My mountainbike has rubber brakes that have a hard lever , short throw, and are very grabby and noisy, though they will stop with some power if you can tolerate the fork vibrating with the grabbing.
My 'road' bike has rubber brakes with a soft lever and long throw with not much power. They get the job done but they make you worried the first time you use them.
I go faster with the soft mushy brakes because it takes a lot of motion on the lever before they do anything. I can chicken out and squeeze the brakes a bit without loosing speed.
