Ugh.

COuld not find a fork for my build. I needed a super-long steer tube for a fork for a 27" wheel. Could not find it, so I got a Tange threadless and had it threaded. It listed as a 700c fork. I eyeballed it and all seemed good. Good tire clearance for 27" and I thought that brakes would not be a problem.

But the brakes are a problem. I have maybe a dozen brakes hanging around and none of them are short reach enough for this application, including several that seem pretty short.

Any advice?

j

If the wheel fits in there fine short reach brakes should work... what is the the shortest reach brake you tried?

not sure. I will measure them. do I measure from the bolt to the shortest point I can place the pad?

Generally you would hold the caliper slightly closed, about where it would be when installed and cabled up. Measure from the center of the mounting bolt to the center of the pad slot. As said before any short reach brake should be fine. If the fork takes a nutted style brake you may have a harder time finding a short reach type, but you can convert the caliper or the fork to accomidate either.

Per Otis, I measured from center of mounting bolt to midway of the pad slot, when the calipers are slightly closed. What I had on there was about 5cm. I have a few more sets about the same, so I might guess these are typical short reach. Are there very short reach calipers out there?

And, I have to ask a totally naive question: what are "nutted style" brakes? There is a nut on the backside of the mounting bolt; does that make them nutted? On newer bikes there is another connection method? I have never really touched a bike that was less than 20 years old.

jim

a short reach brake has a minimum of 39mm I believe (at least on shimano) so if you should have no problem finding brakes to fit. On nutted brakes the post stickout out the other side of the fork or brake bridge and is fastened with a hex nut, there are curved spacer/washers that often work in conjunction with this style of brake. Recessed brakes use an allen nut and the fork and brake bridge usually have a counter sink type of deal which hides the head of the nut, hence recessed. Looks like a seatpost binder bolt kind of... sorry for the lame explanation but I couldn't connect to sheldon brown to get some nice diagrams/pics. PM if you can't find brakes that work... I definatly have extra's kicking about that will work.