Disk Brakes, Mechanical - What Am I Doing Wrong?
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You will want to use bb7_road calipers with those brifters. Hard to tell from my viewing side the type you are equipped with currently, but it appears like you have bb7_mtn.
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As far as the brake system goes - everything is original from the day I took it home from the bike store and it was a brand new bike. The only thing that isn't the "same" in this as when I got it, obviously now, is the alignment of the calipers and rotors (and that should imply the adjustment in the cables also - I tuned them to have less pull on the levers to get stopping pressure earlier in the pulls, but still have enough gap in the pads to not rub while riding).
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As far as the brake system goes - everything is original from the day I took it home from the bike store and it was a brand new bike. The only thing that isn't the "same" in this as when I got it, obviously now, is the alignment of the calipers and rotors (and that should imply the adjustment in the cables also - I tuned them to have less pull on the levers to get stopping pressure earlier in the pulls, but still have enough gap in the pads to not rub while riding).
They may well be OK (some are made to work with long pull brakes (V-brakes and mtb mechanical disc).
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The current Trucker complete build comes with mtb BB7s and Tektro RL520 levers, which are made to work with v-brakes and mtb mech brakes.
Last edited by Kapusta; 10-16-19 at 12:17 PM.
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You are correct it appears - the calipers say BB7- MTN on them. I did not look at them close enough before.
Attached are some closer up pictures of tje calipers and levers.
Attached are some closer up pictures of tje calipers and levers.
Last edited by KC8QVO; 10-16-19 at 01:40 PM.
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Im trying to upload pictures and format on my damn phone and it is driving me up a wall.... Heres another shot of the brake levers.
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If this was the stock build from Surly, I would be 99.8% sure that those are the right levers for your calipers. Tektro makes a drop bar lever for this very purpose. If you really want to make sure, find a model number on them somewhere.
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I'd replace the housing & cable. If it were my bicycle, I'd swap in a rear bb7_road
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#35
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As far as the brake system goes - everything is original from the day I took it home from the bike store and it was a brand new bike. The only thing that isn't the "same" in this as when I got it, obviously now, is the alignment of the calipers and rotors (and that should imply the adjustment in the cables also - I tuned them to have less pull on the levers to get stopping pressure earlier in the pulls, but still have enough gap in the pads to not rub while riding).
the next thing that stands out to me is how you have set up the levers to have early contact. I have always found that later engagement gives me stronger braking with rim brakes with cantis, and I have found over the years now with BB7s that its the same with them.
Later engagement puts the levers to a position where my fingers have more leverage strength wise, and also more feel for modulating.
I really like late braking, goes back to my motorcycle days and racing, and all my bikes are set up with a slightly later engagement point, and I also found that with disc setups, a later engagement point can really seem too far compared to rim brakes, but they require a lot less cable travel to brake really hard, so thats how I set them up.
impossible of course to evaluate your setup from reading online, but you could do some tests to see if this helps.
And of course, we arent talking extreme differences/changes, but I certainly have noticed the improvement. Riding the troll rather heavily loaded in very mountainous places with lots and lots of steep ups and downs (such as Guatemala) has proved to me that my setup works very well and I have been very happy with the braking power of the bike in these situations.
another angle to all this is being sure that you brake very hard with the front brake, this makes a huge difference to stopping power and effect. I bring it up because its not uncommon for riders to be wary of the front brake.
oh, and I too have had pads get that funny "chip" off the corner, not sure when it happened, but mine looked very similar.
good luck with trying out stuff.
ps, the whole 1/3 2/3 thing is so that the caliper pad that moves doesnt "push" and bend the rotor over too much with braking. You can see this visually just be braking and looking closely at the rotor, if there is too much space on the opposite side, the rotor gets pushed over too much.
I once slightly bent a rotor with a bad setup while messing around with moving the caliper position, and had to straighten the rotor using an adjustable wrench (which went surprisingly well), so this is how I learned not to do this again.
This was right after I bought my troll and was trying to get to learn how to work on the BB7's. I reckon I made all the mistakes......
Last edited by djb; 10-18-19 at 12:17 PM.