Brakes failed!
 

Yup just had my front brakes completely fail in the middle of London rush hour traffic. The lever just went bang while braking behind a car and came all the way back to the bar. My guardian angel was clearly watching as I made it to a safe stop with only a small amount of swearing and a large amount of swerving. I'll probably still have nightmares.

Got my Mrs out to rescue me and bring my socket set. Looks like one of my pads disintegrated. They were getting low but I think perhaps more importantly, they were old, as in, bike not used for a few years.

By this time the traffic wasn't as heavy so I managed to make it home, escorted by the Mrs. Have you ever tried riding without touching your front brake? Fortunately this is a cruiser style bike and the rear brake is actually quite good, but it's still a weird experience. I knew that if I touched the lever, I'll knacker the disk.

Anyway there should be some lid cam footage of the brown trouser moment for your amusement shortly.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

https://youtu.be/th0s2ybHWi4

Excuse any garbled swearing. I really meant it.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Time for a bit of soul searching then...

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Ooof, well done for avoiding 'target fixation' and having the presence of mind to take avoiding action.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

In my panic I just couldn't get my foot on the rear brake either.

It's my Mrs' bike. Do you realise how much trouble I'd be in if I bent it? :-o

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Bet that got the pulse going! Well done indeed

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Bad news on the Brake failure but Kudos on the cool head and reactions and thankfully you weren't at great speed :)

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Not going fast is easy - it's a cruiser and it's terrifying. It does make swerving a bit more dramatic though as it's so flippin wide.

I have taken the wise investment of a month's train ticket while I wait for my butt cheeks to unclench themselves.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I'd recommend getting right back on the bike, otherwise you risk that fear setting in. You swerved a bump, you did good!

I find it baffling that a knackered pad would cause this, I'm assuming there's two calipers on this bike or is there just the one? If it's two...the other caliper should have taken up the slack...it's not as if the pistons could have popped out and cause fluid to rush out (which would explain the lever-to-the-bar experience)

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Undeserved. I panicked and just happened to do the right thing. More luck than judgement. I can't even manage to swear intelligibly.

Looking through the footage to find it made me realise that if it had happened at any other point in the journey it would have been a lot worse. I'm filtering in traffic, I'm pulling up behind other bikers, etc etc - coulda taken out a whole lot of people.

The video doesn't look all that dramatic but it's not how I was feeling. That "oh holy cr4p I can't stop" moment is something I really don't wanna repeat.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

You may have initially panicked but the fact you recovered to safety quickly shows great reactions IMHO.As you say,it could have been much worse and thankfully it was you on the bike.I also agree with the other poster.Go for a ride on your bike or another bike ASAP.

I always have a fear on this happening as I had a brake fail in a car years ago.Road was clear and manged to pull in ok.

Since then on my Bikes I basically use the,"Hendon Shuffle" method at traffic lights as well as from the lights I keep my right foot hovering over the rear brake in town traffic until I'm sure I'm clear.It's become 2nd nature to me now over the years.

http://www.survivalskills.co.uk/riding_skills_43.htm

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Single front disk brake, so one caliper. I think (and I haven't had a proper look yet) that the thickness of the pad disappearing caused too much available movement in the caliper for the lever to compensate. At the side of the road I got pressure back after a couple of pumps of the lever. No loss of fluid. It felt like the lever had broken though.

I rode it home after checking there was nothing that would lock up the front wheel, so I think I'm past the mental block. Gotta wait for new pads to arrive anyway, and I might just put it away for the winter.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

We were taught to always cover the back brake in traffic/approaching Junctions. Even as a cyclist I'm right leg dominant as in, I unclip my left foot only which I believe is a habit picked up

Re: Brakes failed!
 

The good thing is, you avoided any damage to yourself, the bike and anyone else. You also now know the front brake is gonna be sorted for when your missus is riding it, which is good peace of mind.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I don't Hendon Shuffle as the clutch is nice and light on this bike, so I normally keep my right foot on the brake when stopped.

However the foot forward riding position restricts movement at the ankle from the relaxed foot position - ie you have to lift your foot slightly to get it on the brake lever and still retain enough ankle movement to use the brake effectively. You can't cover it like on a sportsbike. Well you can. I did on the way home after. It's just not comfortable for over an hour of riding.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I understand.Hopefully and from experience front brake failures are not common.I'm not OCD but I've stripped and cleaned/checked my SV's front brakes 3 times since I got the bike in January.

Once as a check when I got it and fresh fluid etc.

2nd time as it got a little grabby on the front at low speeds(Light corrosion on float pins,polished out and re-greased)

3rd time just because I had the front wheel off for a new tyre and thought might as well.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Yes, I do it all the time, its quite a challenge.
As a bus driver I am trained and encouraged to read the road ahead and use the brakes as little as possible for increased passenger comfort and reduced wear and tear on the vehicle.
This has carried over into my normal off duty driving and riding.
Its not unusual for me to only use the brakes a handful of times in my 28 mile commute to work.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

well that was a bit of a brown trouser moment, well done for saving the day :-)

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Well saved.

Lets have a look at the remains of the pad?

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I'll take some photos when I replace it. I had to put the caliper back on to get it home.

It's basically a rough brown patch where the friction material was. Looks like rust.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I've had pads go on a mountainbike rear brake during sustained braking on a 20% downhill (in Cornwall) going about 40mph... so guessing it was the heat build up that caused the bonding to fail and the pad to shear away from the backing. A different situation entirely and I only realised it had gone as lever travelled too far and there was a huge screech that came from the metal on metal at the back. Rotor was ruined and it shook me up enough and that was only on a mountain bike.

Looks like you stayed relatively cool and controlled it well after the initial couple of seconds of realising what was going on.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

I know the video looks that way but it's not true!

I've watched it back a couple of times or 10, and you can hear the bang as it goes.

I also thought, what on earth is the car ahead doing, stopping to let a car out of a side road ffs, but thank God he did cos otherwise the failure probably would have occurred at the next junction with no escape route.

It's also about the only time I've needed to pass a car without there being a suicidal scooter on my right. Not enough time for mirror-signal-manoeuvre lol.

I think I've used up my ration of luck for the time being. I won a lucky dip lottery ticket last Saturday and I was convinced it was gonna win me something on the Wednesday draw, but alas no luck left. Not that I'm complaining!

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Glad you didn't crash.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Hilariously...I was riding home last night and somebody did a late pull out from a side road (they saw me but a car coming the opposite way quickly skewed their vision of me) so I slowed down and went round the outside of her.

She proceeded to b0llock me for going round the outside of her, rather than undertaking her. She actually WANTED me to undertake her.

The mind boggles.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Took a while to get round to it, but here are pics of the disintegrated pad compared to the other one. They were sintered pads which I believe are supposed to go down to 1mm thickness - and there was plenty more than that left.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4556/...cceef6a7_z.jpg
IMG_20171104_105433 by Bob Goddard, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4491/...715e4811_z.jpg
IMG_20171104_105407 by Bob Goddard, on Flickr

Re: Brakes failed!
 

Wow, that looks like it rusted from the back and then fell off!

Again, respect for dealing with it.

Re: Brakes failed!
 

That was my hypothesis as well.

Perhaps it needed a bit of ACF-50? :clown: