Bicycle brakes.

fluffymuffy

Anyone knowledgeable with bikes here?

I've got a cheap mountain bike with rubbish brakes. It's not bad apart from not stopping when I need to. I use it for cycling round the woods and I do a lot of carrying it up muddy banks (I'd love a light weight one). The brakes would be useful in the woods. I have to walk home with it though as it's down hill and I wouldn't risk it on the road (up hill's OK).

There's two problems with my brakes - the lever bits you pull are to far from the handlebars and so I can't reach them - I need to take a hand off the handle bar and get hold of the brake and pull it back until I can get my thumb back round the handle bar to squeeze it. Then the bike might slow a little but doesn't stop as I'm no where near strong enough to squeeze tightly enough.

The other problem being the bits which grip the wheel to stop it - the brake pads - seem to be of some hard plastic material. Perhaps if there were rubber ones like every other bike I've had they'd work better?

Are there extra-grippy brake pads I can buy? Or would it be better to replace the whole brake system? I don't want to spend a lot as the whole bike was only £80.

Atelier

Quite often on the brake levers you will see an adjuster nut that stops the lever springing as far from the handlebar. You tend to see it more on children or female specific bikes.

Regarding the stopping power of the brakes then firstly check that the blocks line up correctly with the wheel rim and then how hard the pads are being forced onto the rim. The pads should start fairly close to the rim so that after you have pulled the level slightly they start braking. With the cheap bikes, the cables tend to stretch so you might need the adjust them by spinning the cable adjusters found either at the lever or the brakes.

Have a look here for some nice pictures showing the adjusters etc.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/canti-direct.html


HTH

fluffymuffy

Thanks Atelier.

Sadly I can't see any sort of adjuster on the brake levers. The bike was from Halfords - about three years ago - and it was sold as a ladies' bike. I'll pay more attention to this next time I buy a bike.

I'll have a look at how the blocks line up tomorrow (it's too dark now).

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

I've never heard of brake levers that are too far away to reach, so can only assume that they're incorrectly positioned. When you're sat on the bike, with the palm of your hand on the handlebar and fingers outstretched, the brake levers should be at or below the angle of your fingers. If they're higher than that, you'll never get to them, so check that they're not positioned too high.

As for the pads, soft rubber pads would last about a week. Do yourself a favour, take it to a local bike shop and ask them to fix it.

adonis

As a temporary measure perhaps you could fit a spacer or a nut or two over the cable between the brake lever and the bracket to bring the levers closer.

fluffymuffy

adonis wrote: »

As a temporary measure perhaps you could fit a spacer or a nut or two over the cable between the brake lever and the bracket to bring the levers closer.

That sounds quite feasible.

fluffymuffy

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

I've never heard of brake levers that are too far away to reach.

I'll try to take a photo tomorrow.

Do yourself a favour, take it to a local bike shop and ask them to fix it.

Our local bike shop charges £25 per hour plus parts. I'm trying for a MSE solution first.

ukjoel

May not sound very MSE but have you thought about another bike.
They are not the easiest item to post so as a result there are real bargains to be had if you do a local search on ebay. Quite regularly see £400 bikes going for £50 or less. Some of them in top condition and really looked after.

Bearing in mind some places can charge over £100 for a full bike service its worth a look. Freecycle is worth a try too - see 3 or 4 bikes a week offered on ours.

oldtoolie

The MSE solution is to pop in to the public library and check out a book on bicycle maintainance.

catflea

My sister had a similar problem with her brakes - she hadn't used the bike for approx 2.5-3 years and the brakes would sqeak and not deliver a great amount of stopping power. A quick going over the braking surface of the pads with sandpaper removed the "hard" areas and it stops really well no apparently.

Worth a go at least?

Atelier

Doesn't surprise me. Your problem will be that buying any parts will not guarantee success and will be disproportionate to the cost of the bike.

Not being able to reach the levers might be able to be sorted by keeping an eye on Freecycle for a teenager mountain bike with smaller levers and swapping them over.

Regarding how much pressure you need to work the brakes, one though occured to me and it was that the mountain bike type brakes usually come with a spring on the moving arm where the brake block is. Some bikes allow you to adjust the tension of the spring. This might help or you might find that your bike doesn't allow you to change it.

fluffymuffy wrote: »

Thanks Atelier.

Sadly I can't see any sort of adjuster on the brake levers. The bike was from Halfords - about three years ago - and it was sold as a ladies' bike. I'll pay more attention to this next time I buy a bike.

I'll have a look at how the blocks line up tomorrow (it's too dark now).