PJCB

Make sure the pads you put on the brakes are for caliper brakes. Sounds like common sense, but you'd be surprised. Make sure her wheels are true. Surprise her with a new (better) bike soon and you'll really hit the jackpot on the manliness scale.

fietsbob

Several of my Ex GF's have nice bikes now ..

PJCB

+1, you aren't alone, buddy

zukahn1 

One cheaper option with this type brake is if you have a bike coop or someplace in your area to get used parts is to get some vintage long reach calibers off a older BMX bike. As for pads on this style of brake cool stop continentals are your best bet they are designed for older cheaper brakes and rims.

cmrtn7

That's better than "my ex wives have nice houses now."

cny-bikeman

Entertaining thread. All excellent suggestions, and I'm glad the issue of cable housing was mentioned. The goal is to reduce flex and friction everywhere in the system so that maximum power gets to the brake pad/rim interface, where friction needs to be maximized. Teflon housing not only helps with friction but also with flexing, as there is tighter tolerance between cable and housing interior.

One thing I did not see mentioned is housing length. With department store bikes especially, housing length can be much longer than necessary, introducing a large amount of flex into the system. The cable must press against the inside curves of the housing all the way from levers to calipers before any brake movement occurs. It's important to cut down the housing so that there is only enough to provide a gentle arc, including when the handlebars are turned.

DannoXYZ 

Yes, the front-brake should have 10-90x more braking-power than the rear. Might be a good idea to disassemble a little and inspect each component:

1. unclamp brake-cable from caliper. Then squeeze calipers by hand. Do they pivot smoothly with no binding or excess friction? Grab the pads and move forward & backwards. Is there any axial-play of the caliper-arms on the pivot-bolt? You want the pivot-bolt nut adjusted so that there is no axial-play, but not so tight the arms bind. May be a good idea to completely disassemble the caliper and grease the pivot-bolt where the arms sit.

2. grab the free cable-end with one hand and squeeze the lever with the other. Then relax the lever and pull the cable-end back out. How is the cable-movement? Is it smooth and easy?

3. unclip the cable from the lever and pivot the lever-arm by itself. Is it smooth with minimal lateral-play?

4. pads & rims. Clean with alcohol. If they're greasy, clean with stronger solvent like acetone. If the pad-surface is hard, you can lightly sand the surface with some 220-grit sandpaper to remove the old crispy material and expose clean softer rubber.

cny-bikeman

A couple more thoughts:

If these are upright bars the wrong lever position on the handlebars or too large diameter hand grip could limit the travel of the calipers.
If they are downturned bars extension (suicide) levers will never stop the bike sufficiently and also reduce travel of the regular levers.

calstar 

Lose the huffy. As was suggested somewhere above get a $50-60 old mtb on CL, there are always these bikes for sale. Do not get one originally sold by mart or box stores. Be sure it has v-brakes and aluminum rims and fits here correctly, it will be a huge improvement over the huffy with just about any brand. Dealing with the huffy is a total waste of time and money and in the end the huffy will still be crappy.

Brian

DannoXYZ 

There are actually some decent Huffys around. It's not about brand-name so much as specs and component selection.


https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8J91GJLYeL...uffy+copy2.jpg

Turtle Speed

Thanks again for all the good responses. The thing about my girlfriend is that she really does like her bike and would rather not replace it. She understands that replacing parts would cost as much as just getting a decent used bike, she just likes her old one.

I think I'm gonna bite on some new equipment. Gonna get some Kool Stop Salmons, because they seem to have a good rep with steel rims (and other rims, if I ever replace the wheels down the road), and I'm getting some dual-pivot calipers. But I have a few questions to make sure I understand this correctly and don't mess anything up and order the wrong stuff.

1.) Will these Kool Stop Continentals work with any dual-pivot caliper brakes?

2.) Is there a functional difference between the salmon and grey colors for these Kool Stop Continentals? I would rather have the grey color for her bike, because it will fit the color scheme better. I know that sounds dumb, but women care about that sort of thing. But the Kool Stop website makes it sound like the Salmons are made of a different compound (1, 2). So there are differences besides just the color?

3. I don't really get how to install the new dual-pivot brakes yet. I'm looking at the Sheldon Brown article on them. Since she has single-pivot calipers now, and those have a centerbolt down the middle, how does it work with the centerbolt position on the new dual-pivot calipers? The centerbolt is off to the right, correct? And that means I can't just use the same hole in the frame that the bike previously had? What do I do, drill a new hole through the frame or something? I'm kind of lost... (And no, I don't want to just have a bike mechanic do it!)

xenologer

1 - yes

2 - the colors are different rubber compound, get the salmon ones

3 - the mounting bolt on the back is centered like your old ones
the main thing you have to worry about, is are the brake arms long enough to reach the rim?(there are different sizes)
will the fat huffy tires fit inside the brake?

Kimmo

These should fit.
I'd see how they go with the pads that come with the calipers; there's a chance they'll work fine, even with the steel rims.

Turtle Speed

xenologer, if I can pull this off, I'll buy you a beer!
No, seriously, I'll send you money in the mail, not even joking.

Roger that on the Salmon brakes, will get the orange ones and not any substitutes.

I didn't have time to take anything apart, but measuring with a ruler from the side, it looks like the distance from center bolt to the middle of the rim is somewhere between 3.25-3.5 inches or 83-89mm. The Tektro brakes have a range of 79-99mm. The Huffy tires are about 2" at their widest, and the Tektros are made for 2.125" tires. So size-wise, I'm good to go?

I don't completely get the stuff about the recessed mounting in the Sheldon Brown article. The Huffy doesn't have the allen (hex) hole for tightening of the center bolt, just a normal nut at the end of a bolt that extends all the way through the frame. As far as I can tell, the Tektros are made for traditional nut (non-recessed) style. So there's nothing incompatible there? Are the new center bolts just going to be assumed to be able to fit right through the hole of the old ones, and be the correct length? Just checking...

Also, will I need any unusual tools to complete the job? I already have an adjustable wrench and allen keys.

Kimmo

You're good to go.

A-OK.

Fire away.

3alarmer 

You know the proving your manhood thing ?
Elvis has left the building....................

Turtle Speed

OK, I went ahead and ordered those Tektro brakes. Thanks, Kimmo! You get a beer too. How about a Foster's, since you're down under?

So here's something bad that happened with this bike. I'm sort of embarrassed to share it, but I want to learn what I did wrong, and maybe you guys can have some cheap laughs at my expense.

Here are the brake pads that were previously on the bike...



I still plan on replacing them with Salmons eventually, but in the meantime, I wanted to try replacing the pads with some other ones I had lying around, just to get practice adjusting pad placement. Here's the type of pads I replaced them with. Why are they torn? Read on...



So I had 'em all lined up on the brakes like this, doing a good job, or so I thought. Decent placement, not too high or low, good tangent, everything nice and tight. They were lookin' like this.



So I'm trying them out, braking hard and getting back wheel locks, when I go to test the back brakes one more time and clamp hard on the lever. All of a sudden, I get a kaa-runch sound, and the bike almost immediately stops moving. Luckily, I didn't get thrown off or anything. I should have thought to take a photo right then, but here's some of the aftermath:



If you look on the right side of the brake, you can see the arm of the brake is bent, and the whole side is actually twisted under the seat stay. The pad itself was also lodged at some crazy angle, which explains why the whole wheel locked up, and of course the pad got ripped too.

I'm probably lucky I wasn't hurt, and the other good news is that the back brake itself is just a part that's getting replaced anyway. What concerns me is how this happened at all. Did I adjust something wrong, maybe something wasn't tight enough? Was it simply a case of the long, weak Huffy brake arms being strained and bending under too much pressure? Or was it just me being an idiot and using an incompatible type of brake pad replacement? The old block type just had the simple washer and nut, with none of the cup-and-plate stuff on the newer pads I put in it. Anybody know or suspect what happened?

I haven't actually ordered the Salmons yet - for safety, I want to double-check the type of brake pad I install with my new Tektro brakes. xenologer recommended the Kool Stop Continental, and indeed in the example photo of the Tektros, it shows a simpler nut-and-washer type block pad, a la the Continentals, without the little angled cups on the bolt. Does this mean I can't fit the Tektros with a cup-bearing pad like the Kool Stop Supra 2's? I'd rather have the cup-style pads if it's going to make micro-adjustments like toeing in easier, but not if it's going to result in unsafe conditions!

Because nothing is less manly than having your girl do a faceplant!

JonathanGennick 

It sure looks that way, doesn't it? I suppose one needs to worry about putting on a pad that's too good for the calipers.

3alarmer 

Once again, there are various issues with these sorts of bikes that
can make them dangerous. At the risk of seeming like a nag, is there
any way at all you can get your girlfriend to ride a better bicycle ?

Substandard is kinda the design specs for these things.

bobjpage

Go for it. This will be complete evidence of your manhood.

DannoXYZ 

First, you did a very good job of installing the pads. I see some toe-in, but not too much, great job! There are several problems.

1. the rims have old melted brake-pad material on them. This causes areas of varying friction and you get pulsating/squealing brakes. At some point, the pads will stick more to the melted rubber on the rim. Then the pad will get pulled forward and jammed between the rim and seat-stay. This makes it REALLY stick and your weight and momentum will pull it through that tiny gap and destroy the pad and caliper. On bikes like these, there typically is an L-shaped bracket that goes between the pad & caliper. The short leg of the L is positioned about 1mm away from the seat-stay so that when braking-forces push the pad forward, the force is braced against the seat-stay instead of the flexible caliper-arm. Be sure to clean the rims with acetone/nail-polish remover to take off all the old melted-rubber from the rims before using the new brakes.

2. Second and more problematic, you're using the back brake! You will NEVER get any decent braking out of the back brake due to the laws of physics. Once the rear-wheel locks, you're not gonna get any more braking-force out of it. You can put on a $10,000 rear caliper designed by rocket-scientists and built out of unobtanium by elves in the Black Forest, and that bike still will not stop any better than the stock back-brake, because both of them can lock up the rear. Sure, the $10,000 caliper may lock up the rear by just breathing on the lever, while the stock-brakes may require a squeezing handful, but stopping-distances will be exactly the same.


If you don't learn and don't teach your GF to use the front-brake optimally, someone will get into a bloody wreck with serious bodily injury resulting in permanent maming and dismemberment. At 20mph, using the back-brake will stop you in about 90ft. From that exact same speed, using the front-brake optimally will result in a complete stop after only 15ft.

During my 10-years working in a shop, 10-years of racing, 35-years bicycling and 30-years motorcycling, I have seen numerous gory crashes and have been called in as expert-witness to testify on a variety of "accidents" with riders going through car's bumpers, under 18-wheeler trucks and off +100ft cliffs to their deaths. Upon examining the evidence and photos, while the initial cause may have been an inattentive driver, the biggest contributor to the rider's demise was a single curved tyre-mark on the ground. That's the telltale sign of a rider swerving and locking up their rear-wheel at the same time. Due to the extra 75ft distance needed to stop using the rear-brake vs. front, they slid and crashed into the exact obstacle they were trying to avoid, adding ultimate insult to injury.

If you want to prove your manhood to your GF, learn and teach her to use the front brake by straightening your arms, pushing your butt off the rear of the saddle and lowering your body as much as possible to brace yourself against the deceleration (also prevents you from flipping over the bars). Stopping from 20mph in 15ft is possible and may save your or your GF's life someday, but it requires some practice and preparation. We wear helmets, buy insurance and wear gloves for a reason, also a good idea to practice riding-skills as well.

DannoXYZ 

Personally, I would just use the pads that came with the Tektros first. They will be significantly better than the stock pads on the bike. The increased performance of the KoolStops over that will not be anywhere nearly as big and may not even be noticeable.

Spend that money on new cables: Aztec - Coated Mountain Brake cable. They will make a bigger improvement in performance than going from the Tektro pads to KoolStops.

BTW - you can also remove the beveled washers and nuts from the trashed Aztec pads and use them on any other pads you may acquire in the future.

onespeedbiker

I'm going to jump in here just to agree with DannoXYZ, don't worry about the Kool Stop brakes until you put the new brakes on and see how you (and/or your GF) like the braking. BTW, you said this a while back

It's not that front brakes have more stopping power, it's the front brakes do 80-90% of stopping. This means there is more demand on the front brake to stop the bike. If the brake is not up to the task, it will feel weaker than the rear brake that needs less power to do it's job.

xenologer

I'm going to agree and say you probably did a good install, and the only reason the brake arm broke is because it's poorly made to begin with.
Just too flexy and weak to stand up to real brake pads.
in fact, some of those old steel calipers even had little guard plates (for lack of a specific term) that mounted in front of the pads and rested on the seatstays; thus preventing them from flexing too far forwards. Something like that might have saved this brake from jamming between the wheel and frame like that.
Moot point though since you're getting rid of them.

Turtle Speed

I don't think so. Her attachment to it and its sucky brakes were the motivation for me trying to fix it up for her in the first place. I'm not too worried about the amount of stress she'll put on the bike, though, because she is so gentle with everything and always rides very very very slowly.

I'm trying to practice bicycle skills with her. She's a person who never shifted gears before, because she didn't understand how to use them. Since her bike is "in the shop," we went biking one day with her on a borrowed MTB which actually shifts gears cleanly, and I think she sort of gets it now. (I was sort of hoping that her getting to try a "real" bike would make her more apt to want to give up the Huffy, but no luck.) I hope we can also practice everyday important things like proper braking and locking of the bike as time allows.

In that case, I was just testing the back brakes to see how they were working. Thanks to you guys, I'm learning about proper braking technique, i.e. using the front for max deceleration in emergencies.

Random yet related success story! I just got to look at brakes for a different friend who got a very decent road bike for $50 at a bike swap. He'd installed some sweet puncture-resistant tires on it, but I could tell the braking system was goofed. Wheel not aligned straight, pads under the rims, toes-out pads, you name it. After like an hour (lol) of messing around, I had things improved and tried some hard braking. I was getting front wheel locks for the first time ever, which surprised the heck out of me - never had the combination of gear and tuning to achieve that, and it felt weird/scary having the rear wheel lift up like that. Gave me a little chance to practice braking technique too. Plus, I actually fixed something without goofing it up!

Thanks for the tips, all very handy. Would it be the end of the world if I didn't use compressionless housing with that coated brake cable? I know it's better, but I don't want to drop like $40 more on this thing if I don't have to... (I know compressionless is the way to go for indexed shifting, which it has, but I don't plan on changing the shifting cable at this time.)

I noticed that later too. What I don't get is how the heck that got on there, because the first thing I did before anything else was clean the rims on her bike, and I didn't notice the black streaks. I don't know if it's something to do with the steel rims of her bike or what.

My plan is to clean her rims as you instructed and then, assuming I can actually get the new brakes installed correctly, cautiously test them and see if the black streaks are coming back. If they are, and it's a chronic issue, then that scares me, and I'm not going to deem the project finished until I also get new rims on that thing.