aka Tom Reingold
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
Posts: 40,513
Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem
Mentioned: 511 Post(s)
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The rods are not the flaw of these brakes which we should call stirrup brakes. The flaw is with the stirrup, because it pulls up on the rim (away from the axle). The pads don't work against each other as they do with caliper brakes.
Rod-actuated drum brakes work well and offer a maintenance interval advantage over cable-actuated drum brakes. But rod-actuated drum brakes are rare.
You could modify caliper brakes to work with rods, but I've never seen it.