Bicycle Mechanics - My crappy brakes

I have cantilever brakes, center pull I guess you'd call them, with a yoke that pulls a transverse cable (quick release) connected to the two bosses. Hopefully you know what I'm talking about. The problem is, when I need to adjust the brake pads or put new ones in, it's nearly impossible to tighten them up without screwing up the adjustment I made. Turning the wrench also moves the pad and so I'm screwed. Yes, I do have an allen key on the other end to hold it but it doesn't help much. So is there some trick I haven't thought of, or some other brake system that's easier to adjust and put pads on?

Also, my brakes (diacompe, shimano, haven't tried kool stop yet) wear out after approx. 2 months. Friends have told me that they all get at least a year out of their pads. I ride about 20 miles a day, with many stop signs, and unfortunately I don't know how much they ride, but it seems like a lot. Is it unreasonable to think my pads should be lasting longer? I have tried sanding them every couple of days and removing the grit in the cracks, but it didn't seem to extend the life of the pads noticeably.

Yikes. 20 miles a day is 1200 miles in two months right?

I get around 6000 miles before I see enough wear to consider replacing them. But this could also be how you ride as my wife tends to use her rear brake exclusivly and only gets about 2500 miles out of the rear pads.

As for adjustment, yea it's tough to adjust. I find that if I clamp down the brake on the rim, in proper position, then I can use the pressure of the brake lever to hold the pads in proper alignment while I tighten them.

OF course you will need to stick a shim, credcard, dime/coin or some such between the rear of the pad and the rim so you can get the toe-in right.

I use Ritchey pads on my tandem and they last a fair time. They are longer pads so perhaps they distribute the heat/pressure better. I am planning to try KoolStops to see how they work as I hear good stuff about them.

The Ritchey (black) pads seem to keep the crud out of them better than Shimano. Aztec pads also seem to do pretty good at not picking up rim crap.

Clamp down the brake lever on the rim... I suppose you mean just by tensioning the cable until it is touching the rim. Well, I tried that and it didn't help, the brake pad still moves up or down (depending on how I try to hold it) when I tighten it. So it will either get jammed or rub against the tire, and in any case it won't be using its whole surface area.

Snug up the bolt, then put a rag around some channel locks and reposition the pad. The tighten the bolt even further.

L8R

Center pull canti's are certainly effective brakes if setup right, but of all the rim brakes, I have had the easiest time setting up and adjusting V-brakes (not to mention their pretty awesome stopping power).

If you really do ride 20 miles a day, maybe a more beefy set of brakes would do you good; the problem is that you will need a new set of brake levers if you went for V-brakes, and the total setup there can easily run you 50 bucks on a mountain bike.

Of course, if you had the money to spend, i would say ball bearing disc brakes are the end-all in ease of use, adjustability, reliability and power. They will work perfect if your rim is untrue or your wheel is coated in mud or snow, and my avid mechs are so damn easy to adjust and never go out of alignment. The cost is the big problem here, but if you are a daily commuter it might be worth it.

I asked the local bike gurus about getting V brakes, they said "V-brakes suck." Apparently they thought a) they were hard to adjust, and b) they had less overall power than cantis, even though they said they will "stop you quicker". I asked how you coud be stopped quicker with less powerful brakes and they couldn't explain it. I've never adjusted V-brake pads before but I suppose I should try that.

Regarding ball-bearing disc brakes, how are they different from other disc brakes? I asked them if I should get disc brakes and they said "No! They're impossible to maintain on the road, and if you accidentally touch them with your bare hands they are completely ruined." Not to mention they'd cost hundreds of dollars including the new wheel I'd have to get, or the labor of rebuilding the wheel to put on the rotor hook or whatever. They also said you shoudn't do it because it'll uncenter the load of the front wheel on the spokes, making it less strong, which certainly sounds true, but I don't know how strong I actually need the wheel to be. My back wheel ain't centered (because of the cassette) and it seems strong enough. I don't break spokes often.

I was also told that there's no point in getting disc brakes because regular brakes can lock the wheel up and any more power than that is not useful. My brakes certainly can't lock my wheel up, but I'm sure it's because I haven't been able to adjust them properly. I've got a fairly heavily loaded touring bike, so take that into account. They also said you can get the kool-stop pads which work well in the rain and whatnot.

So, I wasn't convinced about getting disc brakes from what they told me. Seems dangerous if I can't do maintenance on the road for them...

Can people give me some more opinions on V-brakes vs cantis vs disc?

Do disc brake pads last longer than regular brake pads? They seem more expensive, so I'd hope that they would...

Cantelever brakes are more than powerful enough for everyday riding.
See.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-adjustment.html
and
http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/howfix_cant.shtml

Canti's are soooo easy to work on, but first you need to remove them and grease the post on a semi-regular basis. If you don't, they will become sticky and hard to adjust.

Now, as far as getting the pad to hit the surface correctly: With the cable off, simply move each arm up to the surface individually, and adjust the pad so that it strikes the surface squarely, and doesn't hit the tire.

As for the cable adjustment, what I always do is this: Squeeze the 2 pads together against the rim with my non-dominat hand, lightly snug the cable in the holding screw, then screw it down. Let go of the pads, and they should be at just about the perfect distance from the rim.

I asked the local bike gurus about getting V brakes, they said "V-brakes suck." Apparently they thought a) they were hard to adjust, and b) they had less overall power than cantis, even though they said they will "stop you quicker". I asked how you coud be stopped quicker with less powerful brakes and they couldn't explain it. I've never adjusted V-brake pads before but I suppose I should try that.

Regarding ball-bearing disc brakes, how are they different from other disc brakes? I asked them if I should get disc brakes and they said "No! They're impossible to maintain on the road, and if you accidentally touch them with your bare hands they are completely ruined." Not to mention they'd cost hundreds of dollars including the new wheel I'd have to get, or the labor of rebuilding the wheel to put on the rotor hook or whatever. They also said you shoudn't do it because it'll uncenter the load of the front wheel on the spokes, making it less strong, which certainly sounds true, but I don't know how strong I actually need the wheel to be. My back wheel ain't centered (because of the cassette) and it seems strong enough. I don't break spokes often.

I was also told that there's no point in getting disc brakes because regular brakes can lock the wheel up and any more power than that is not useful. My brakes certainly can't lock my wheel up, but I'm sure it's because I haven't been able to adjust them properly. I've got a fairly heavily loaded touring bike, so take that into account. They also said you can get the kool-stop pads which work well in the rain and whatnot.

So, I wasn't convinced about getting disc brakes from what they told me. Seems dangerous if I can't do maintenance on the road for them...

Can people give me some more opinions on V-brakes vs cantis vs disc?
Find some new bike guru's those guys sound like retro grouches.
The following is my opinion:

Centerpulls - Never liked them they don't stop you worth a **** and you're hard pressed to find parts (at least it's harder than V's)

V-Brakes (linear pull) - Easy to work on, drastic increase in stopping power, can be mounted to canti-posts by a trained monkey. I don't even bother with Cantis anymore.

Discs (mechanical) - Again easy to work on on the side of the road (especially AVID CPS) Decent power increase over V's (a damnsight better than cantis) Works in ANY condition wet dry mud etc. Works well on touring bikes as evidenced by Giant's OCR Touring (http://www.giantbicycles.com/us/030.000.000/030.000.006.asp?dealerid=&dealercountry=&lYear=2004&bikesection=8834&range=149&model=10807) Increased Power is especially useful to larger riders on MTB's (which would translate to Touring for obvious reasons)

Discs (hydraulic) - This is where it gets fuzzy. Slightly more powerful than mechanical discs has all of the other advantages plus they are generally lighter. Main disadvantage: Hydraulic lines and fluid. If a line gets damaged its not as easy to fix trailside as a mechanical due to the fact that if you damage a mech cable you can replace it with a standard brake cable (all it is anyway) where as with the hydraulics if you damage a hose you're walking.

Touching the rotor = ruining it? Not hardly Clean it with some denatured alcohol and as long as you haven't contaminated the pads you're good to go. If the pads have been contaminated there are several methods of cleaning them as well (such as the brake cleaner + blow torch method)

I'll say it again FIND SOME NEW GURUS those guys are full of ****

Regarding disc vs canti vs Vs... it seems alot of die hard roadies/old school bike mechanics are real ardent about Canti's being "all you need". There is no doubt that cantis are strong enough to stop a bicycle in any situation, the question is how fast will it stop the bicycle, how much will that performance vary, and under what conditions.

The facts are that V-brakes have more power than cantis (i.e. they exert more force on the rim, generating more friction which leads to more torque or stopping power), and discs have probably around the same stopping power as V-brakes, but alot more modularity and consistency due to the precise control and almost no variation over the calipers and braking surface.

My ballbearing disc is incredibly easy to adjust, just twist the knobs to position the calipers, and make sure the rotor is true. Contrary to what your friends in the shop said, i have no problems pulling a nose-wheelie on a rotor that has been man-handled by some admirers, although wiping down the rotor with alcohol will definetily make the performance noticeably better.

You can get just about any pair of brakes to be "enough", but if you are riding like you said a heavy touring bike, i would wager that having the precise control and reliability of a disc brake is tough to beat. Muddy or untrue rims won't effect your braking performance at all. Avid makes their ball bearing (mechanical) disc brake in a road lever compatible version now too ( http://www.avidbike.com/2_cpsdiskbrakes/cps2_2_road.html ), which i plan on putting on my 'cross bike asap.

I asked the local bike gurus about getting V brakes, they said "V-brakes suck."retro geeks.....

How do disk brakes mate up with touring forks? Do you have to beef up the forks so much it becomes unyeilding and harsh? Do you need a massive off-road/motorcycle style stanchion with comfort provided by mechanical suspension?

How do disk brakes mate up with touring forks? Do you have to beef up the forks so much it becomes unyeilding and harsh? Do you need a massive off-road/motorcycle style stanchion with comfort provided by mechanical suspension?
Again look at this (http://www.giantbicycles.com/us/030.000.000/030.000.006.asp?dealerid=&dealercountry=&lYear=2004&bikesection=8834&range=149&model=10807)

How do disk brakes mate up with touring forks? Do you have to beef up the forks so much it becomes unyeilding and harsh? Do you need a massive off-road/motorcycle style stanchion with comfort provided by mechanical suspension?

You need a frame with IS (international standard) Disc mounts.. and as Raiyn keeps mentioning, there are plenty of touring and cross bikes out there with disc tabs, and almost every moutain bike worthy of note has disc tabs as well. The forks really don't need much beefing up, after all, rim brakes exhibit just as much torque on the fork (haha, it rhymes!) as disc brakes do.

However the torque from rim brakes is over a much longer distance on the fork, whereas on disc brakes its over a short distance (quick physics for those of you confused: Torque = Force * the distance from axis, so assuming Vs have the same "stopping power", or torque, they will apply less force but at a longer distance from the hub, thus equaling the torque of the shorter distance but higher force (friction) discs).

The only deal on the disc brakes is the strength of the disc tab's weld to the frame. There were some problems for Trials riders early on with rear mounted discs because they applied reverse pressure to the disc brakes when bouncing on the back of the wheel (i.e. the welders of the disc tabs only reinforced them the logical way-when the disc brake is stopping the bike, not the other way, when a trials rider is bouncing on the wheel, and the disc brake is stopping the bike from rolling forward during the rear pogo). These problems have long since been alleviated.

Even though discs have been around for several years now, I am surprised how little much of the road bike community knows about them. The more people that buy discs, the more standard they will become, and the cheaper they will cost!

The lack of discs on road bikes is primarily due to weight. Same thing 10 years ago with discs on a mountain bike. However, as technology improves and weight comes down you'll see more and more on different bikes. The proof is the amount of touring bikes available this year with discs such as the one Raiyn posted. There are many others coming available as well.

Also, it'll only take one well respected pro rider to use them and praise their performance and 90% of all the wannabees will "Have to get a set!".

Discs are a benefit if you ride in adverse conditions. They actually work better when wet, and are not affected by mud (o.k., roadies don't see a lot of mud, but that's besides the point).

Once hydraulic discs are initially set-up they require LESS maintenance than any type of cable actuated brake. Sure, you can contaminiate your pads, but there are remedies replacing worn out pads is much quicker.

Just like everything in life, there are compromises. Not everyone needs discs, nor should get them, but they do fill a need and there is always the cool factor to contend with.

L8R

Got to get the weight down for roadie/racers.

The UCI just banned disks for Cyclocross. I think that was probably a step backwards.

Several touring bikes have mounts for disks. I'm about to buy and mine will have mounts on frame and fork but I plan to use canties on tours for a few more years.

Also while you can hike-a-bike out of a XC course you don't want to be in Iowa looking for brake pads for a disk while you are touring.

Oh yea, there is one ROAD/RACING bike with disks (mounts) <soon>... The Morati SC. It uses Hayes mechanicals. It was shown at Interbike just recently.

Also while you can hike-a-bike out of a XC course you don't want to be in Iowa looking for brake pads for a disk while you are touring.

.Chances are you wouldn't need to but you could always take a spare set when riding amongst the Idiots Out Wandering Around.

Yea I guess that is true. I think I'm still awaiting a bit more tech for the road instead of buying a XC disk set.

I guess another way to look at it is the bike frame/fork I'm looking at has CANTI bosses and disk mounts so I guess if the disk brake totally failed(like say the caliper cracked or the rotor warped or some such) I could switch back to the canties...

Ask and ye shall recieve. http://www.avidbike.com/2_cpsdiskbrakes/cps2_2_road.html

Man... My creditcard is starting to dance around on my desk... :)

Now for a Q: How difficult is it to change a flat tire on the rear wheel with a disk in the way?

"In the way". :roflmao:

Sorry here's the deal:
Open the QR & drop the wheel - proceed as normal. It's that simple. There's nothing to impede you like tire / brake pad clearance or brake QR's It's a couple seconds faster.