[Inclag]

OK, so I did a search and there is alot of good things that I was able to find.

What I want to do is improve my braking performance to help me out with getting down manuals. I just can't seem to do them without having to be able to brake check and my current setup just doesn't have enough power. I know I won't be able to get disc brake power, but I expect that I should be able to get a U brake powerful enough to be able to brake check.

Anyway this was the setup that came stock on the bike.

Brake: Tektro 907/908 rear brake
Cables: Stock Cables and an SST Oryg
Lever: Tektro Cheapy


So far I have done the following which has made a slight improvement in braking, but not enough.

Brake: Same brake, but instead I'm using some V brake pads I had lying around
Cables: Stil stock, but now I'm using a spoke for a straddle cable
Rim: It's alloy and black anno'd, but after a few rides, most of the anno has worn off
Lever: An Avid 2.0 set in modualated for the least lever pull


I don't know if this can be done, but I would like to shorten all the cable and housing especially for the SST Oryg because I replaced the stock cruiser setup with normal bars and a fork so it is too long and there's noticable friction.

What other things can be done that won't cost me an arm and a leg? I know people knock on alu rims, but since the ano is wearing off I don't see that being a huge issue. The number one priority is fixing up the housing and cables, but should I be worried about the actual brakes? I know Tektro isn't top notch equipment, but are they really that bad? Should I be looking at brakes like the DiaTech Hombres, Dia-Comp 990's, or Odyssey Evolvers (which I believe come with a London Mod).

What do you guys recommend?


***Edit

Does anyone make a V brake plates that mount onto 990 mounts?

 

[oscerthegrouch]

get the salsas best brakes ever used on my BMX bike.. better then Vs i think

 

[pnj]

your rim is the biggest issue I see.

I have had many different pair/brands of 990 style brakes including Tektro. I've never had one I thought worked better or worse then any other. some flex more but my brakes still worked fine.

brakes work on friction and lack of friction. you want as much friction as possible between the pads and the rim and as least amount as possible everywhere else.

1. take the brake arms off the posts and make sure that each arm pivots well. if one is a tad rough, use some sandpaper to smooth out the roughness. then put some grease on the posts when you put them back on. not enough to goo out and cause a greasy mess, just enough to help reduce friction.

2. lube your cables well. I use Tri-FLow and have for years.

3. make sure your lever is as smooth as possible. sometimes they get pinched and you need to loosen the pivot nut a tad. small squirt of lube in there won't hurt either.

4. try to take out as much slac as possible from the cables. you can buy Knarps or just use the barrel adjusters the bests you can.

5. adjust the springs in the brake arms with just enough tension to pull the arms away from the rim and the lever back. this allows you to have to pull the lever with less strength and helps you to pull harder, making your pads touch the rim harder.

6. adjust the pads so they hit the rim square and even. you can try to 'toe' the pads in, that is, have the front of the pad hit just a tad before the back of the pad. use a credit card or some other thin object as a guage. what this does is, when your pads hit the rim and the arm flexes just a tad, your pads will now be touching more of the rim. I personally don't bother with this step anymore, it works in reverse when rolling backwards....

I'm sure I forgot something, but that's basicly it. softer pads usually help.

the deal with chrome vs. not chrome rims has something to do with the surface of a chrome rim is smoother, creating more surface area for the pads to hit. it may also be harder, I'm not sure. but chrome works WAY better then anything else.

try cleaning your brake pads as well. you can sand off the first layer, that seems to help a ton.

and once your done doing all that, hit the rims with some grease/glass cleaner to clean off any greasy finger prints you left behind.

then go ride. hope that helped some.

 

[pnj]

oops. sorry, forgot to add....

try the above suggestions. If you want to spend money, I would get a new rim first.
I can make various brake set up suggestions if you would like.

 

[Inclag]

1. take the brake arms off the posts and make sure that each arm pivots well. if one is a tad rough, use some sandpaper to smooth out the roughness. then put some grease on the posts when you put them back on. not enough to goo out and cause a greasy mess, just enough to help reduce friction.

2. lube your cables well. I use Tri-FLow and have for years.

3. make sure your lever is as smooth as possible. sometimes they get pinched and you need to loosen the pivot nut a tad. small squirt of lube in there won't hurt either.

These were actually some of the first things I did with the brake, so the only area I could see making any difference is different cables from the stock ones and ....

4. try to take out as much slac as possible from the cables. you can buy Knarps or just use the barrel adjusters the bests you can.

.... trying to take slack out of the cable as well as the housing which I'm planning on doing. There is definately too much at the SST Oryg junction so I can definately cut down on friction there.

5. adjust the springs in the brake arms with just enough tension to pull the arms away from the rim and the lever back. this allows you to have to pull the lever with less strength and helps you to pull harder, making your pads touch the rim harder.

This was also done very early on.

6. adjust the pads so they hit the rim square and even. you can try to 'toe' the pads in, that is, have the front of the pad hit just a tad before the back of the pad. use a credit card or some other thin object as a guage. what this does is, when your pads hit the rim and the arm flexes just a tad, your pads will now be touching more of the rim. I personally don't bother with this step anymore, it works in reverse when rolling backwards....

Yep, toe'd in as well. The brakes are actually quite awfull when they contact the rims evenly. It's a very noticable difference with them toe'd in which is funny because I've never experienced such a noticable difference between flat contact and toe'd in with the hundreds (actually probably over a thousand) brakes that I've set up. Unfortunately they were never of the U brake variety

I'm sure I forgot something, but that's basicly it. softer pads usually help.

the deal with chrome vs. not chrome rims has something to do with the surface of a chrome rim is smoother, creating more surface area for the pads to hit. it may also be harder, I'm not sure. but chrome works WAY better then anything else.

try cleaning your brake pads as well. you can sand off the first layer, that seems to help a ton.

and once your done doing all that, hit the rims with some grease/glass cleaner to clean off any greasy finger prints you left behind.

then go ride. hope that helped some.

Yep, cleaned the rims as well, the pads, and all that good stuff. I'm not a novice to brake setup, just with U brakes, which basically fall under all the same principles as any mechanical brake. I've already done everything you've listed with the exception of getting the cable and housing situation sorted out. So all that leaves me with is brake and the rim.

The pads I put on were actually Tektro V brake pads so the material may be the same, but the contact area is greater and I do notice a slight increase in braking performance. So maybe different pads may help.

In which case, then that means that the best option is replacing the rim which honestly I don't see should be the case. Aluminum rims brake fine for mountain bikes.

This weekend when I have some more time I'll do some more tinkering. Hopefully I can get this damn setup working well. I hope its just the need for some quality cables and shorter housing. We'll see.

 

[pnj]

dammit. I wouldn't have typed all that out if I'd have known you knew what you were doing..

mtn. bikes have v-brakes which work better then U-brakes, I'm guessing that is why non-chrome rims work ok with them.

I can only tell you what I know from experience and that is that chrome rims work better.

Knarps from Odyssey can help you shorten the top cable. you can run two lower single Odyssey Slic cables (pretty cheap) but in my experience with bmx bikes, brakes on bmx bikes, gyros and 990 style brakes over the last 20 some years, the first thing I would change would be the rim. or maybe the pads first as they are cheaper. then the rim when pads didn't work.

 

[Inclag]

dammit. I wouldn't have typed all that out if I'd have known you knew what you were doing..

mtn. bikes have v-brakes which work better then U-brakes, I'm guessing that is why non-chrome rims work ok with them.

I can only tell you what I know from experience and that is that chrome rims work better.

Knarps from Odyssey can help you shorten the top cable. you can run two lower single Odyssey Slic cables (pretty cheap) but in my experience with bmx bikes, brakes on bmx bikes, gyros and 990 style brakes over the last 20 some years, the first thing I would change would be the rim. or maybe the pads first as they are cheaper. then the rim when pads didn't work.

That's the gravy that I'm looking for .

I just don't have the experience with BMX products that others have so for all I knew, these brakes may never work well. From what you've suggested though I'll see what I can do with minimize cable friction, and from there take a look at the pads. I would rather not drop money on a new rim. Maybe after the one on there dies, but that would most likely be next year.

Do you have any suggestions with certain pads? I would think that I would want something softer to get more contact and grab with the aluminum rim. Would it be possible to use trial's pads?

Thanks for all the tips though, this is definately great info for anyone who needs help with brake setup.

 

[pnj]

I don't know anything about trials pads, so I can't help you there.

softer seems like it would be better. one thing I've never really understood, but haven't spent much time dwelling on it is, road bikes use non-chrome rims and their brakes seem to work fine. (I'm guessing they work, I don't ride road bikes.)

but, they of course have way less cable drag. but then again, most are still using side pull brakes, to my knowledge.(really crappy)

you could try a strait cable instead of the gyro. this would help you focus on just the pads, brakes, lever insted of power robbing slack in the gyro cables.

one thing I would suggest is to stay away from SNAFU products. they make various gryo/oyrg products and from what I've seen, they are not as good as other products.

Dragonfly makes a really cool upper cable. but it is designed to be used with their cable, so sometimes you have to use Knarps to shorten them to remove slack. (most of the guys I know who run gyros run Dragonfly cables but NOT their levers though)

I guess I'm trying to think of ways to get your brakes to work and not spend much money. but by the time you swap out all the parts to higher quality ones, you could have purchased a new rim.

I have gotten stock gyro cables and stock brake pads to work perfectly fine, but I've had chrome rims for a long time (19 years or so..)

my suggestion is to check with a bike shop on brake pads. that would be your cheapest/simplest change. bike shops deal with many different types of bikes/rims so they may be able to give you some suggestions for better pads.

the main issue is getting the friction between the pads and the rims as high as possible. sloppy cables make the brakes feel crappy but if the pads don't grab the rim, the brakes won't work as well.

 

[Inclag]

Good stuff. You definately know BMX brakes inside and out.

It does sound like the easiest thing to do is to switch out to a chrome rim. From what you have stated there seem to be various aftermarket cables and mechanisms out there all aimed at reducing cable drag with gyro/oryg systems. How much they help compared to either well thought out routing or a single cable I don't know.

The reason I can think of right off the bat as to why road brakes do a fine job is that the much smaller caliper is inherent to less flex.

Also, since my 990 style brake is located on my chainstays and the straddle cable runs along the downtube to the brake, there is definately a bit of force that is lost. For exabple, if the straddle cable goes down to the brake at 20 degrees, then about 36 percent of your braking force is actually pulling up on the calipers and not doing anything usefull. This is just simple force vetors.

In anycase, there's going to be some tinkering done and I'm definately going to post my findings.

 

[Changleen]

I just fitted my bmx with a Magura HS33 on the rear (they will fit on AD posts with a little tweaking). The standard cable is plenty long enough for a spin or two. It looks cool and you'll never have to worry about enough power again.