Poor cable routing, should I go canti?

[ishaw]

What on earth are you doing running V brakes on a frame with canti stops?

You know what you need to do.

Maybe he wants to give himself the option to run a suspension fork that works. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for retro forks, but when it comes to it, limiting yourself to a canti only suspension fork is a bit silly.

Back to the OP. If you think the braking is full of friction, then canti brakes will most likely be the same. Sounds like your cables are either gunged up, rusty, need lubrication, need replacing, or as someone else has mentioned already, perhaps the cut ends of the outers aren't quite clean and are rubbing on the inners.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Personally I would run the cable behind the seatpost, in front of the canti hanger -ish and use a greater angled (though actually shallower) noodle (and tweak the angle to give best results) .
I would check the cable outers not setup to see if they slide through very smoothly.

I would check the V's have no index feeling to them when not connected.

I would check the canti/v setting mentioned, though it's not actually a Canti setting (they have a big warning in the instructions) but it's a modulation/power setting as per Avid/Deore LX
So tune it to less power/modulation but to a firmer feel, finger strengthener setting.

M900 are nice canti's




EDIT///. grabbed the instructions for you.
http://cdn.sram.com/cdn/farfuture/nkxby ... _07_99.PDF

 

[itscervo]

On the brake cartridge, have you got the thin spacer on the rim side or the outside of the brake arm ?.

 

[02gf74]

been a whukle since I played with v-brakes but a) run a longer cable to go behind the seatpost and b) get a noodle with more curve -- the one in your phohto is 90 degree, pretty sure recall they were availaible with 135 degree bend, like this:

you may need to stand back from your screen as it is quite a big pic.

 

[slow_matt]

Personally I would run the cable behind the seatpost, in front of the canti hanger -ish and use a greater angled (though actually shallower) noodle (and tweak the angle to give best results) .
I would check the cable outers not setup to see if they slide through very smoothly.

I would check the V's have no index feeling to them when not connected.

I would check the canti/v setting mentioned, though it's not actually a Canti setting (they have a big warning in the instructions) but it's a modulation/power setting as per Avid/Deore LX
So tune it to less power/modulation but to a firmer feel, finger strengthener setting.

M900 are nice canti's

PDF has been saved and thanks, I'll have a poke with the red "slow dial", M900s are nice



EDIT///. grabbed the instructions for you.
http://cdn.sram.com/cdn/farfuture/nkxby ... _07_99.PDF

 

[slow_matt]

On the brake cartridge, have you got the thin spacer on the rim side or the outside of the brake arm ?.

Thin ones, chunky ones mean there's not enough spring power.

 

[slow_matt]

been a whukle since I played with v-brakes but a) run a longer cable to go behind the seatpost and b) get a noodle with more curve -- the one in your phohto is 90 degree, pretty sure recall they were availaible with 135 degree bend, like this:

you may need to stand back from your screen as it is quite a big pic.

Cheers, I tried one but the angle still wasn't right, I tried heating and bending it more with gas hob (without the plastic lining) but it didn't work.

 

[slow_matt]

What on earth are you doing running V brakes on a frame with canti stops?

You know what you need to do.

Maybe he wants to give himself the option to run a suspension fork that works. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for retro forks, but when it comes to it, limiting yourself to a canti only suspension fork is a bit silly.

Back to the OP. If you think the braking is full of friction, then canti brakes will most likely be the same. Sounds like your cables are either gunged up, rusty, need lubrication, need replacing, or as someone else has mentioned already, perhaps the cut ends of the outers aren't quite clean and are rubbing on the inners.

The bike was built as a parts bin special to start with, if I had some nice Canti's they'd be on

I'll pull it apart after tomorrow's ride, general feeling is that there's something strange going on.

Cheers

 

[bren]

On my SRAM 7.0 levers you have to move a red plastic peg inside them to change the fulcrum point to switch between canti and v
Maybe yours are the same? Check they are in the right position.

 

[itscervo]

On the brake cartridge, have you got the thin spacer on the rim side or the outside of the brake arm ?.

Thin ones, chunky ones mean there's not enough spring power.

If the spring tensioner screws are adjusted correctly they should have more than enough power, so it could be the pivots are sticky.

Can send you flexible noodle foc to try or you can use a car type brake pipe bender to alter a fixed noodle to any angle needed.