Safety COASTER BRAKE horror stories, please add your experience

I like the idea of having the brakes on the right, and the clutch on the left. Reminds me of a motorcycle. Oh wait. It IS a motor cycle.
Heh.

But would you recommend a good caliper break for a good price that wont fall apart and kill me?
Need one very soon. Its getting iffy and the more i use the rear break the more the rear wheel wonks out and goes untrue.

Waxxumus said:

But would you recommend a good caliper break for a good price that wont fall apart and kill me?

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Well, a good caliper break would happen sitting still while you were looking at it.
Sorry, I can never help myself with that one ;-}

I don't get picky with caliper brakes, my local bike shop stocks generics for ~$18.
A moving brake break won't hurt you, but not even having one and not being able stop however certainly can and will.

Most have a short crummy lever, I just buy the caliper and cable as a I have a large supply of good long levers, all the ones I pull of new bikes when replaced with a dual pull, but you want a long lever because it has to reach past your throttle housing.

Coaster brakes are one of those things you need to spend some time getting used to - on a bicycle WITHOUT an engine - and the learning curve is rather steep.
There's not a whole lotta wiggle room between 'works' or 'doesn't work' or between 'crashed' and 'didn't crash'. Sort of like skateboards or inline skates.
My OE 1960's Schwinn coaster brake stops very reliably, and in any pedal position, all I need to do is move my foots backwards about a inch or so.
I will agree that having only a coaster brake (and Ye Olde Fred Flintstone....) isn't enough if you're going to be travelling faster than, say, 25 mph, if there's a lot of traffic or if there are some steep, sustained downhills on your route.

Here is the deal with coaster brakes. I am not saying they are the best, and I'm also not saying they should be solely relied upon. However, they NEED regular and PROPER service from DAY ONE. This means learning how to disassemble, service and reassemble them YOURSELF. Whether motorized or not, the factory grease won't cut it for very long. I have seen and heard of coaster brakes fail after only a few stops, brand new from the factory. It takes some practice to get it right, but what you need to do is take it apart, clean the old grease out of the bearings the best you can, and re-grease them. I've recently found that the easiest and least messy way to grease bearings is to put some grease on your fingers and smear it around the inside of the bearing cage until you can see it between the ball bearings. You will likely smear it on the outside as well, scrape it up with a finger until you've gotten as much grease in the bearings as you possibly can. And remember that coaster hubs have three bearings, make sure you get them all. Also clean the old grease out of the races. I use Lucas red and tacky grease. If you are keeping the coaster brake intact, also smear some grease on the brake shoes. But the best thing you can do with a coaster brake is convert it to freewheel. Simply remove the brake clutch and shoes and put 3 washers in place of the brake clutch. Then add a rim brake if possible.

Oh and cone wrenches are a must have. You will never get conical bearings adjusted properly without them.

opps

a broken collar bone and 4 broken ribs.i live about 2 miles from work. have one of the cheaper motors. the 46 cc.was on the new paved bike path.had tail light and was useing a haed mounted flash light.ran off the path a little. and hit some rebar were this store was putiing in a side walk. i was doing 20 or so.hit the rebar and it filped me off the bike. lol ill ride it angen. could have riden it home had i not been hurt so bad.

you're lucky you weren't impaled. ride on the road from now on, you're not a pedestrian

coaster nightmare

so bought a schwinn swindler with the 27.5 inch tires after installing the motor kit the first time I applied the coaster brake the pedal crank arm kicked forword and loosened the entire rear axle up took it apart and redid it new grease torqued every thing. hit the brake on pedal power no problem 3rd try it stripped the axle theads and kicked forward again. replaced axle again this time the bike crank kicked forward and broke the axle on the brake arm side. have cleaned repaired several over the years with no problems and have never scene on do this before. 3 axles and several interior brake parts later road another new swindler and had the same problem any ideas?

Put a disc brakes on the front and a rim brake on the rear and fix the coaster brake as a backup.

I've got caliper brakes front and rear, with a combo lever. I use my coaster brake motor off, clutch locked, to desend steep hills . On the combo lever, put the rear cable furthest from fulcrum, put front brake cable closest to fulcrum, that gives rear brakes a harder pull, with fine tuning, they work awesome .