Some of you will wonder why I am posting this but it will become clear later.
My youngest daughter is a student at Sussex University. She has a Dawes Ladies Bike which she loves. It is a fairly early model with centre pull brakes made of some sort of engineering plastic. One side of the front brake broke under extreme braking. Not good and I am sure the reason no one seems to make brakes out of plastic any more. Shame on you Dawes for ever choosing it. Anyway, not to prolong this, she takes her bike to a cycle shop in Brighton and asks if they can fit a new front brake which they do. Now here is the real story. Friday night she is cycling down a hill - probably rather faster than she should - someone walks across the road and she slams on the brakes. The front wheel locks up and she does a superman impression flying over the handlebars and landing on her front in the road. Luckily she does not seem to be injured other than bruises. She blames herself for 'braking too hard'. On picking her bike up she finds the front wheel will not rotate, being locked by the front brake. I say it should be impossible to apply the brakes so hard that the front wheel is permanently locked. The brakes must have been installed incorrectly by the bike shop. She keeps blaming herself.
My youngest daughter is a student at Sussex University. She has a Dawes Ladies Bike which she loves. It is a fairly early model with centre pull brakes made of some sort of engineering plastic. One side of the front brake broke under extreme braking. Not good and I am sure the reason no one seems to make brakes out of plastic any more. Shame on you Dawes for ever choosing it. Anyway, not to prolong this, she takes her bike to a cycle shop in Brighton and asks if they can fit a new front brake which they do. Now here is the real story. Friday night she is cycling down a hill - probably rather faster than she should - someone walks across the road and she slams on the brakes. The front wheel locks up and she does a superman impression flying over the handlebars and landing on her front in the road. Luckily she does not seem to be injured other than bruises. She blames herself for 'braking too hard'. On picking her bike up she finds the front wheel will not rotate, being locked by the front brake. I say it should be impossible to apply the brakes so hard that the front wheel is permanently locked. The brakes must have been installed incorrectly by the bike shop. She keeps blaming herself.