Brake set up

Tesseract

'ello all

Anyone want some lovely sneakers? lol...Why do these idiots think pissing us off with their crap posts will make us go anywhere near their stupid sites...

Anyway rant over. My question is: I just picked up my new Triathlon bike yesterday (and it's lurvly!) and the dude at the lbs said something about the brake set up being for road rather than TT/Tri. He was passing on info from their TT expert, so he couldn't explain why, but apparently for TT/Tri set up the brake blocks are set further from the wheel, pretty much the loosest possible you can have them. Anyone heard of this before??

I've googled and found nothing on it.

Is it a secret timetrialling trick? or b/s?

Zacnici

Never heard of that one - unless (in fine BS mode now):
the wider gap allows air to pass more readily between the block and wheel and then with the combined effect of heat from the rim and the coriolis effect of the rotating wheel the passing air is compressed whilst travelling past the block and when expelled acts like a ram jet ... plausible?

hussler.

My opinion is what a load of shiiiittt....

Brakes are brakes, you can put the brakes from your TT bike onto your road bike and vice versa. Brake pads are the same, unless you have carbon rims then you use carbon only pads....

Avoneer

Would you set brakes differently on a road car than you would on a race car?

Pat...

derekqueenan

Some tri bike frame and forks require long drop brakes, also common on touring bikes. However I think this is becoming less common now-a-days. Maybe this is what the LBS were refering to?

Tesseract

thanks guys & gals

It was def passed on as the brakes were set further away from the wheel, but it was maybe a case of chinese whispers... logic tells me you'd always set up brakes as effectively as possible, ie as close to the rim without rubbing you can get... abd given tri bikes are aiming to be as aero as possible, why would you want your brakes sticking out any more than needed? Yeah, let's go with b/s on that one.

Bopomofo

Nice try, Zacnici... you should start writing sales brochures.

Reckon CH has it, there. Fancy TT wheels are sometimes more flexible (lower weight limits, too) so need more clearance. Mind you, so did my old road bike, but that's only because it was cheap bendy shite with a big angry fat bloke sat on it.

Surely not a specific TT thing, though: if your wheel rubs on your brake blocks then release the brake a bit.

Tesseract

yeah I guess that makes sense, as a heavier dude with a good power output I usually get flex in my frames/wheels, but it only really bothers me on corners. On my last wheels I didn't need to brake for corners as I knew they'd rub that much anyways.

I hoping the new frame is bendy flexy fubbish though.. not been out on it yet...