B is for Brakes

There truly is harmony and psychic unity – sort of – in the narrow world of blogs that talk about bikes and cycling. On Tuesday, Lizzylou talked about stopping without using brake pads. The same day, Rantwick decided to ride his fixed gear to work without any brakes at all. Ironically, on Monday, I had my own braking experience and it wasn’t pretty.

V Brakes on a Cross Bike are Powerful - and Touchy. For its Second Set of Pads, Buddy Uses Kool-Stop Salmon "Thinline."
We Shall See How THEY Last. The OEM Pads Went 3400 Miles, I Don't Jump Off My Bike at Stops to Stretch Their Life.

In bike school, they talk about “ABC Quick Check.” The “B” Means you are supposed to check your brakes – as in you don’t want to go zooming off, only to discover at the bottom of the first hill that they aren’t working right. Well, that’s a good principle, and one I subscribe to. As a matter of fact, I’d just adjusted Buddy’s touchy V brakes. In bike school, they tell you that with full brake application, there should be two fingers’ worth of clearance between the lever and the bar. With Buddy, full application with freshly adjusted brakes is at most one finger, and I wind up adjusting brake pads once every month or two. I suspect that Specialized reached the same conclusion about V brakes on cyclocross bikes, since they have now returned to traditional canti brakes.

Anyway, as soon as I got on the bike Monday, I knew something was amiss. A brake was dragging – not a whole bunch, but it was definitely dragging. The front brake - the wheel dragged a little when I spun it. My first thought was to roll back in the house and either adjust it or drive in. Sometimes we should go with first thoughts. My second thought was that the drag wasn’t all that bad and would get better with time. Plus, I had a tailwind. That seemed reasonable for the first couple of miles. However, as I went on, I noticed that speed fell off a good 5 mph from typical. What’s more, when I finally got in to work, twenty minutes slower than usual, I felt tired, a bit “down,” and a couple of people wondered why I looked flushed.

Going home, it all came together. A dragging brake AND a headwind. It was a SLOW trip home. I even got off the bike and walked up a couple of the hills. That isn’t something I ever do. I kept thinking – "I feel a little ill and that’s partly why I’m going so slow." In the final analysis, it took 40 minutes longer than usual to get home.

The moral of this little lesson is that it isn’t enough just to CHECK, you actually want to ACT based on the results of the check. The OTHER moral is that, while cycling may be fun and safe, it’s MORE fun if you don’t ride around with a brake applied all the time. It is also an argument in favor of barrel adjustors, which the Tricross lacks. As a matter of fact, there WILL be some modifications made to those brakes next time I have to change out brake cables. If I get really irritated at the things, I may even go as far as changing them out for canti brakes.

Good Brakes Don't Keep You From Adjusting Them Too Tight!