By blackmountaincycles,
Filed under: What's in the stand
This cross bike was built for a guy I’ve known sporadically for the past 20 years or so. Well, sporadically in that he was a customer and friend of Pacific Coast Cycles when I worked there 20+ years ago and then he reconnected with me when he found out I had a shop up in Marin. He stopped by to get his cross bike built. He went with some new Kenda Karma 29×1.9 tires and some new brakes. I’m really liking this brake combination. Lots of braking power in a good looking package.
To solve the fork chatter, the TRP CX9 mini v-brake went on up front. It also provides great power to control speed and actually stop the bike if needed.
Avid’s Shorty Ultimate went on in back. Again, howling eliminated and confident braking was restored.
What’s in the stand…
0 responses to “One for Friday…”
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What are the benefits of using the TRP up front and avid in the back over using either the TRP or avid on both the front and back?
How is the pad / rim clearance with those mini v's?
Pad clearance is okay. Not as good as a wide profile canti, but enough. It doesn't take much lever travel to bring the brakes on to full power, so the pads can be set off the rim a bit more and let the lever travel a bit more than it would with a caliper brake. The in-line adjuster is there to fine tune pad to rim position as well.
The mini-v brakes are pretty powerful. In back, they would simply lock up and skid more than a canti. The main reason for the v-brake in front is to eliminate the fork chatter. I've seen them in back and it's okay to run them front and rear, but I like this combo.
It looks like you are using the same shift/brake levers with the rear cantilever and front v-brake. Do the mini-v brakes require less cable pull than a standard direct pull?
Tom in Novato
Tom, yes. The mini v-brake is compatible with standard drop bar shift/brake levers.
Why do you set up the brown bike with canti's front and back instead of a mini-v in the front?
Cheers,
Frank
The Ridley needed a v-brake to stop fork chatter. The orange cross bike was set up with one because the owner liked that combination and the more power. The brown one was set up with double cantis for no other reason than it doesn't "need" a front v-brake and it was part of a not so over the top budget build.
This brake setup may become a trend. It sounds like a great idea that solves many common problems.
I just installed the Avid Shorty Ultimates, front & rear, with both in the narrow stance. I have found them to be the best cantilever brakes I have tried, ever. Great power, combined with excellent modulation… something that is hard to find in brake set-ups. I haven't had any problems with fork chatter, but if I do, I will mount a fork crown cable stop. Have you ever tried one of these to solve brake chatter?
I haven't used that fork crown cable stop to stop chatter, but it does the same thing that a v-brake does by making the cable housing stop on the fork structure.