At least on the bicycle in question (having now ridden it), the rod-actuated drum brakes on it could never be described as "high-performance brakes" but definitely can stop the bike within about a foot to a meter when biking at roughly 20 km/h. Fittingly, the bike is heavy --- _really_ heavy: I'm guessing it weighs well over 20 kg. Therefore, getting it to a speed much greater than that (which could cause braking worries) takes a lot more effort than on e.g. a relatively modern road bike, and so the braking doesn't feel "inadequate" for the riding style facilitated by the bike. Even better is that the bike behaves exactly the same in the wet, which cannot be said about e.g. road bikes with caliper brakes.