smontanaro 

MAFAC Raids are expensive, Racers are not. Is there such a thing as a drop bolt for Racers?

noobinsf 

I haven't seen a drop bolt, but I have a single drop plate for Racers. It looks just like the standard mounting plate, but with an oblong bolt hole rather than a circular one. I have only ever found the one, a couple of years back on ebay. I'm holding out in case I ever find another. As far as I can tell, it looks to have been produced this way (vs. a home modification, which I suppose is also possible, though I would imagine that's risky). I'll post a pic later.

smontanaro 

Sounds interesting. It also sounds a bit like the Balilla center pull brakes on my Frejus TdF. A few pix:



I'll have to make some measurements to see if that might give me enough downward movement for the 700c conversion on my Dawes. (I'm not married to Racers. It just seemed like the most likely to have a drop bolt.)

noobinsf 

Yup, exactly the same idea.

noobinsf 

Here is mine:

oneclick 

There are three different bridges for Racers, check first to see if you have the short ones (they can be marked "451").

Short gets you 63, long is 68, adjustable goes to 75.

kroozer 

Skip,
I have 2 bikes I'm running 650B wheels on (one with Mafac Racer brakes), and I use home-made "drop plates", as described on Sheldon Brown's website. In my case they are small steel plates that lower the brakes by 15mm. I had them made last week and am just installing and trying them out, so I don't have pix yet. But they work great. The guy charged me 30 pesos (US$1.50) per plate, and you need 2 plates per brake unit/ 4 per bike. I intend to post a thread here with the details, because I think it's a cheap, versatile, and neat solution to a problem.

noobinsf 

Very interested! Looking forward to the thread.

smontanaro 

Thanks, George (assuming there are very few BF C&Vers in Tepic). Here's the page:

https://sheldonbrown.com/home-drop.html

and the image:



Looks easy enough, given a bit of raw material.

kroozer 

The plates on Sheldon's site are ridiculously long and I don't know what kind of bike they're for, but it's a good illustration of how versatile they are. With my drop plates, the lower hole is just low enough to clear the bottom of the fork crown and brake bridge. It's all I need for 700C-to-650B, and it's hardly even noticeable.

oneclick 

The pic above (in this thread) shows a plate bridge. That kind of bridge is much more suited to a drop bolt, especially one with such a big drop. If that were mounted on a normal tube bridge, perhaps one without a reinforced brake hole or stay mounts, made from seamed (which for brake bridges is .sometimes is only bent-and-pushed-together) tubing, I'd be keeping a close eye on it.

noobinsf 

I googled "bicycle brake custom drop bolt," and several interesting images popped up, including this one. It's not my image. Maybe these are being produced or sold somewhere? Or worth reproducing?

Charles Wahl

Here's what you want:


and here's the whole poster:


I can't remember where I found this online; maybe someone else has a pointer to it.