Bicycle Mechanics - How to adjust front brake shimano 105?

The left lever on the bar needs to be pulled against the bar to to brake properly enough - I tried to "unwind" the plastic bolt that sits where the cable is attached to the actual brake. However when doing that the brake calipers were not lined properly along the rim of the wheel. Is the way to get the brake pads a bit closer to the frontwheel rim to loosen and tighten the inner cable were it's attached to the brake on the front wheel?

adjust the cable pinch bolt or turn the barrel adjuster

I agree. There are 2 ways to adjust the brakes. The quickest is to turn the barrel adjuster. It sounds like you did this and it didn't solve the problem.

Make sure that the quick release lever on the brake caliper is closed!

If this doesn't solve the problem, then you'll have to re-clamp the cable. It's really easy. Just loosen the cable pinch bolt, squeeze the caliper mostly closed with your hand, pull on the cable to remove slack, then tighten the clamp bolt. This should get you really close and then you can use the barrel adjuster for fine adjustments.

If you're talking about the caliper being skewed to one side, you can usually just grab the whole thing and center it with brute strength. If that doesn't work, you'll have to loosen it from the fork a bit and then realign it that way.

Thanx - yes I adjusted the barrel bolt - The re-clamp thing worked fine and indeed solved the problem.

Look here. (http://parktool.com/repair/) Most everything you want to know about repairing/maintaining a bike. Click on the front brake area for a complete range of tips and techniques.

Also tons of great tips at Sheldon Brown's (RIP) here. (http://sheldonbrown.com/)

Thank you, dstrong - Got some reading to do.