Originally Posted by
ArBikeGuy
I did check the bicycle out initially before she even got on it. She did ride it for about 10 minutes before going down the hill. Everything did seem to work properly on normal LEVEL ground. It seems to me that the brakes were just good enough to stop her under slow speeds. My wife not be a bicycle racer did not ever race the bicycle fast. She didn't just walk the bicycle up the hill out of the driveway and take off.
Update:
I have checked out the brake levers in a bit more detail this time and did notice that the brake lines never slid out any around the bolt that tightens the brake line down on the caliper/wheel end. This leads me to believe that the brake lines did not slip out or that the bolt was on loose. It may be that the brake lines stretched a bit after a few rides and on the ride where the brakes failed to slow my wife down was when they were just stretched a bit too much. Now add to that the brake levers were able to be squeezed almost all the way to the hand grip in the beginning - add to that the brake lines stretching after a few rides...then put that together - stretched lines + brake levers gripped to the hand grip = not enough line to pull the brake into the wheel?
NOPE.
Cables do stretch some, but not any GREAT amount; the simple and plain fact is that the brakes were not adjusted properly. Brake levers should accomplish average braking by the time the levers are halfway to the bar.
What SHOULD have happened (before purchase!) was this: brakes adjusted to the above spec or even a touch tighter, then the brake levers SQUEEEEEZED all the way to the bar; this does most of the cable stretching. Then, re-checked and adjusted if necessary. Takes about 30-40 seconds. I do this daily, so it isn't a time-eater.
There's plenty of cable; the problem isn't that there was "not enough", but that there was too much -- after all, what hangs out the other side of the pinch bolt is just there, doing nothing but giving you someplace to grab when you adjust them again. Between the lever and the brake itself is where the magic happens....