I'll jump in here too as i too have an 06 Portland. I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out the rear brake too. Mine has the same bottom-of-the-chainstay mounted cable, but I think that I've isolated it to two separate but related issues. I've read a few places that the return spring on the BB7 wasn't really engineered strong enough for that long brake cable run. It seems that a lot of folks have taken to adding another spring that is stronger to compensate. I checked again this evening and the binding is resulting in some leftover play at the brake lever...and some loose slack in the cable under the downtube. It is pretty frustrating as I just don't want to have to rig up some "fix". I'd rather that the spring was just strong enough to pull the darn thing back on its own. Mine doesn't feel mushy, just extra slack to take up every time I pull the lever.
Any thoughts?
Dan
Originally Posted by
cdalefan
Hey TSL! Yup, I love my Portland. When the "Whats your ultimate commuter bike?" thread pops up, I have to resist telling the world that I am riding mine. Not much that I would change about it.
When you say "S" bend. Are you saying that your rear brake cable runs along the bottom of the chainstay? I can tell you that mine runs down the 10 o'clock postion on the down tube into a stop (near the BB), through a housing to the top of the chainstay at another stop(the other side of the BB), bare cable to a stop (again on the top of the chainstay near the brake) and then in housing up to the caliper. I would not call the last bend on mine an 'S.'
So, maybe the did re-route the cable in '08.
I will tell you that I have wished in the past that the cable ran along the bottom the chainstay. WIt it's current positon I can't mount the speed/cadence sensor for my Garmin 305. It is supposed to use the same spot as the brake cable. So, no cadence for my commute.