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Yokozuna Reaction Brake housing installed!

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Yokozuna Reaction Brake housing installed!

Old 08-16-19, 12:21 PM
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torger
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Yokozuna Reaction Brake housing installed!

My Cannondale Road tandem was delivered with Jagwire CEX brake housing, which is their lowest grade. As a result the BB7 mechanical disc brakes were rather spongy, in fact it was difficult to at the same time have enough pad clearance and maximum braking power without the lever touching the bar when braking. Used to hydraulic disc brakes I was not really pleased with the braking feel and performance.

So I researched what the best housing is in terms of performance, and Yokozuna Reaction turned up. It's as compressionless it gets, but not without drawbacks - the housing is rather stiff (and a bit heavy). So stiff in fact that some claimed it to be virtually impossible to install.

Prepared for the worst I got a brake kit, which actually includes long enough housing and cable for full-length housing both front and back on the tandem (as it is on the Cannondale), which is great as it's quite expensive so I'm glad I didn't have to get two. The housing wasn't as stiff as I expected and the install was actually quite easy, despite a compact drop bar. You will get some more bulge around the housing on the drop bar as it can't be pulled as tight as a more flexible housing, and if you have an internally routed handlebar there could be a problem, but for normal compact bars, no real issue. You need good strong tape to hold it in place under the bar tape though. I use 3M Tape 27 (glass fibre reinforced no-stretch, great stuff).

As expected the brake response got much better, so a much recommended upgrade for those that run mechanical brakes and aren't using compressionless housing yet. It's still not as good as hydraulics, but a much cheaper and less complicated upgrade (I would need to change groupset and probably crankset too to get hydraulics).
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Old 08-16-19, 04:43 PM
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ahultin
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Originally Posted by torger
My Cannondale Road tandem was delivered with Jagwire CEX brake housing, which is their lowest grade. As a result the BB7 mechanical disc brakes were rather spongy, in fact it was difficult to at the same time have enough pad clearance and maximum braking power without the lever touching the bar when braking. Used to hydraulic disc brakes I was not really pleased with the braking feel and performance.

So I researched what the best housing is in terms of performance, and Yokozuna Reaction turned up. It's as compressionless it gets, but not without drawbacks - the housing is rather stiff (and a bit heavy). So stiff in fact that some claimed it to be virtually impossible to install.

Prepared for the worst I got a brake kit, which actually includes long enough housing and cable for full-length housing both front and back on the tandem (as it is on the Cannondale), which is great as it's quite expensive so I'm glad I didn't have to get two. The housing wasn't as stiff as I expected and the install was actually quite easy, despite a compact drop bar. You will get some more bulge around the housing on the drop bar as it can't be pulled as tight as a more flexible housing, and if you have an internally routed handlebar there could be a problem, but for normal compact bars, no real issue. You need good strong tape to hold it in place under the bar tape though. I use 3M Tape 27 (glass fibre reinforced no-stretch, great stuff).

As expected the brake response got much better, so a much recommended upgrade for those that run mechanical brakes and aren't using compressionless housing yet. It's still not as good as hydraulics, but a much cheaper and less complicated upgrade (I would need to change groupset and probably crankset too to get hydraulics).
I also have Yokozuna Reaction installed on our 2011 Cannondale tandem (and my single bike) and find it to perform very well though using that and swapping to the TRP Spyres seemed to be the ticket. The one issue to note with the reaction housing is it has rusted over a rather short time on both bikes I have it installed on.
One thing that struck me as odd in your statement though was in regards to using full length housing. My 2011 as setup has almost identical housing bosses as my 2015 frame and it does not use full length housing. It has housing from the bars to the downtube, then open to the front bottom bracket, then a short length of housing over the front bottom bracket and open again to the rear bottom bracket, then a short length of housing over the rear bottom bracket down the chainstay. The bosses are open so they can use either full length housing or a housing stop like https://www.ebay.com/itm/Jagwire-5mm...0/301438515931 which is what mine has. On my 2011 i use the jagwire stops, on my 2015 I have set it up hydraulic so full length.
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Old 08-17-19, 01:39 AM
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The bike came with full length housing, so I just made a simple drop in replacement without too much thinking, but you're right it is a bit odd, seems unnecessary and the shift wires are mounted with split housing with exposed wires under the bike. Using those housing stops you linked it should be possible to split it, which actually could be a good idea as one problem when running on gravel or other bumpy surface is that the housing rattles against the bottom tube. But now I've just installed it, so I'll keep it full length for now, and add some silicone frame protectors to avoid/minimize the rattling.

The rubber dust caps on the BB7 brakes was a bit too short for the longer housing stops that came with the Yokozuna kit, so I just added some tape to cover the gap to avoid dust/water entry. Shrink tube would have looked more pro, but I was lazy.
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Old 08-17-19, 12:28 PM
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Originally Posted by torger
... and probably crankset too to get hydraulics).
out of curiosity, why would one have to change the crankset?
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Old 08-17-19, 03:48 PM
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Originally Posted by L134
out of curiosity, why would one have to change the crankset?
I presume the OP is working from the presumption that mechanical shift hydro levers only come in 2x configuration. As the op's vintage cannondale ships with 105 3x, it would require either a crankset change or sourcing a 34ish tooth 74bcd small ring.
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Old 08-18-19, 03:06 AM
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Originally Posted by ahultin
I presume the OP is working from the presumption that mechanical shift hydro levers only come in 2x configuration. As the op's vintage cannondale ships with 105 3x, it would require either a crankset change or sourcing a 34ish tooth 74bcd small ring.
Yep it's a 3x10 Shimano 105 5700. It's not a vintage Cannondale though, it's the latest model (2018, unchanged from 2017 afaik, no tandems were made for 2019), but they use "vintage" parts still, I guess they bought it bulk and have for years to come. It uses the FSA Gossamer tandem crankset, and it only exists in 3x10 configuration. I kind of like the 3x10 for tandem though, fits our pedaling style quite well, so I don't feel a need to upgrade to 2x11.
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Old 08-18-19, 08:39 AM
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Originally Posted by torger
Yep it's a 3x10 Shimano 105 5700. It's not a vintage Cannondale though, it's the latest model (2018, unchanged from 2017 afaik, no tandems were made for 2019), but they use "vintage" parts still, I guess they bought it bulk and have for years to come. It uses the FSA Gossamer tandem crankset, and it only exists in 3x10 configuration. I kind of like the 3x10 for tandem though, fits our pedaling style quite well, so I don't feel a need to upgrade to 2x11.
😏 i was using vintage as the noun meaning :

a: a period of origin or manufactureb: length of existence : AGE
i also prefer the 3x for tandem, our 2011 is 3x10 and i am building the 2015 as xtr 3x11
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