clearyscorner

Hi!

Recently acquired a used Batavus dutch bike. It has pedal brakes which I'm not used to, and it has a roller brake on the front wheel which does nothing.

I'm going to try tweak it but I suspect the roller brake is worn out completely and I've read that roller brakes just aren't nearly as quick to stop in general. So I wanted to see if I could add rim brakes. The frame is aluminium. I saw a guy on youtube drilling holes and putting rivets for new bosses for a bottle cage. Is this doable for brakes? Am I on the right track here or would you recommend some other option? What are the details I need to look out for when shopping for the rim brakes?

Any good resources on dutch bikes in general would be helpful!

Thank you!

base2 

Your roller brake is likely out of adjustment or has the wrong ratio cable pull or some similar issue. If it needed service, they have a tendency to be instantaneously grabby & stop the wheel cold. That's not to say it can't be worn out. Just unlikely. Fortunately they are cheap and a lifetime supply of the grease is cheaper.

Adding rim brakes turns the wheel into a wear item. Ultimately wheels are the more expensive repair. Having said that: If the fork crown is heavy gauge material & you can drill a hole...Why not? You'd need to make sure that your prospective calipers will A) Have enough reach to get to the rim & B) Have enough clearance to reach around your tire.

Part of what makes a Dutch bike a Dutch bike is it's utilitarian, low maintenance, weather-proof design. Rim brakes are a departure from that ethos.

grumpus

It sounds to me that you're talking about cantilever bosses - it would be a bad idea to drill the fork legs. There are clamp-on bosses for some forks, but your fork legs probably won't fit them. I don't like roller brakes (Sturmey Archer drum brakes here) but they are quite hard to kill so it's probably worth the effort of servicing it.

sweeks

I put roller brakes on my folding commuter bikes with Nexus hubs and put an end to rim replacement. They are not "high performance" brakes, but more than adequate for stopping from sane speeds. And nearly zero maintenance... a shot of grease once a year.

Trakhak

Most Dutch bikes have fork crowns that are drilled for mounting fenders. If you don't want to go to the trouble of getting the roller brakes overhauled, you ought to be able to find a front sidepull caliper brake with the correct arm length for the rim that you can bolt through the drilled fork crown.

If the rim doesn't have parallel sides and thus won't work with a rim brake, you should have no trouble finding a suitable front wheel (with an aluminum rim, so that the rim brake will work well). Again, confirm that the brake arm length is right.

Me, I'd go to the oldest bike store in town and talk to an experienced mechanic to make sure everything works out the way you need it to.

clearyscorner

Thanks y'all, I'll see if I can set it up properly and if not I'll maybe just take it to a bike shop.

veganbikes

Take it to a shop that knows roller brakes and get it serviced. Beyond that get a bike that has the brakes you want and save this bike for certain stuff or sell it and get the bike you want. Don't modify a Dutch or Dutch style bike it generally isn't worth it monetarily and isn't going to improve by much. They are designed to be low cost utilitarian bikes with cheaper low service parts. They aren't riding like we ride here they ride short distances and to them a bike is generally just utility for small point to point trips for practical purposes. Not to say there aren't cyclists over there but most people it is a utility that they have all done since birth basically. Like we use our feet for walking they use a bike in a sense, not trying to totally push them into a neat corner there is plenty of nuance that I didn't go into.

Andrew R Stewart 

My experience with both foot and hand operated roller brakes is that they are very mushy and tend to have the power that a slow riding bike needs Not adequate for my needs but the bikes' owners seemed good with them. I agree that keeping the rollers and their ramps lubed helps their feel. Don't forget about keeping the cables lubed and free moving too. Andy

GamblerGORD53

Oh look, the 3 roller brake fans. LOL. Throw the POS boat anchor in the garbage and get a SA XL-FDD dyno drum brake. The fork brace fits both the same.
My first one has 32,000 miles with 8,200 on a 120 lb tour bike. With both drum brakes I can go 39-0 mph in 60 feet. That's faster than the GCN guys did with a disc race bike. LOL. The only service it needs is a cable adjust once a year and maybe a few light scratches with 180 sandpaper to unglaze the drum and pads and a dab of grease on the cam.
Never squealed once in all those miles. I've done 46 mph with SA drum wheels.
Roller brakes heat up so fast, the manual says don't touch it for half an HOUR. LOL

sweeks

I don't know if I'm one of the three , but I have to comment that this (correctly quoted by Gord) is ridiculous. I've never noticed any heat from my roller brakes in "normal" riding. Maybe riding the brake down a mountain pass would heat them up. In any case, even if they were glowing red hot, it wouldn't take a half hour for them to cool down. I don't know who wrote such nonsense.

Andrew R Stewart 

I agree. Sure, brake surfaces do get hot, trading movement for heat does that. But the same rider, on the otherwise same bike, descending the same hill at the same speed will have their brakes, independent of type, have to pull out of the moving rider/bike the same amount of energy to stop. So, I see the heat issues being more about heat dissipation. And in this case the enclosed brake surface (as in a hub, not open air like a disk or rim are) will prove to be especially slow to cool down. An hour? That I doubt. Andy

sweeks

Some roller brakes have "radiators" (heat sinks), so that helps them cool down even if they actually generate any heat.


The thing that looks like a disc brake rotor on the back wheel is a radiator connected to the drum part of the roller brake module.