Originally Posted by
leonem
Thanks for taking the time to post the picture. I ordered and installed the same part, but I didn't experience the same (positive) results you did. Perhaps I did something wrong... this is unclear.
Do you have a theory as to
why the new part fixed the problem?
In the end my local bike shop--Spin City Cycle in Forest Hills (Queens), NY--and I decided that this is a matter of mountain-bike-size pads on road-bike-size wheel rims. I'm just going to mount some road brake pads (something like
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/...tegory_ID=5226) onto the existing brakes and hope for the best!
Will report how it turns out...
~ L
I think it just stiffened everything up. I should apologize - I should have posted a followup. After about a week I started getting squeal again, but not as bad as it was originally. I do have a solution the quiets the brakes completely, but it is some ugly looking. I put one of these on:
http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?sku=11615, and I have nor heard a peep from my front brakes in more than a month.
I always wondered why the front brakes made so much noise and the rear brakes were absolutely silent. I think the difference it that the canti studs face forward on the front brakes. When you lean on the brakes I think the fork is flexing a bit (each leg of the fork is twisting - when viewed from above the right leg twisting clockwise, the left twisting counter-clockwise) allowing the studs to splay outward a bit. This splay gives the brakes a bit of heel-in, canceling out any toe-in you have adjusted in. On the read brakes any flex increases to toe in.