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BMX Brake on 70s road fork?

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BMX Brake on 70s road fork?

Old 01-29-10, 03:13 PM
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BMX Brake on 70s road fork?

I'm building up an old (60s or 70s) mixte frame. The rear wheel will have a coaster brake. I'm looking to put a simple brake on the front.
The bike had a rusted out caliper brake on the front, with the nutted bolt that was popular at the time. There are no mounts to put on a center-pull brake.

I know that most modern brakes use the recessed fitting. But BMX brakes look pretty similar to the rusted calipers I'm throwing away. Do BMX brakes have the nutted bolts that would fit on a 70's road fork?

(The bike has MTB-style riser bars)
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Old 01-29-10, 04:11 PM
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Originally Posted by mwshook
I'm building up an old (60s or 70s) mixte frame. The rear wheel will have a coaster brake. I'm looking to put a simple brake on the front.
The bike had a rusted out caliper brake on the front, with the nutted bolt that was popular at the time. There are no mounts to put on a center-pull brake.

I know that most modern brakes use the recessed fitting. But BMX brakes look pretty similar to the rusted calipers I'm throwing away. Do BMX brakes have the nutted bolts that would fit on a 70's road fork?

(The bike has MTB-style riser bars)
yes, pretty sure that the typical long-reach side-pull style BMX caliper would fit. However they are pretty cheaply made, you can get nicer nutted style sidepulls for not much more $$, just have to find "vintage" units with the correct reach. I think you are confusing cantilever brakes (which need mounts) with centerpull calipers (which usually don't) and there are plenty of old CP calipers around that you could get cheap, you would need the front cable hanger but those are also pretty easy to find.
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Old 01-29-10, 08:08 PM
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Thanks for the info. I know the difference between cantilevers, but I may have been confused about how the centerpulls are constructed. I thought the front cable hanger was built into the headset.

A related question: Is there a way of telling if the brake levers are short-pull or long-pull just by looking at them?
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Old 01-29-10, 10:44 PM
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Sure, if you have sharp eyes and are good as estimating distances, but it's easier to just measure, or rely on somebody who already has measured. You measure from an imaginary line drawn through the center of the pivot bolt (mounting bolt) to the range of the center of the brakepad (highest point to lowest point). A short-reach caliper might be 39mm-49mm, a long-reach might be 47mm-57mm, and very long-reach can go 49mm-64mm, or 54mm-72mm to as long as 79mm.
Here's a picture lifted from Sheldon Brown's site (who always is the first stop for info like this):
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