goannaboi

I'm hunting for a front brake for a fixie and need a caliper with a reach of around 40mm. My problem is that the vast majority of brakes i've seen on the net are advertised with only one measurement. For example, shimano 105s have a reach of 49mm. Is this referring to the minimum or maximum reach? is it some freaky mid-range dreamed up by marketing gurus who won't advertise both the min and max measurements because that'd just be too easy?

first post! woot

vpiuva

Sounds like that's the max reach and should work for 39-49mm

HillRider

The 49 mm is the maximum reach and the range would be 39 to 49 mm.

I just checked the Shimano web site and indeed they do report only the maximum reach which isn't too helpful. Almost all the other brake specs I've seen report both min and max reach so I don't know why they don't.

BTW, the reach range is engraved on the rear face of the caliper arms on all of my Shimano brakes so they do tell you but not until you actually have the brakes.

Dr.Deltron

That would include almost ANY "short reach" caliper!

Probably MAX reach.
My Tour Esay has a Weinmann 490 SQ caliper and the pads are at the max reach. (49mm)
So their is enough room to move the pads to a 40mm reach.

goannaboi

that clears it up nicely, thanks for the assist

fausto99

Resurrecting this thread to ask a supplementary. Why 49mm? Why not a nice round 50mm? Or even specify the mid point with plus and minus limits? i.e. 45mm +/- 5mm. Is it to discourage DIY and have you go to the bike shop instead?

Iride01 

It done on purpose so the conspiracy theory crowd will have something to do!

Maybe it would be better to have a measurement system based on brake reach. So this will become 1 br.

So now my 56 cm bike will be 11.43 br. Oh no, why didn't they make it 12 br or just 11 br?

shelbyfv

First post, resurrecting 13 year old necro thread to post a random silly comment. This pandemic is killing our brains as well as our bodies....