Dear All
With correction to links
Fixed Wheel - No Brakes or Single Free Wheel One Brake on the Road?
Set the scene_ In the 1970’s when I was fit, I riding home at rush hour time along the Old Kent Road, a cycle passed me who I fail match their pace , I noticed they were riding a bike with a 5 speed block but configure with a single free, but they only had a front brake.
This rider cycled though a gap of a bus and a car who had stop at a crossing. The reason they had stopped a pedestrian was crossing, the result the cyclist hit the pedestrian who fell to the ground unconscious.
The police arrived, spotted the single free wheel, and was done for failure to have two brakes
THIS COURSE OF ACTION IS UNLAWFUL, STUPID AND BAD PR FOR CYCLING.
As a life long cyclist, daily cyclist in central London and a cycle instructor since 1998 I but not fail to notice the preponderance of persons (both male and female) riding a bicycle with the following configuration.
A bicycle with a fixed wheel with no additional brake on the front.
A bicycle with either single free wheel or with multi geared with only a front brake.
I now come to understand that some accredited cycle instructors are following the trend that was started in the USA.
According to Pedal Cycles (Construction & Use) Regulations 1983 [PCUR] cycles with a fixed must have a least a front brake
http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3804From CTC Magazine –Cycle
How many brakes? – 2001.11
My grandson has been advised that BMX cycles with wheels of 20" or smaller are only required to have one brake. His parents checked with Brighton Police and were told this. If this is this true, then surely the law needs amending, as riders of BMX machines are not only small children. Please advise.
K M Wells
Local Police are not the best people to ask about detailed points of law and they are certainly in error here. The Road Vehicles Construction and Use Regulations require independent front and rear braking systems on almost all configurations of pedal cycle. One brake will suffice only in the following two circumstances:
(1) The cycle has a "fixed wheel" drive, i.e. no freewheel, i.e. to pedal backwards makes it go backwards. In that case one brake, acting on only the front wheel (or front two wheels if it has that many), will suffice. Resisting the forward rotation of the pedals, although nowhere near so effective as a proper back-pedal or coaster brake, is assumed adequate to slow down the back wheel.
(2) The cycle has its pedals fixed directly to one wheel, without any intervening gears or chain. In that case no proper brakes are needed at all. This exception allows the continued use of antique cycles such as “penny-farthings”.
It's possible that (1) might apply to a BMX, but I doubt it because a lot of BMX stunts and tricks are impossible without a freewheel. And as some of these tricks involve spinning the handlebars, that’s also the reason for omitting the back brake. The way to make a BMX street legal without cramping your style is to fit a hollow stem bolt for the front brake cable and a “gyro” for the rear cable. Or get a rear wheel with a coaster brake, which allows a few extra tricks too!
The Construction and Use Regulations are wonderfully convoluted however and do contain some weird stuff about wheel sizes that takes a bit of unravelling before you can tell it doesn’t apply to anything normal! One of these confusing clauses lets cycles with two rear wheels (i.e. tricycles and quadricycles) have a rear braking system that acts on only one of those rear wheels, provided that the machine was manufactured before August 1984 and that it has at least one wheel smaller than 460mm (i.e. 18 inches) diameter. Goodness only knows what that was all about: presumably the authorities wished to permit the continued use of some antiquated model of tricycle! And just to reassure our tricycling members, it is allowed to have both brakes on the single front or the single rear wheel (according to format: conventional or Newton-style respectively) provided that the tricycle is not designed or adapted for carrying goods.
The only other clause that mentions wheel size lets quadricycles with all four wheels smaller than 250mm (10in) have brakes that act on the tyres. I guess that's about pedal-cars. Otherwise these regulations don't count any brake that operates on a pneumatic tyre; but brakes that act on a solid tyre must be okay, which is another favour for the antiquarians.
It's also possible that the plods of Brighton are confusing wheel size with saddle height, since the Regulations make a general exemption for small bicycles and tricycles where the saddle cannot be raised above 635mm (25in) from the ground. That's the vertical distance to the highest part of the seating area with the seatpost fully extended and the tyres pumped up. Consider how low that actually is and it’s clear these must be very small cycles indeed: something that no child much over six years would be able to pedal efficiently. Of course, BMX kids are not too concerned about pedalling efficiency and tend to go about with their saddles ridiculously low — so as not to impede their tricks and stunts! However that alone won't get them off the regulatory hook. What matters is the potential height the saddle will safely extend to, not the actual height at which it's used. To evade the front & rear brakes rule these kids must not only keep their saddles right down, but also make it so they cannot safely be raised, i.e. by cutting down their seatposts, leaving only the 65mm minimum insertion length inside the frame. However I wouldn't advise that. Better get another brake!
If the law needs amending it’s because most recumbents also duck through the saddle height loophole, calling for an alternative definition of cycle size based upon the action of pedalling rather than standing over the machine.
Chris Juden
CTC Technical Officer
I SEE THAT
Looking at the Evans Cycle website there a number of fixed road cycles, many of them are without a front brake.
http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/bikes/single-speed-fixed-gear-bikesBelow is example of a fixed wheel road cycle display with no brakes
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/fuji/feather-2011-single-speed-road-bike-ec024680http://www.evanscycles.com/products/charge/plug-racer-2011-single-speed-road-bike-ec025582I would like to know if they would sell these cycles as display with no brake.
If yes they possibly breaking the law
If not they may be braking the law regarding the display of good act
Before any body say I have not used a fixed, I have:
Rode and completed:
Audax at 200, 300, and 400 km on fixed in Dorset
Ridden many miles off road (rough stuff) on a fixed
Ridden over the Romania Mountain on fixed
Riddern over DARTMOOR with some hill so steep that you had push back over the saddle to stop yourself from being push over the handalbars
Ridden in central London for many year on fixed
ALL THESE TIMES I RODE WITH TWO BRAKE PLUS A FIXED WHEEL
What is going on, Cycle Instructor should be riding cycles that are roadworthily and complies with the law.
The people who are using these cycle are they trying to be fashionable, a bit edgee, or is it because cycling is now cool they got push the envelop.
SO PLEASE
Ride bicycle with a fixed wheel with at least an additional working brake on the front.
A bicycle with either single free wheel or with multi geared with both working front and back brake.brakes.
