Grovern

The previous owner of my road bike used a twisty-tie to keep the right pad on the front brake from rubbing against the rim due to tension from the cable pulling the brake to one side (it is a caliper brake). Anytime I adjust the height of the handlebars I have attach a new tie, today I couldn't find any ties, it was bad, and this seems like a very bad system. Is there a way to correct this? Do I need to attach a longer cable and new housing? I am bad with mechanics and have probably misused terms, and would really appreciate advice.
To elaborate, the tie is attached to the bars and pulls the brake housing up and back on the bars to pull the brakes to left.

genericbikedude

huh? when you squeeze the brake, does only one side move? if so, there is a fix for that. but what does the twisty tie do? maybe show a picture?

cyclotoine

I have spent hours trying to adjust an old brake caliper before. It seems that sometime you need an cone wrench or something to hold the nut which the spring goes through level while you are tightening or it will turn and cause the above problem. Also if you are changing stems you may need to put on a longer cable or at least cable housing.

schang

Single-pivot sidepull caliper brakes are notoriously difficult to keep centered. And frankly, it doens't matter if they are really centered, but you're right that constant rubbing on the rim is bad. Park Tool's website has a very thorough explanation of the various ways you may have to tighten parts ot he brake in order to get the right parts of the caliper brake to stay still: https://parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=22

That said, even if you follow the instructions, you may still have this problem, especially if, as you say, the cable housing is the wrong length. You might want to take it to a bike shop, they will easily be able to tell if this it the problem, and changing a cable and housing should not be too expensive.

peripatetic

Jobst Brandt swears in one of his rec.bicycles.net posts that the issue with centering sidepull calipers is uneven friction between the two springs. He says that the key is cleaning and lubricating the contact points of the springs and the caliper brake arms. Personally, I've tried being very conscientious about this, and I haven't been able to fix the problem on several bikes. The more I try, the less I like these kinds of brakes--they're just so prone to this problem of being off-center, and there's no easy solution.