These next photos will be the last you'll see of it in this original color etc. Colin mentioned finding rust underneath the paint as he removed it for canti work--certainly something I've known about (and mentioned to him). Good excuse for a new color, right?
Below is the "roller" I quickly built up yesterday to test a fully operational TRP mini-V braking situation with the lever type I'd be using. Firstly, it felt fantastic to coast down a crummy, bumpy hill on the 620 with its 42mm tires again. I have missed them! Secondly, the brakes work
phenomenally well, and that's with the pads not even bedded in, let alone Koolstops! And the brake lever effort? LIGHT. Supid light. I tell ya, man, cantis are nice for their time etc etc etc, but they are trash in comparison to the incredible power-to-effort ratio of V-brakes or mini-V's. Like, I'm all for the romance and stuff, but objectively it's a lightyear's of improvement with the TRPs.
Pretty casual looking "bike" here, but in real life, leaning against the couch or the wall, it has presence. It will have even more soon.
Front perspective of the new TRPs. The new posts don't break the fork blades' inner "silhouette" which means chucking fully inflated 42mm tires into the fork is as easy as it would be if no brakes existed at all. Wonderful!
V-brakes doing what they do: standing tall and wide. A little camera foreshortening to make it look a touch wider but I don't even care--it looks good to me and performs excellently.
Thanks to considerable fork offset, the 283mm axle-to-post height (vs. 294mm or something before) makes for the pads sitting much farther up in their slots than I had anticipated. Still, tire clearance is good, so I have no issue.
Rear brakes looking a lot better than they did before. The wheel still sits a touch off no matter what I do (spins dead true though), and humorously, the fender mount on the brake bridge is skewed 0.5mm to the left.
Good tire clearance in the rear as well.
Notice that, due to no fork offset, the axle-to-post height of 283mm makes for pads lower in the slots here.
More of a macro view here, and as always, "paint's not compelte" caveat here. In real life, it looks good/fine/not out of place or proportion. And I do away with all the crazy ship rigging at the front. Super clean and stupid easy to set up. I just can't tell you enough how crazy light the lever effort is. So good!
The big arc that the brake cable follows from top tube to wide-radius noodle is casually bold.
Welcome to the 620!
