Rear wheel locked up. Holy crap!

 A story & cautionary tale.  Just taking a short lunchtime ride through
a suburban neighborhood, running a few errands on a warm sunny day.
What could go wrong.  I came to my turn and lightly applied the brakes
to slow for the turn, when - screeeeeeetch.  The rear wheel suddenly
and completely locks up on me.  I kept it upright through the skid,
and came to a stop in the middle of the road.   WTF?

It was seriously locked.  Tried backing it up, pushing it forward,
nothing.  I had the on-board tools, so I disconnected the brake arm &
rod so the wheel could free spin, and managed to push it out of the
road until help came with a trailer.   All was well that ended well;
and I'm mostly glad I wasn't doing 80 when it happened.

Here's what went wrong, should anyone out there be at similar risk.
It's an old bike, a 1983 Honda Shadow 750 (VT750C).  When I bought it
last year, it had a mere 7800 miles on it, so its likely the brakes
were never changed, and I hadn't either.  Even though they had
relatively low mileage on them, they were still 25 years old; and
oxydation under the pads had popped the pads off of the shoes.  When
it came loose, it jammed up the wheel immediately.

So if you're running on an old but low-mileage bike, I'd suggest it
would behoove you to change those brake shoes.  I was lucky.  You may
not be.

 
Nice post. Scary indeed. Glad you were OK.

 

You use the rear brake??

 
I use both brakes. You never use the rear ?
Why not ?

 
Uh, yeah; I use 'em both.  The front seems more effective; but for just
slowing down a bit, the rear works fine.