U brake straddle wires

How do you set the length on them? Straddle on my Trekker UU is shorter at the back than at the front at the moment. :?

Shorter the better.

See Sheldon.;-)

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/canti-u.html

Good old Sheldon... why didn’t I think to look there?

But then, “shorter the better” is exactly the answer I was looking for, and has saved me quite a bit of reading, thanks!

Was my gut feeling, too. Not set up a U in a while...

I recently had to set one up and I think it was the first time in 25+ years, so I had to check too! That's why it's fresh just now.

Funny, the wires are quite long on this bike, as they are in the brochure.

I wonder why they set them up that way...

Re:

Perhaps because they didn't know ... :?:

Re: Re:

k-rod":3lqucp1q said:

Perhaps because they didn't know ... :?:

Click to expand...

Probably right...

I think the photo is also slightly misleading. If you are looking at the straddle location against the headtube they look the same, but the camera angle is different and it looks like the in the marketing shot the brake is on. The actual length from brake anchor point to where the straddle cable meets the straddle looks pretty short in the first pic.
Obviously the 'shorter the better' maxim is nice and easy to remember but there is a minimum practical length. The first pic looks not far from that to me. The second could be shorter, but doesn't look that bad. To give some perspective, the U-brake I had to set up was on a BMX and the seat-tube is between the brake and the straddle, so the minimum straddle cable length is hampered by having a tube in the way. That makes it a lot longer than your bike above!

Re:

Good write up in mountain bikes maintenance and repair by John Stevenson.