what's this?

[zigzag]

I replaced the U-brake on my Rockhopper with a spiffy new BMX Odyssey Evolver brake. Absolutely superb now, although decent pads probably help as well.

Going by the blue, I'm guessing Rockhopper too.

 

[pete_mcc]

loads of bikes had these including Stumpjumpers but as they were made in Taiwan, pete_mcc considers anything like that to be waay beneath him - in fact I'm starting to worry about his mindset.

Oh for f*cks sake. How many times do i have to say that I have nothing against cheap bikes. I only ever go on about good bikes not expensive bikes. Good bikes can be cheap, good bikes can be expensive. Sadly you don't seem to have the ability to decern between the two schools of thought.

The simple fact is I just don't want anyone making the mistake that I made in the 1980s. I had an exage mountain equipped bike with a chain stay mounted u brake:
1) the brake was plastic, it flexed a lot
2) the brake was plastic, it snapped
3) the whole group was plastic, it was nasty
4) the brake position was so bad that every time it got muddy it would clog and become useless
5) when it got muddy and the brake got clogged with mud he it caused chain suck.

I'm not sure which part of my real world, cross country experience with an exage mountain equiped, chain stay mounted u brake bike you feel point to me feeling that the bikes beneath me rather than just adverse to shite design and shite manufacture. I would rather someone understands that downside rather than collect a bike in the misty-eyed belief that just because it's cheap it must therefore be good.

The bikes group set and brake position was shite in the 1980s, no amount of time, rose-tinted glasses or cheap bike, bin rummaging, salvaging smugness is going to stop the thing from still being shite

Don't feel that you have any more right to the moral high ground just because evangelise about cheap bikes, I evangelise about GOOD bikes not expensive ones and maybe you should.

 

[MikeC]

Easy tigers, this isn't veloriders

 

[weeman_mtb]

I'm not sure which part of my real world, cross country experience with an exage mountain equiped, chain stay mounted u brake bike you feel point to me feeling that the bikes beneath me rather than just adverse to shite design and shite manufacture. I would rather someone understands that downside rather than collect a bike in the misty-eyed belief that just because it's cheap it must therefore be good.

The bikes group set and brake position was shite in the 1980s, no amount of time, rose-tinted glasses or cheap bike, bin rummaging, salvaging smugness is going to stop the thing from still being shite

Yet you have posted a "Cunningham" in the "Retro Bikes of Quality" with the brake in exactly the same position on the underside of the chainstays.

Just thought I'd throw that one in for healthy debate.

 

[Tad]

i've never seen a rear brake down there before

Luckily evolution blesses the bicycle world as much as it does the animal one.

As Pete rightly pointed out, for some cockamamie reason they put the rear brake in the most preposterous place where it would clog with mud at the slightest hint of the going being even slightly damp. An evolutionary dead end that is mercifuly no longer with us.

 

[DeletedUser006]

An evolutionary dead end that is mercifuly no longer with us.

They are with me big time

I fear 2011 will be the year the U brake returned to MTB Racing in great force (one weekend in June hopefully)

 

[Tad]

An evolutionary dead end that is mercifuly no longer with us.

They are with me big time

I fear 2011 will be the year the U brake returned to MTB Racing in great force (one weekend in June hopefully)

I may have to borrow one for one of my laps at Mayhem to break the monotony just not the under chain stay mounted U brake please!

 

[weeman_mtb]

Luckily evolution blesses the bicycle world as much as it does the animal one.

As Pete rightly pointed out, for some cockamamie reason they put the rear brake in the most preposterous place where it would clog with mud at the slightest hint of the going being even slightly damp. An evolutionary dead end that is mercifuly no longer with us.

Yes but this is Retrobike where we tend to ride stuff not necessarily at the end of the evolutionary ladder.

I totally agree that the chainstay u-brake is an utter crap design for muddy conditions but let's not rubbish every bike fitted with one.

 

[Rod_Saetan]

Yet you have posted a "Cunningham" in the "Retro Bikes of Quality" with the brake in exactly the same position on the underside of the chainstay

A) pretty sure the Cunningham is not running a Deore U brake
B) I have never been to Marin, so I am going to have to make an assumption that the weather there is a little more clement than Wolverhampton.

 

[weeman_mtb]

Yet you have posted a "Cunningham" in the "Retro Bikes of Quality" with the brake in exactly the same position on the underside of the chainstay

A) pretty sure the Cunningham is not running a Deore U brake
B) I have never been to Marin, so I am going to have to make an assumption that the weather there is a little more clement than Wolverhampton.

Just pointing out that this Specialized has been labelled as "shite" mainly for it's u-brake position, whilst the Cunningham is hailed as "quality".

Both frames would be fine for Marin conditions and both have the mud clogging issues in Wolverhampton.