Rolla

Based on the photo above, the front brake cable housing looks WAY too short. Also, the chain looks dry.

Koyote

And that saddle tilt. oof.

rumrunn6

looks like a fun bike! yeah that front brake cable is too short wonder if it gets pulled when you turn the bars. dunno about the back. would be interesting to go over it

GamblerGORD53

How the hell did that cable make it around the block?? OMG
The frame is very nice, a size small tho.
When you get a caliper, make it a TRP Spyre. Basically impossible to set up poorly.

LarrySellerz

Never had any problem with the cable.. can turn my bars all the way. Saddle angle is deliberate and yeah the frame is a 57 which is too small, but since I have limited mobility in my neck it actually fits like a glove.

Brojangles

Dude needs new brakes.

couldwheels

We have very similar fork and brakes! Here's one way I setup my cheap mech disc brakes:

In this picture, you're looking at the front wheel hub and fork dropout at the bottom of the picture. The upper half of the picture and behind the fork is the disc brake caliper. The right most side of the picture is the caliper piston and you might make out the end of the brake cable. The straight gray thing at the middle of the picture is the disc rotor viewed edge on.

Observe the brake caliper housing and the disc rotor. The disc rotor is nearly touching the caliper housing at the piston side. This is the ONLY way to safely setup a cheap mech disc brake if you don't have the money to buy a better, more expensive one (the other option, is stop riding until you can afford better brakes).. This setup maximizes braking effectivenes and prevents "reversal". Reversal is where the piston retracts when pressing the lever and you suddenly lose braking effectiveness which is really scary.

LarrySellerz

I think that happened to me, I was going down a hill and suddenly my front brake wasn’t working at all. Tried to lock my back wheel up and ended up taking a chunk out of my running shoes

couldwheels

Looks bad.

Looks like you should do the adjustment yourself on the front caliper brake asap.

-Loosen the nut holding the cable on the caliper so lever on the caliper retracts all the way. Don't remove the nut, nor the cable. Turn the barrel bolt on the cable housing clockwise all the way.
-Loosen the bolts holding the caliber to the fork so the caliper is free to move but don't remove bolts.
-Push the caliper all the way in towards the wheel spokes until the caliper or the piston-side brake pad is almost rubbing the disc rotor. If you're sitting on the bike and looking at the front caliper. The caliper is meant to be moved all the way to the right.
-Hand-tighten the bolts holding the caliper don't move around as much and you can align it against the rotor.
-Tighten the bolts holding the caliper with allen key when you have aligned it.
-Adjust the non-moving brake pad so it's as close as possible to the disc rotor without rubbing.
-Hand-tighten the nut holding cable to the caliper lever.
-Pull the caliper lever towards barrel adjuster while simultaneously pulling the cable end. If you feel it's coming to a stop, that means the pad is coming into contact with the rotor, back it off a little bit until the pad is very barely touching the disc rotor and tighten the nut holding the cable to the caliper lever.
-Turn the barrel bolt counter clockwise to make final adjustment to the brake so the piston is as close as possible to the disc rotor without rub.


Other things to note before you make those adjustments or have someone else follow those steps for you:

-You may need to replace the brake pads as well. Another reason for piston reversal is worn brake pads or using a brake pad that is too thin to begin with. Many dirt cheap Chinese replacement pads have reduced thickness (so you'll replace more often but it's also very dangerous due to reversal)
-You may also need to apply high temperature thread locker on the bolt that adjusts the non-moving brake pad. This bolt tends to get lose. If that thing gets loose, you'll have piston reversal soon enough. Now, if you use regular thread locker on that thing, the thread locker would melt on steep or long downhills and the bolt can come loose and get reversal.
-Forget about eliminating brake squeal on cheap disc brakes. Your 1st priority is making adjustments to avoid piston reversal and maximize braking effectiveness, not on eliminating squeal.

Your very Best option that's only guaranteed to work:

- Buy a nice used bike from a reputable seller of bikes at a price affordable enough for you. Probably someone from BF. Because to get much nicer brakes, you may have to replace other parts of your bike as well like the fork and front wheel and the costs can add up pretty fast, you'll probably be much better off just getting a nice used bike with already good brakes to begin with.

LarrySellerz

Took it to a shop (sports basement, my fault for going to a massive corporate thing that kills small businesses) and this nice kid tried to fix it for more than 30 minutes before a experienced guy took over. back wheel rubs pretty badly but I felt like I shouldn't complain because they did a bunch of free labor. I really got to find a good mechanic to wrench my bikes, the guy I would go to is super busy and I feel like a jerkoff for bringing a race bike mechanic a beater. He sold me the bike and I thought I robbed him because it was $150 but he assured me I didn't, maybe he was right haha.

prj71

Department store bike.

Buys $150 bike then complains that things aren't working properly.

LarrySellerz

It was built by an experienced bike shop employee who used it for commutes, its not a wallmart bike

prj71

Looks like the front wheel is bolted on and I suspect the back wheel is too? Not even a QR skewer. I'm thinking everytime you brake the wheel goes out of alignment which causes your brake rubbing issue.

QR or in your case, bolt on wheels, are horrible combination with disc brakes. One of the reasons disc brakes are coupled with thru axles these days.

prj71

OK.

katsup

You can look at prj71's post history and see them bash non thru axle disc bikes every chance they get. There is nothing wrong with properly setup QR disc bikes and in fact, thru axle bikes often have the same rotor rub issue, especially mountain bikes.

It sounds like the mechanic got your brakes setup. If not, and he had trouble, I'd replace the brakes as a amateur will surely have more trouble. Decent brakes will probably cost you half the price you paid for the bike.

couldwheels

QR would be good enough. I have QR both wheels with disc and never had issues for three years of use. One year, I did around 5,000 miles. Plenty of them in the mountains.

Ofc, that would mean new front wheel, and with decent brakes would probably stretch OP's budget too far. He could buy a decent used bike instead and save himself all that trouble and possible accident from failed brake. I'm sure some of you have decent old bikes you can give up for a few $$?

prj71

Yeah. I don't think so. The reality is modern disc brake bikes tend to be sold with thru axle instead of quick releases and for good reason.

If you look at the picture that isn't even a QR on the fork. It's a threaded axle with bolt and there aren't even any lawyer lips.

If the back wheel is set up the same I guarantee the wheel is moving from the disc brake forces which is causing the problem.

katsup

Everyone of your QR disc bashing posts goes the same way. I'll just say that if you haven't seen it with TA, then you are not around enough bikes.

In any case, the OP never complained about rotor rub, he complained his brakes are not stopping him. Back on topic.

Koyote

I have a disc brake bike with QRs, and it works just fine. If anything, bolt-on wheels should hold even MORE securely.

The type of dropout is a non-issue in this case.

rydabent

You can have both cheap disc brakes and cheap rim brakes. Neither are very good.

wolfchild

Absolute nonsense.

LarrySellerz

Are bolt on wheels not standard for single speeds? I didn’t think I had anything weird. Only time they burned me was when I had a flat and needed a crescent wrench

BlazingPedals

One reason thru-axles were developed was because of disc brakes, but it's almost a theoretical problem given the very low number of incidents. Under hard braking, a disc brake can pull the wheel out of the dropouts, even if tightened correctly, even right over the lawyer lips. It's one reason why my lowracer has closed dropouts on the front - the designer was very worried about it. I've been running discs for over a decade on other bikes, and never had an issue. I very much doubt that LS has that issue.

Besides an adjustment problem, this could also be a compatibility issue. Even though the builder was a bike shop, LS could have a mis-match between the levers and the pull required by the caliper. IOW, two sets of junk parts don't like each other. But most likely, it's just the nature of the brakes to need a lot of adjustments.

prj71

You must have me confused with someone else.

katsup

Possibly, don't care enough to look it up. I apologize if so.