Road Cycling - Am I just chicken, or should I trust my brakes?

I've just started to road bike, and upgraded to a mid 80s Nishiki Olympic. I bought it yesterday and checked all the gear. I even tweaked the front brake cuz it was toed out. I did this by removing the pad and using a Crescent wrench to provide persuasion so the pad now sits with a slight toe in.

1 - What's the limits of ar oad bike's brakes? I was coming down a steep grade in the high 30mph range when I started thinking about this.

2 - And now as I type this I recall the tweak. Are my brakes now a time-bomb?

It's rare for a brake arm to break without a fair amount of provocation. In the 70's and 80's, Schwinn made a fair number of bicycles where the front brake would hit the frame when the wheel was swung around too far, and I saw quite a few that had been bent pretty severely without breaking (like, 30 degrees or so).

If you'd like another method of toeing the pads, you might shop for some brake pads that have swivels, such as Kool Stop models, or try some V-brake-style pads, which come with swivel hardware as well.

How well your brakes work depends on a lot of factors. If you can induce rear-wheel lift with heavy braking on the front, then they're pretty good. If you can squeeze the levers hard and the bike doesn't slow down very quickly, they're not very good, if that's not overstating the obvious. Are the bike's wheel rims aluminum, by the way? That is preferable to chromed steel, particularly in wet conditions where the chromed-steel rims are extremely slick.

You have to "push the envelope" gradually to gain confidence in a bike.
I upgraded my brakes from 1970s Weinman calipers to Shimano 105 dual pivots (long drop ones to fit the old frame). They increased my braking power and my control/modulation. I have alot more confidence riding big steep hills now.

I made the change as a result of crash damage. 3 months after the crash I noticed a hairline crack at the pivot of my front brake lever. Just for fun I squeezed it as hard as I could and managed to snap the old lever in half. Since I was replacing levers, I thought I may as well upgrade the calipers. The best upgrade I have made.

Hi Speaker Guy,

(are you a woofer, or a tweeter?) I've had a number of bike-related goodies fail on me, in and out of racing, but the ONLY time I've had a brake arm do exactly that (i.e. break) was when I was zooming along (equipped with a Zzipper fairing) and a Seattle Metro bus cut me off at high speed. I ended up slamming on the brakes, and I lost one Shimano 600 arm. The Al just failed.

Never seen it happen since, either with my or others gear.

Unless you really hauled on your brakes, they're not likely to...break.

good luck,
tt

P.S. my crack team of legal experts tells me that you should immediately stop cycling, buy a new bike, and purchase body armor. (but they're like that...)

Originally posted by Tom_The_Bikeman
Hi Speaker Guy,

(are you a woofer, or a tweeter?) <<snip!>>

He he.. I'm a speaker builder.

www.geocities.com/thespeakerguy/index.html

And thanks for your replies. I'm glad I'm not going to die.