First time installing brakes
 

Hey guys, just got myself a track-bike, but I live 9 miles from the velodrome, so I stuck a front brake on it. Well, sort of...

I've got inline levers; ran the cable through the lever, ran the cable through the housing, attached the little doo-dad's on the end of the housing, ran the cable through the brake, tightened it up, okay. Works well enough...

My problem: the end of the cable up near the lever comes loose when I pull the brake. I'm not sure how to explain it better than that. The brake itself doesn't retract back to default position all the way, all the time, either. Is that ball of the end of the cable suppose to be attached to something? Am I suppose to twist those knobs that attach to the lever?

I'm sure none of this made sense, but your help would be awesome if it did...

A classic road lever has a free to pivot fitting with a stepped hole, and usually a slot to make cable installation easier by sliding in from the side. It's absolutely critical that the cable head is of the right type, and fully pocketed into the fitting. If not, cable tension will rotate the fitting and dump the head out the side.

I suggest you thread the cable and pull on it to test it's stability, and only finish attaching it when you're 100% sure it's seated and won't pop out. Also be aware that if the fitting is a bit sloppy, the cable can sometimes unseat when slack as you thread the rest of the run, so recheck it before tightening the pinch bolt.

I also have a lever where the wire can unseat when slack. I prevent it by jamming a small balled wad of paper behind it to keep it in place while I work, then remove the ball when finished.

Are you sure the Velodrome will let you ride a bike with brakes?

By inline levers I take it you mean "interrupter" or "cross" levers. As these are designed to be used between sections of cable housing and not to accept a cable wire end it may be problematic to get the end to stay put. One thing that may work is to thread a very short section of housing onto the wire up to the end; the wire end will not pass through the housing and the housing will terminate properly in the socket of the lever. The tension of the brake return spring should keep tension on the housing and keep it from coming out of the lever.

During races, etc... no. But Alpenrose is outdoors and open to the public all the time, so I plan on riding solo, in the mornings, etc...

I probably misread then OP. I assumed that he was using inline levers along with standard levers as intended.

To the OP, the operative work is inline, meaning it isn't intended to take the cable head. If you want to use these as the only levers, you have to thread them as if they are inline. Thread the wire through a ferrule as if there's housing coming from the main lever (which isn't there), and pull the cable head up into the ferrule. Then complete the rest of the run the same way you'd do if they were actually inline.

If the cable head doesn't pocket nicely into the first ferrule, improvise to make something reliable.

It's an awful long 9 miles from New York to the Alpenrose Velodrome. Are you sure you'll make it home for dinner?

hehe... well, I guess I should change my name/location to PDX, now.

I was watching this video, and it all looked so simple... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHk0GX6xy2c

thanks for the help, I'll try it out.