one point the derailleur didn't like shifting, if you did you'd get the click but then it'd linger on the gear for 10+ seconds before it finally CLONK-D over.
My family had zero exp with mountain bikes so there wasn't a lot of maintenance that went on with that bike. Despite that it was still the best bike I had at the time given we were poor and the odds of me getting a new bike were zero unless someone was tossing out their old one.
But yeah I get the idea behind 'please do not shift on my bike' because I wasn't even sure if something would break. I think eventually it got sorted, but it was ages ago.
But on your first point, yeah IDK what's up with that statement "you'll go over your bars" like- how fast are you going and how hard are you hitting that front break where that'd be a worry right? I swear it was just a myth that perpetuated.
I'm really happy to have even the basic mechanical disk breaks, it's a lot better for emergency breaking.
Yes. Coaster brakes are bad! No need for them. One downside is when you have stopped and your pedal is not in the right position try getting it there. You'd have to lift up your back wheel or roll forward, which is not always possible on say, hills. Also deraileurs and coaster brakes are a nightmare
@@Snotnaroknot to mention but 70% of braking is done with the front brake. It works better than the back, and there's no coaster brake for front wheels
@@joneinarmattiasvisser6113 Yeah, that much I recall from my childhood, I had zero interest in coaster breaks after using even my cruddy rim breaks (as in they were of poor quality not saying rim breaks are just bad).
Better stopping, none of that nonsense with stopping with the pedals at a bad spot.
My dad insists they were better but I'm like- dad, in no way they were better in any, way. He still has a bike from the . . . IDK 1960s that is for an adult and has coaster breaks. Hasn't been used in 30 years at least but, still sat around in the shed.
I grew up a 70’s BMX kid with nothing but coaster brakes until I think I was 12. Despite everything you said, I still want to build a adult sized BMX bike with coaster brake. Nothing beats a power skid from jamming back your right leg 😁
fixie slides are pretty fun but you’re not wrong
Been living in England since I was born and would travel to finland 3-4 times a year to visit my grand parents as a kid, some of the most fun I had in the summer over there was riding my little bike with the coaster breaks and doing power slides at the bottom of the hill haha. They aren't the best but definitely fun for sure 🙏
I'm with Dan on this. It might not fit the expectations of the entire adult world, but I loved the control having that coaster brake gave me. I am sure there are alternate techniques one could develop to level with a coaster, like pedaling forward since the bike is moving toward the turn.
Another thing about safety is I've had cantilever, V, and disc brakes fail on bikes a lot more often than I've had a chain fall off and remove coast brake function. If anything, coast brakes shouldn't be the only brake, because why not have both? I think they're more reliable than represented. If they weren't that regulation would be gone, because of all the extra dead kids.
A cheap pair of v brakes with good pads can easily lock up the rear in the exact same way. Discs even easier.
@@GreenLegendRanI have never, I mean never...had a brake failure. I maintain all my bikes personally, and I dont see how you could lose front and rear brakes at the same time...i just dont. How did it happen? Honest question.
😂 "When my 2 yr. Old expresses interest in bicycles, I will fight zombies to make it a better experience for her" 😂👍💯
Thanks for helping the issue to go mainstream. We want to buy “I’ll fight Zombies for you” Merch!
ㅉ❤❤😂😂😂❤❤😂😂😂😂😂😂ㅉㅉ😊
Yep i agree, i had this cheap ass bike with coaster brakes when i started bike channel and before i got my cheap ass bike, and that had a free hub, so i was used to moving the pedals to the other side to make clearance for a really sharp turn you have to really lean for, and you can probably guess what happens next, turned the corner moving the pedals to the other side drifted into a tree, i got a concussion, but im ok now
@@normanandalfie good to hear you're okay now haha 🙏
@@treky0 of gas ⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽
I agree it is a stupid law...but I think the coaster brakes put the fun in bike riding like for the ultimate skid turn around when you slam the pedals back to put the brakes on for example. I wish I could put coaster brakes on my "adult" bike; it much rather have the good old fashioned pedal brakes than the brakes on the handlebars and then get rid of the handle bar brakes...sounds like a plan if only I knew how to work on bikes!
Most commuter bikes in the Netherlands use coaster brakes, they're incredibly useful when just getting around in flat countries or cities.
In the Netherlands, just dragging your feet gives you enough braking.
You dont get a say, you live on a flat plane and have zero experience of hills
You're gonna hear from a lot of people who will insist that stuff that works in Europe is a total non-starter in the US. ;)
Google "Netherlands quarry" that's how I'm falling from mountains in Estonia. Lifehack
@@MrBirdnose The US isn't all hills either :)
When i was growing up (90's) my front brakes were almost useless but i had the coaster brake and it stopped the bike fine and could always be useless. I made sure that when i got my kid's first bike it had coaster brakes mostly because it was easiest to teach "forward to go back to stop"
When I was a bike mechanic I would always offer to modify the coaster brake bikes for any parent buying a kid bike if they wanted. Either right away or during the free first service.
We never charged, it’s super easy to pull the hub apart and remove the ‘pads’ and the best part is they become a free coaster hub so your kid (or if the bike is sized correctly, you) can learn to roll back like a bmx god.
Back in the late eighties. Some of the kids bikes had coaster breaks and we would take the hub apart and take the brakes out of it. There were 2 pieces that you could take out and have it free will... I'm sure you could still do that... Love your videos.
Back in my bmx days i always did this. It was fun!
the design has barely changed and it uses the same fundamental physics. very possible
Yep did the same thing 30 years ago lol
At 7:23 you negatively mention reflectors. I have been riding since I was 6, got my 1st mountain bike at 16 and have been riding ever since. I am now 64. I rode off road alot but, some days I stayed in town. So what's wrong with reflectors while in town. While driving, reflectors are an added advantage for both rider and driver.
Seeing a grown man stop a kids bike with brake rotors was hilarious to watch 😂
There’s a couple of modifications that can be done without replacing the entire hub to disengage the coaster brake - however I’d only recommend doing this on bikes that already have alternate front/back brakes such as the Prevelo shown here.
If you’re confident in bike maintenance you can open the hub and remove the pawls and/or brake shoes. Pay attention to how the hub is held in alignment.
A second more straight forward option is to remove the reaction arm. This provides the counter-lever that engages the pawls and brake. The downside of this is the weight/drag of the brake shoes are still present.
We have the same laws to bikes here in NZ and I did the above to my 4/5yr olds BYK E-350 MTB and it made a huge difference in his trail riding and confidence.
wouldnt taking the shoes out cause the drive collar to come off the screw when pedaling backwards?
If you only remove the reaction arm, the hub will try to rotate in the frame along with the rim when the pedals are turned backwards. This is potentially bad.
Seems a fair bit of over thinking imo😅 just hacksaw/angle grind/cut off disc etc the arm down 👍🏾
Taking the pawls out is the way to go. I did this for both of my kids bikes immediately. My son struggled to learn to pedal until I got rid of the coaster brake. He would get going and accidentally pedal
Backwards and kill all momentum.
@@zanecatterall6783 Again, no. You don't want the hub axle to twist in the frame when you pedal backwards. The brake will still work with the arm cut off, only now it will grind your axle locknuts against the frame when you use it.
Heh, I remember the first time I used disk brakes on a mountain bike. I was about 7 and I went right over those handle bars so fast and the rest of the bike followed behind to land on top of me 😂 there was of course a crowd of people to enjoy that sight 😂 ouch. Very ouch
I bought a state bicycles Klunker with a coaster brake and mountain bike tires. The thing is a blast and I absolutely love flying around with sketchy AF brakes. 😆
Those state bikes look sick. I really want their classic road bike with the down tube shifters.
@@dylan-5287 fair warning if you get one, their QC isn't the best so really look over the bike front to back and have all the tools needed to rebuild on hand.
I got one of their single speeds and it took me almost as much time to set it up as it took me building a bike from parts and I've had to do a lot of maintenance over the year of riding I've put on it.
@@kuma_score7536 I bought mine from a local bike shop, they went over it and it has been fine. They did tell me to check the crank arm bolts every few rides. I guess they have a habit of working loose. Doesn't matter for me though because I've already ordered a new external bearing bottom bracket......
The tire marks used to be 20ft long with these things
Shift your weight forward and drag that rear wheel all the way down the hill 😂
Coaster Breaks were actually used on 1980's "Freestyle Bikes" for a doing certain Freestyle Tricks,....🤔🤔🤔🤔
I didn't even know what a coaster brake was before I watched this! Here in the UK, the law states that a bike should have two working brakes. It doesn't state what kind of brake, it just says "a brake". If you ride a fixie, the rear wheel counts as a brake, in which case you're only required to have a front brake. We don't really have coaster brakes over here. Also, lane splitting is legal (nothing to do with brakes, but I love that lane splitting is legal over here!)
That explains it! Early Rider is the brand to go with imo.
Yep, never used fixed hub when I was learning to ride, only on really early trikes and such that were made to just be toys and toys only. Always had that freewheel and it is so much better.
Growing up in the 1970's in the uk i had a few bikes with the back pedal brake, i never had any issues with it nor did any of my mates who rode the bike.
Are they banned in the US because the majority of Americans dumb and hurt themselves? I can't think of any other reason why
i've seen bikes with a front vee brake and a rear coaster brake + planetary gear hub over here but then again that was an imported Dutch bike
@@charleslambert3368Fancy. Sounds like my type.
I grew up with coaster brakes obviously and I loved them. They were so fun doing burn outs, but I grew up in the mountains. When I got my first mountain bike as a 12ish year old, the free wheel was crazy to me. I thought it was so cool, but it took literal years for me to understand that I wouldn’t break the bike if I peddled backwards. It also took me much longer to be confident braking with the hand brakes. Now every bike I ride is a free wheel, and when I ride coaster bikes I always accidentally engage the brakes at full speed!
The coaster breaks messed me up when i was a kid. I was going fast down a dirt hill on a turn and it all locked up and the bike cane out from under me. And I couldn’t unbreeak either.
I feel like a loophole for this would be the bike manufacturer offering a swap when the customer buys the bike. The manufacturer could send them a wheel/tire combo for the customer to swap on, and have the customer send the original wheel/tire back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer could then use that on a new sales bike, or swap the hubs out (since they have the tools/know how) and sell/swap it to another customer. The only cost would be shipping for the rimset.
Fun Fact if you stip out a coaster hub, it can then be fitted to the headstem thread on an old set of forks now it becomes a huge axle.
this feature can be found on some side carts (3 wheel/2 person racing BMX)
Cut and weld these to build a trailer, one sided fork or 4 wheeler that is has a stong axle without a frame to conect to the out side of the axle, like a wheel chair.
When I lived in the Netherlands I had a one speed bike with a coaster brake. As I was going down a slope (towards a bike roundabout) my chain fell off and I went over the roundabout and almost hit someone else. I personally don't like those things anymore
My first bike, that was bigger than the one in the video had coaster brakes. It was great for leaving skid marks around the neighborhood 😅
Good video! The problem with the law is that it sets requirements on HOW to achieve something instead of specifying PERFORMANCE requirements. Pretty much any laws that do so don't allow for improvements on how things could be done so we get straightjacketed into old thinking instead of better/faster/cheaper/more reliable/yadda-yadda.
The US has an outdated law regulating rechargeable batteries. It specifically states that lead-acid and nickel-cadmium batteries must be easily removable from devices. I don't recall if it mentions nickel-metal-hydride. But since it doesn't specifically mention lithium-ion, lithium-ion-polymer or other chemistries, Apple and other companies can do things like use proprietary screws, glue, ultrasonic welding, resin encapsulation etc to make those types of batteries non-removable or extremely difficult to remove.
Came here to say this. Performance requirements should just be performance requirements.
One way around this is is to sell “bicycle parts” meaning a complete bicycle missing its back wheel and some totally unrelated yet tools-free compatible rear wheels alongside those bikes.
You know I always liked those brakes where you can pedal backwards. And i was even thinking about whether or not I can get some for my bike now but you brought up some very impressive points about how your chains slips and mines do sometimes it would leave you with out breaks. This opened my eyes 👀
You always should have at least two independent breaks anyhow.
I remember my first bike and even back then I was appalled how bad the front caliper brake was, as I felt like it would be really good to have a powerful brake on the front. I think I even tried to adjust it to be better at around 6-8 years old. If that bike had a freewheel and cantilevers... I'd probably have understood the idea of mountain biking earlier.
I absolutely brought my 4-year-old sons bike to the local bike shop had them order me a 12-in free spinning wheel. Took the training wheels off and he immediately caught on and started riding that thing. Thank you for this video!
When I was a kid 40+ years ago, I figured out that you could take the rear hub apart, remove the shoes inside the coaster brake and boom - instant freehub. I did this modification on a few friends' bikes. But I agree - those early cheap caliper brakes were sketchy AF. I was also called upon to tune them as I was pretty good at setting them up to work reasonably OK.
Very good discussion of an important topic. Thank you Seth, for showing the pros and cons of coaster brakes.
Over here in Europe, bikes are not only leisure sport items. There are some people who commute to work with a bicycle. And this is where a coaster brake can absolutely shine. I have gone through dozens of brake shoes for cantilevers, v-brakes and disc brakes, but I have never worn out a coaster brake, not a single one. These humble things are true workhorses. And they're absolutely unaffected by weather. Rain? Snow? Mud? Cold? Hot? The brake works just the same. This only applies for drum brakes and roller brakes, but they don't even match coaster brakes. Snapped brake cables I experienced a few, but I never lost a properly tightened chain. In the sports niche I understand the safety argument against coaster brakes. For my two kids, I want coaster brakes on their children's bikes. If this doesn't apply to your riding situation, I'm fine with that. Protect your kids, choose wisely. ❤
This has been my general experience with the various hand brakes as well. either they're always wearing out, or they're not clamping down enough to begin with. lots of fiddling, very little consistency. It really makes me miss the old coaster brakes, they were always very consistent. I have lost a couple chains, but it was due to heavy use, and they just wore out.
Living in the UK, I've never experienced a coaster brake. Until I bought an Electra Classic Beach Cruiser. OMG, it's horrid! So I got the shop to "delete" the coaster brake mechanism from the hub. Then I fitted some proper brakes, so I can actually ride it now and not constantly have to remember not to back pedal!
I had a 24inch Raleigh made in England,it had a coaster brake!
@@GrantJohnston-dr9rt That's interesting, I do sort of remember some UK bikes having coaster brakes many years back, but I guess they didn't become popular. Just checked Raleigh's website, and even their smallest kiddy bikes have both cable brakes these days.
1967
Remove*
When i was a kid i was going downhill and i engaged my coaster break which is a more or less on/off system. I lost traction and ended up with major road rash as i slid into a ditch. I had to have my dad pick gravel out of my skin.
16” bike with freewheel took me forever to find that wasn’t super expensive. But it really is the best way to go from balance bike to pedals. My now 7YO was able to go from balance to pedals and never have to deal with a coaster. I gutted the coaster and added clamp style brakes before finding a freewheel 16”.
I remember the first time I was on a bike with a freewheel as a kid, I tested it out after my dad had built it. When I was going to stop, I tried to use the non-existent coaster break since that's what I was used to. I hit the curb and fell over, damaging the rear derailleur, breaking the bike within 1 hour after I got it. Thankfully dad understood, even the guys at the shop felt sorry for me.
Seth you literally are running the mtb/bicycle empire. Your content making abilities are at the top of the game across all TH-cam content.
7:45 "Make a few hundred thousand people understand this" *looks at the 1.03M views* Ah yes couple hundred thousand in under a week, that aged well
IIRC this law came into play after a young boy broke both of his arms when he couldn't stop a "chopper" style bike. The story was printed in an issue of Consumer Reports (I want to say, late 60s, early 70s) he couldn't apply the brakes with enough force, rolled downhill, out of control, and into the side of a house. So the solution? Coaster brakes for all children's bikes. Ironically, there was a similar story involving a child's bicycle fitted with the old Sturmey Archer "Tri-Coaster", a 3 speed hub with a built in coaster brake, the problem was the brake mechanism was linked through the gearing, so if the 3 speed got stuck between gears, no brakes! This time the bike had a single handbrake on the front wheel, which again wasn't strong enough to be stopped by grip of a 6 year old. SA discontinued the hub almost immediately, and the replacement (which I think is the same mechanism they still make today) appeared a couple years later.
Finally Seth found a brand which makes bikes in his size
Grown up as a kid almost all my bikes had coaster brakes on them and I kind of miss it because it was so much fun just to lock up the bike and slide on the gravel.
me and my friends used to ride around a turning point that always formed a puddle at the edge and compete who could splash it the furthest. it promptly stopped once we went over to rim and disk brakes not cause we couldn't do it anymore but because it was now easier to go into the forest behind our neighborhood or bomb the big hills without worrying about or breaks going south
Only fun if its not you that has to pay for a new rear tyre every two weeks ;)
I did it with hand brakes as a kid! It was a lot of fun!
@@TheSH1N1GAM1 Hand brakes? We used to do it with the footbrakes as well ;)
Oh so it is called a coaster bike? Mine is like an 18 to 20 inch bike, it looks like a bmx or mtb. So is it by default a coaster or could it still be a mtb?
I'd love to see an adult sized coaster brake mtb video for comparison!
I had a flat bar SS 29er w/ coaster for a few years that was downright terrifying but also felt like surfing when you really slammed backwards in the corners. I loosened the kickback to give me closer to a quarter turn before it bites; made a huge difference.
I was one of the few people at the company I worked for years ago that could service coaster brakes, so after fixing one , I pretty much had to do all of them ( on busy days I wish someone else would have been trained to help handle the workload)
When I was very young, I didn't have the coordination to operate handbrakes while maintaining control. The coaster brake allowed me to stop the bike without affecting the front wheel and also simply put my feet on the ground to stabilize it if I needed to. It actually does still have a place for kids who aren't yet able to coordinate multiple things with their hands and feet at once. The hands have one job, to manage the front wheel, and the feet have one job, to work the pedals (including backwards to stop if need be).
My 4yo has no issues riding with no training wheels on a bike with normal disc brakes. He's been hitting the pump track sans training wheels with hand brakes since he was 3 without issue and is riding bike parks now. Every other kid on our street has the same story. One kid is on a Forth Park 14. Ours is on a Commencal RMNS 16 now (started on a 14). Another pair is on a WOOM 2 and 3. I know there is a kiddo on a Norco Storm, not sure if it's a 14 or a 16. All have hand brakes and all are ripping the local singletrack network without issue. I suspect your issue wasn't that you didn't have the coordination, but rather that you never had the opportunity to learn. My kid has his first hand brake when he was 2 on a Shotgun 12" balance bike.
As a fellow advocate & subscriber since the first 2 or 3 vids, this is my favorite video & as a Dad I comment your use of your platform for the greater good. I hope a viewer with political insight & influence steps up to help advice, even take action to help get corrective actions moving forward. Along similar lines, if you are not yet familiar with All Kids Bike, please check it out & consider helping us move this initiative to get kids off screens & on bikes forward. I got my wife’s school in Orlando area to take of the Kindergarten PE program to teach every kid to ride a bike in PE. They start their first lessons this next week. You may be surprised to learn that kids riding bikes is down 50% & 35% of kids don’t know how to ride a bike. As a trails & kids on bike advocate I’d love to talk to you about making an impact on kids off screens @ on bikes. Thanks for all your hard work.
Anyone who has met Seth in real life knows that the bike he is riding throughout this video is the correct size
Coaster Brakes likely put off A LOT of Kids from Riding Bikes. Useless crap.
I worked at a bike shop where we had beach cruisers with coasters only, I still trip on the coaster brakes everytime I try out a newly assembled one and it's still an annoying thing to deal with, cause I always rely to back pedal before dismounting.
Plus I had a funny encounter with a customer looking for a modern mountain bike but he specifically asked for a coaster brake 🤣
When I was a kid I had a bike with a coaster brake, and it was fantastic. After some short time muscle memory becomes so precise that you develop confidence to try anything with the bike. That was 15+ years ago and I was never as confident with the brakes as with that bicycle until last year when I bought my first mountain bike with disk brakes.
Same here but, as I dimly recall, what I did with the brake was get the bike into a slide so I could go where I wanted. I don't believe I actually tried to stop the bike with the rear brake.
As a child of the 70s, my experience gives me a little different perspective. Coaster brakes were positive and reliable; when I hit the brakes I got brakes, when I hit em hard enough that real wheel locked and it stayed locked until I reverse pedal to release it. Very predictable very reliable. You can't freewheel, you have to think a little more forward about pedal position as a result, but if that's the only type of bike you've ever ridden you don't really have to think more, it's just part of your basic skills to think that out one rotation in advance rather than assuming you can make huge adjustments at the last moment. The alternative braking system was caliper brakes, and they were not good at all. Some bikes came with coaster brake on the rear and a caliper on the front, and when I got one of those I thought that was so smart! so good to be able to use the front brake together with the rear, I would be able to stop even more quickly. But after a couple weeks of experimentation, the calipers just got pulled off and thrown in a box. Too fiddly, too inconsistent. Often a gentle squeeze intended to produce light breaking had no appreciable effect, while squeezing just a little harder risked suddenly locking the front wheel (and flying right over it.)
Now if I had lived somewhere flat this might have all been experienced quite differently, but I lived on a mountain, and biked some pretty steep grades. Going up them the legs work hard, but going down them the brakes got the workout, and a lot of times if the brakes were to fail there would be no question of wreck or not, just a matter of how badly and how powerfully I would wreck. So brakes were very important to me.
I remember when the 'mountain bike' style appeared, it was thought from the name these might be more suitable to my usage, on the mountain. One was brought home and I eagerly hopped on it and started putting it through the paces, but within half a mile I had wrecked. Applied caliper rear on a downhill, insufficient braking, bike continues accellerating. Added caliper front, squeezed harder on rear, get enough braking at that point that I'm no longer accelerating at least - but I'm almost out of straightaway and still moving way too fast to take the turn. In desperation I squeeze even harder on the brake levers - and suddenly the front wheel locks and I am flying over the handlebars!
So early caliper brakes did not impress me at all. And my first mountain bike got the thumbs up when I was climbing uphill, but it just wasn't equipped to descend the same path safely. So that bike was returned and I kept riding what I had been riding, confident that when I needed brakes the brakes would brake.
I'm in no way saying that the situation then justifies the law today, but I do think a nuanced understanding needs to acknowledge that brakes have to be more than just a tick-box, yes we have brakes. Not all brakes are equal. A beginners bike in particular needs to have not just brakes with sufficient strength, but brakes that are sufficiently simple in application that a green rider in a panic situation can reliably engage them properly, and stomping a coaster brake seems a lot closer to foolproof than squeezing handlebar levers could ever be, even if the levers are now hooked up to much more capable brakes the levers themselves are kind of fiddley and difficult.
You’re right back in the old days we didn’t have mountain biking. We simply rode our sidewalk bicycles across mountains!
Appreciate you sir, my kids are all teenagers now, but as a bike dad, I had them on freewheel bikes as soon as I could!
Thank you for highlighting what the laws say and also highlighting that they’re archaic, as many are.
back in 1975 i was riding my bicycle downhill on old logging trails every day. it had coaster breaks on it and i had no issues with it, you just had to set the pedals in a neutral position at the top of the hill. all it takes is a little forethought as to pedal placement. the coaster brake offers more control in a steep downhill the ability to navigate hairpin corners at high speeds is quite handy when you are riding in the woods. with proper technique and a little pre planning it is quite fun and is easy to learn
Seth, to me this is one of your best videos of the last 2 years or so. I don’t have kids and I live outside the US (not sure about the legal requirements for kids’ bikes where I live), but I feel like you absolutely nailed it on this one. Your passion for biking really comes through (fueled by your passion for your daughter I guess :D - love the zombie line!!!) and to me this video had much of the more off-the-cuff feel that your earlier videos used to have. Really enjoyed it. Have a good one. :)
This is just the thing with Seth's content, none of the stuff discussed was relevant for my daily life either. Still a top notch video and Ab amazing viewing experience!
My first ride on a free hub bike ended with me in a tree after pedalling backwards wondering where the brakes were 😂
Just think if you hadn't been setup for failure by a system that mandates coaster brakes when the vast majority of cycles have hand brakes...
Same LOL
my son learned to ride a bicycle, i.e. to pedal, within exactly 13 minutes at the age of 3. before that, we had him ride/roll on a running bike. there were hand brakes mounted and he also mastered the hand brake on the bicycle.
He hated the coaster brake system and never wanted to use it, so we bought a new bike for him and now everything is in butter :) Greetings from Germany
Klunkerz vibes, MTB was born with coaster brakes and downhill 🤣
I remember as kids asking each other if you can pedal backwards on your bike lol. I actually remember it being harder to ride the bike whenever I wanted to stand up.
Good times.
This reminds me of a letter to the editor in the October 1985 issue of BMX Action magazine:
Q: When I look at all the bikes advertised, the fine print says "CPSC equipment not shown." Now what in the world is CPSC equipment? And what is it for? And why don't they show it?
A: CPSC stands for the Consumer Product Safety Commission and they are the guys who make laws to ensure that manufacturers make safe products, including bikes. The CPSC equipment not shown in advertisements are those real keen chainguards and shiny spiff-o-matic reflectors. The reason why the factories don't put the guards and reflectors on the bikes for ads is because they look too bogus and everyone would laugh at 'em. - Ed
I just got a beach cruiser with coaster breaks and took a little while to adjust, but I'm glad to avoid the maintenance. Using the right technology for the right circumstance is key. I'd like to see a lot more people out biking and this seems like an easy step in the right direction.
I got a larger commuting bike (Torker KB2) with a coaster brake/two speed gearbox and I needed a fork with disc brake as it can't stop fast enough.
Adjusting a coaster brake is a pain…..you probably won’t have two spinners of the right size and thin enough when you need them!
@@peteypops or tying to put the brake shoes and bearings in with out it all falling out
@@devon12346 The grease sticks everything together and it's not THAT hard... but adjusting a coaster brake is an iron plated whore due to the need for a stupidly thin wrench.
Love that you acknowledged this issue I built a motorized bike from a beach cruiser bike and they all have coaster brakes had to sell it cause I HATED coaster brakes as a mountain biker accidentally engaging the brake at 40 mph ain't a fun time 😂
Sorry but sliding the rear wheel like a motorcycle would is a coolest thing ever as a kid, and that's far more important than getting used to trivial change of using hand for back brake later on.
But agree on law being silly there, as long as it brakes well enough who cares the type.
This guy seems like a great dad, keep up the good work man :)
The amount of times I crashed because of coasters breaks as a kid was wild
Funny, I crash more with rim caliber brakes getting wet as a kid in the 1970s. I have never own a BMX so maybe our use for the bike were different.
I think a lot of my crashes were caused by not having a front brake on a coaster brake bike.
Any crashes I had as a kid on a bike with coaster *brakes* (not *breaks*) was because I was intentionally locking up the rear wheel to skid it... Play stupid games, win stupid prizes...
The level of excitement my nephew displayed on his 6th birthday when I got him a Freewheeling hub and better V-Brakes for his BMX was worth the price. He instantly became the coolest kid in his first grade class with a Freewheel hub. This was about 12 years ago by the way. Now he's into MTB's like his uncle and can afford his own parts. lol
In germany we call it „RÜCKTRITTSBREMSE“ and I think it‘s beautiful
50 years ago there may not have been "mountain bikes" but we were riding insane trails long before the term mountain bike came around. Knobby tires and rubber grips like dirt motorcycles had were the first things, then came cross bars.. then cross bar and goose neck pads. 😄All we had were coaster brakes and we pioneered mountain and off road biking back in those days.
50 years ago was 1973. Teenage boys in our area were all riding ten-speeds with thin tires and dropped handlebars. BMX bikes appeared in our neighborhood suddenly around 1980. I remember the first time I saw an older boy on one. I had never seen a teenager ride a 20" bike before and thought he was goofing off. Shortly after that they were everywhere.
@@david672orford Yes! During the later 70s we had BMX races in between motorcycle races at the local dirt track. Suddenly it became a high dollar niche for more specialty BMX bikes. Good times.. 😌
It important they have CB brake. They kids can’t operate the handbrake when they are so young. Their motor skills aren’t developed enough and their hands aren’t strong enough to no have a CB until they are 6,7,8yrs old.
I like the fact you applied the reasons why few people use coaster breaks through mountain bikes to apply to every form of cycling.
Coaste breaks belong on beach cruisers and urban commuter bikes, and that’s about it.