cgremakes

Not sure if this question belongs on this forum, but I'm hoping to get some assistance on what is probably a very simple question. My son has a Razor DXT drift trike that he's loved riding for a few months. From day one, the brakes were not very good, and require constant adjustment. I'm hoping V brakes are pretty much universal, and if there is something we can replace them with that will last longer and be easier to maintain. Does anyone have any recommendations?

veganbikes

Shimano does make their V-Brakes in a slightly shorter arm (I believe for the DXR brakes) but most of them are the same. In terms of general linear pull brakes there are some different arm lengths and of course quality levels however get something decent even a mid level Tektro linear pull brake or a Shimano Deore V-Brake but more importantly get good compressionless housing with good slick stainless steel cables (ideally polished and certainly not coated) and really good stiff shoes and high quality pads (SwissStop or Kool Stop) that will improve braking quite a bit without much money spent.

You can just measure the arm height and that will give you what you need so long as you don't go too much shorter or longer you should be just fine. If you really want stopping power you could get some Rim Crushers from Magura also properly known as the HS33s they are a hydraulic rim brake that have good stopping power and are so colloquially named because on weak rims they can crush them with their immense stopping power.

cgremakes

Thank you for the feedback! I'm looking at the Deore's. I measure my current arms at ~115mm (4.5"), and it looks like the Deore's are at ~121mm (4.79"). Is that close enough to work? There are the Shimano BR-T4000's that seem to be just about spot on as far as arm length, but I gather they are probably a step down? There's a bit of a price difference, but not a ton if they are much better.

veganbikes

5mm isn't that much so it should be OK. The T4000s are a step down but again good pads and shoes along with cables and housing will step everything up quite significantly and T4000s vs T6000 (or whatever the designation is) are not going to be as significant as the above stuff and both would probably be a good upgrade from what you have. In the end though I generally go with the Deore stuff because it not much more price wise usually and says Deore on it which I prefer since the XT V-Brakes are hard to get to maybe completely out of production or sale in the states and the XTR brakes are long gone and Paul MotoLites are super expensive and really great and worth the cost generally but on a bike with a certain budget cap for individual parts for at the time the challenge and also the fact I had most of the parts and was kind of simul-building another bike and didn't think I would actually love that bike so much,.

georges1

Check ifyou can find Deore XT 780T V Brakes on ebay or for sale on online shops on ebay. The XT 780 T V Brakes don't have the deformable parallelogram problems of the original XT and XTR, I can suggest also the Avid Arch Rival Supreme , those are expensive but give you phenomenal braking power.