brake failure

Marian said:

So here I am riding on impossible dirt roads in the rain in Guangxi
province and my brakes have just stopped working. At least at the
beginning I was able to deal with this on some of the gentler
downhills by doing a Fred Flintstone with my left foot while I was
riding and later on I figured out that if I got up off the saddle and
sat on the top tube pulling on the brake cable I could slow myself
still farther but the brakes are just refusing to stop the bike.

I've done a cursory inspection, cleaned them, tightened them, loosened
them, tightened them, moved things, moved things back, spun the wheel
up, pulled on the brake lever and all I get is a scthscthscth noise
which gradually results in the wheel slowing down but not really
stopping. And this when nothing is on the bike.

They worked fine yesterday.

Heck, they worked fine this morning.

It was just when the rain and the mud started getting bad (along about
the same time that the really bad downhills stopped but around the
same time that the road condition deteriorated further) that this
happened. The levers still squeeze but the wheels don't stop
anymore. The person who was riding with me on a mountain bike (who
has since gone home) had the same kind of V-brakes as my front brake
(plain jane no name Shimano) and I've got Deore for my rear brake with
original brake pads that are nowhere near the wear line (only about
700km old).

What happened?

What can I do about it?

-M

Change the pads, that is all you can try. Cheap brakes come with [censored]
pads. In this conditions disk brakes come in handy by the way.

Lou

Lou Holtman said:

Marian said:

So here I am riding on impossible dirt roads in the rain in Guangxi
province and my brakes have just stopped working. At least at the
beginning I was able to deal with this on some of the gentler
downhills by doing a Fred Flintstone with my left foot while I was
riding and later on I figured out that if I got up off the saddle and
sat on the top tube pulling on the brake cable I could slow myself
still farther but the brakes are just refusing to stop the bike.

I've done a cursory inspection, cleaned them, tightened them, loosened
them, tightened them, moved things, moved things back, spun the wheel
up, pulled on the brake lever and all I get is a scthscthscth noise
which gradually results in the wheel slowing down but not really
stopping. And this when nothing is on the bike.

They worked fine yesterday.

Heck, they worked fine this morning.

It was just when the rain and the mud started getting bad (along about
the same time that the really bad downhills stopped but around the
same time that the road condition deteriorated further) that this
happened. The levers still squeeze but the wheels don't stop
anymore. The person who was riding with me on a mountain bike (who
has since gone home) had the same kind of V-brakes as my front brake
(plain jane no name Shimano) and I've got Deore for my rear brake with
original brake pads that are nowhere near the wear line (only about
700km old).

What happened?

What can I do about it?

-M

Change the pads, that is all you can try. Cheap brakes come with [censored]
pads. In this conditions disk brakes come in handy by the way.

Lou

O, and clean the rims. Maybe they are contaminated with some oily/greasy
stuff.

Lou

Marian said:

What can I do about it?

-M

I would suspect the pads, like Lou said. I am more prone to picking up
foreign matter in my pads when it is wet and I am having to ride through
mucky roads. My pads are pretty good. I am still on the factory ones,
but it is not a big deal to change them out. Look at the rims. If you
have been riding with junk in the pads, it is pretty easy to score and
scratch your rims.

Sometimes for me, it is just grit and I can flush it out with the garden
hose. I have also been known to borrow a little pond water if I am far
away from home and wash everything down in the middle of a ride.

Marian said:

So here I am riding on impossible dirt roads in the rain in Guangxi
province and my brakes have just stopped working. At least at the
beginning I was able to deal with this on some of the gentler
downhills by doing a Fred Flintstone with my left foot while I was
riding and later on I figured out that if I got up off the saddle and
sat on the top tube pulling on the brake cable I could slow myself
still farther but the brakes are just refusing to stop the bike.

I've done a cursory inspection, cleaned them, tightened them, loosened
them, tightened them, moved things, moved things back, spun the wheel
up, pulled on the brake lever and all I get is a scthscthscth noise
which gradually results in the wheel slowing down but not really
stopping. And this when nothing is on the bike.

They worked fine yesterday.

Heck, they worked fine this morning.

It was just when the rain and the mud started getting bad (along about
the same time that the really bad downhills stopped but around the
same time that the road condition deteriorated further) that this
happened. The levers still squeeze but the wheels don't stop
anymore. The person who was riding with me on a mountain bike (who
has since gone home) had the same kind of V-brakes as my front brake
(plain jane no name Shimano) and I've got Deore for my rear brake with
original brake pads that are nowhere near the wear line (only about
700km old).

What happened?

What can I do about it?

-M

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the
clampbolt on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not
change the washers on the brakeblock holder around

--
/Marten

info(apestaartje)m-gineering(punt)nl

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the clampbolt
on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not change the
washers on the brakeblock holder around

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the Netherlands
where they apparently speak some sort of foreign language...... :-)

Tom Kunich said:

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the
clampbolt on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not
change the washers on the brakeblock holder around

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the
Netherlands where they apparently speak some sort of foreign
language...... :-)

How is your Dutch Tom? Flapdrol..

Lou

Andre Jute said:

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the clampbolt
on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not change the
washers on the brakeblock holder around

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the Netherlands
where they apparently speak some sort of foreign language...... :-)

You must be one of those well-travelled Americans we hear about, Tom,
who have been all the way to Vegas. FYI:

1. In The Netherlands (note which words are capitalized) they speak
Dutch. It is their native language.

2. In The Netherlands English is a foreign language.

3. All the same, the Dutch speak better English too than most
Americans. (Hell, the Dutch and the Germans also speak better English
than most English people with impenetrable regional accents.)

4. The Dutch, who're pretty outspoken, would never dream of making fun
of you, dear Tom, because you can't understand plain English.

***

5. More generally, the difference between anglophones and cultured
people is that cultured people speak more than one language and
anglophones think they speak French when they raise their voices in
English (1).

6. Engineers, being generally much less sensitive to social nuance and
the finer feelings than people, are substantially more likely to be
monophonic than people.

Those are the facts. My opinion doesn't necessarily coincide.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20%26%20CYCLING.html

(1) According to one of my literary protege, herself one of those
ultra-rare creatures, a linguistically gifted and sensitive engineer,
the French do not speak English as a homage to a world language but to
stop the British mangling French so. Sounds about right me.

I realize this is probably just meant as a mild needle, but the truth is
that the YooEss is a very large country and therefore many people don't
ever encounter non-English speaking people throughout their entire
lives. That's changing somewhat of late; I've started to think that
learning Spanish might not he a completely bad idea, but it's not one of
those things that you can just go out and do in a weekend.

nate

(and you really, really don't want to hear me speaking French. You just
don't.)

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Marian said:

I've done a cursory inspection, cleaned them, tightened them,
loosened them, tightened them, moved things, moved things back, spun
the wheel up, pulled on the brake lever and all I get is a
scthscthscth noise which gradually results in the wheel slowing down
but not really stopping. And this when nothing is on the bike.

Sounds like you've worn through the pads. Look at the braking surface
and see if there is metal sticking through.

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Marian said:

original brake pads that are nowhere near the wear line (only about
700km old).

What happened?

Perhaps one of the mud puddles was a puddle of oil, or with an oil film.
This would coat the rims and pads, and screw up braking royally.

Quoted message said:

What can I do about it?

Scrub the wheel rims (with soap and water), scrub the pads, if still no
better, replace the pads.

Others have had other good suggestions to check for, which you'll see if
you take stuff apart to scrub it down - pebbles lodged in things, pads
whacked out of adjustment, etc.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

Hear, hear!

;-)

Quoted message said:

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the
clampbolt on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not
change the washers on the brakeblock holder around

Tom Kunich said:

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the
Netherlands where they apparently speak some sort of foreign
language...... :-)

huh.
That seemed quite clear (and sorta good advice BTW) to me. It's both a
real and a common problem.

I already suggested cantilevers rather than liner brakes to her weeks
ago but those weren't readily available to her. Linear ("V"😉 brakes are
more prone to crud embedding and have rapid pad and rim wear. That goes
double in dirt and rain.
--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

"A Muzi" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the
clampbolt on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not
change the washers on the brakeblock holder around

Tom Kunich said:

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the Netherlands
where they apparently speak some sort of foreign language...... :-)

huh.
That seemed quite clear (and sorta good advice BTW) to me. It's both a
real and a common problem.

I already suggested cantilevers rather than liner brakes to her weeks ago
but those weren't readily available to her. Linear ("V"😉 brakes are more
prone to crud embedding and have rapid pad and rim wear. That goes double
in dirt and rain.

Come on Andy, you'd think I didn't put a smiley on that. As a matter of fact
I'm and engineer and some of the best engineers I've worked with were Dutch.

But what is a "noodle" which "bottoms out on the clampbolt of the V's"? It
appears to me as if he did a straight translation from Dutch to English and
of course the names of things don't quite match up. That's what I found
humorous and not the fact that he didn't know what he was talking about.

For what it's worth, I've found the Dutch and Belgians seem able to speak
more languages with less accent than even the Swiss.

Tom Kunich said:

"A Muzi" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"M-gineering" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

> Are the brakes setup so that the noodle bottoms out against the
> clampbolt on the V-s? Check that there is sufficient space, if not
> change the washers on the brakeblock holder around

Tom Kunich said:

I'm certainly glad that I'm not practicing engineering in the
Netherlands where they apparently speak some sort of foreign
language...... :-)

huh.
That seemed quite clear (and sorta good advice BTW) to me. It's both a
real and a common problem.

I already suggested cantilevers rather than liner brakes to her weeks
ago but those weren't readily available to her. Linear ("V"😉 brakes
are more prone to crud embedding and have rapid pad and rim wear. That
goes double in dirt and rain.

Come on Andy, you'd think I didn't put a smiley on that. As a matter of
fact I'm and engineer and some of the best engineers I've worked with
were Dutch.

But what is a "noodle" which "bottoms out on the clampbolt of the V's"?
It appears to me as if he did a straight translation from Dutch to
English and of course the names of things don't quite match up. That's
what I found humorous and not the fact that he didn't know what he was
talking about.

For what it's worth, I've found the Dutch and Belgians seem able to
speak more languages with less accent than even the Swiss.

The "noodle" is the little curved tube of metal that goes on the end of
the brake cable housing. That's the only one-word name I've heard for
it. Otherwise, it's "that little curved metal tube."

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Sun, 18 May 2008 13:01:55 -0700, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo.
com> wrote:

[---]

Quoted message said:

For what it's worth, I've found the Dutch and Belgians seem able to speak
more languages with less accent than even the Swiss.

"Even the Swiss"? You've never heard the Swiss speaking German or
French? They have an accent you can spot a mile away.

Tom Kunich expressed precisely :

Quoted message said:

For what it's worth, I've found the Dutch and Belgians seem able to speak
more languages with less accent than even the Swiss.

The Swiss have one common language: "money".

"Nate Nagel" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The "noodle" is the little curved tube of metal that goes on the end of
the brake cable housing. That's the only one-word name I've heard for it.
Otherwise, it's "that little curved metal tube."

Ahh, that's what happens when you come in the middle of a conversation and
don't catch the fact that we're talking about V-brakes. Sorry about that.
Now it makes sense.

"Andrew Price" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Sun, 18 May 2008 13:01:55 -0700, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo.

com said:

For what it's worth, I've found the Dutch and Belgians seem able to speak
more languages with less accent than even the Swiss.

"Even the Swiss"? You've never heard the Swiss speaking German or
French? They have an accent you can spot a mile away.

In my experience they have an accent on purpose so that you don't mistake
them for a German or French..... I suppose that might be insulting if they
didn't have local dialects so that they can't be mistaken for someone from
10 km away from their birthplace.

"A Muzi" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Oh, I wasn't going anywhere with the humor, but linear brakes do have
noodles and and, when the pad spacing is screwed up, the noodle really
does hit the cable clamping bolt before braking. On your Campagnolo
calipers this is not a problem!

I'm in the process of selling down my collection at the moment. But I may
have had as many personal bikes as you have in your store.... Yeh, I know -
really dumb. Now I'm down to about 10 and shrinking. By the way, some of
those were mountain bikes with V-brakes. Now I intend to keep just the one
cyclocross bike for offroad.

A Muzi said:

I already suggested cantilevers rather than liner brakes to her weeks
ago but those weren't readily available to her. Linear ("V"😉 brakes are
more prone to crud embedding and have rapid pad and rim wear. That goes
double in dirt and rain.

Are you blaming the pads or the mechanics of the linear brake?

My current touring/commuting bike has cantilever brakes that use "V"
type pad (lots of surface area but thin.) For what it's worth, I do
find the pads wear quickly. Given that I ride in rain, snow, salt,
etc, that's to be expected, and at $4 a pair, I'm not too broken up
about it. What I really love is that I can change them out without
having to reset the brakes, something I never liked about traditional
cantilever brakes with smooth stud shoes.