racing bike brakes

C-S-B

Either there is something wrong with the brakes on my racing bike (shimano's) or they simply arent the best type of brakes; I have discs on my mountain bike which stop me dead very quickly, and those V-brake ones on my commuter, which also work very well.
However, on my racing bike I always have to descend very cautiously because the weak brakes give me so little confidence and its more than a little annoying.

Are racing bike brakes simply not as powerful as the other types or are mine just weak??

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

V-brakes and disc brakes are great at stopping you very quickly on your mountain bike - but they can only be really effective if you've got a lot of rubber touching the ground. On a racing bike with 23mm tyres at 100psi there's probably less than a square inch of rubber touching the ground on each wheel.

What a well set up, decent pair of dual-pivot calipers does give you is the ability to feather the brakes to precisely adjust your speed as you go into a corner, or hold your place in the bunch.

Cheers, Andy

ps Personally as I try to avoid touching the brakes as much as possible - they only slow you down...

simbil1

I think the rubber on the ground argument is a bit of a red herring when you compare the MTB nobbly you can actually have a lot less rubber on the road.
You should be able to easily put yourself over the bars by squeezing your front dual pivot brake, the modulation is nowhere near as good but locking the wheel is not physically difficult.
Sheldon's site has some great tips on braking - you need to be a confident and skillful front brake user to get the most out of a road bike IMHO.

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

I may be wrong but, locking the front wheel easily is _due_ to the lack of rubber contacting the ground...

Cheers, Andy

meagain

"Are racing bike brakes simply not as powerful as the other types or are mine just weak??"

Got it in one! Especially with drop bar levers. Ergonomics and basic mechanical effeciency simply not as good as flat bar levers and e.g. Vs.

redddraggon

Change the pads to some decent aftermarket pads, like swisstop, and your stopping will be improved.

Are the brakes properly set up and you using them right? Using just your back brake you won't stop very quickly at all. I very rarely use my back brake.

thexvw

What make brakes do you have. I have 105 on my roubaix which are very good and standard "no name" on my allez which are ok but much weaker in comparison.

alfablue

andrewgturnbull wrote:

Hi there.

I may be wrong but, locking the front wheel easily is _due_ to the lack of rubber contacting the ground...

Cheers, Andy

An mtb tyre will easily break away under heavy braking (partly why locking the wheel is easier), on my road bike it is impossible to skid the front wheel on a dry road because I would be over the bars first. As the contact area decreases, the force on the road, and hence friction increases. I think the OP's problem is purely setup or possibly brake blocks.

Mikey1280

alfablue wrote:

As the contact area decreases, the force on the road, and hence friction increases.

Contact area does not affect the force that friction can provide.

alfablue

I stand corrected, it is probably simply a wrong statement, but the whole issue of grip offered by tyres of differnt sizes and tread patterns becomes very complex, and involves physics well beyond my grasp.

Anecdotally, however, my 700x25 slick road tryes give way more grip on the road than my 26x1.95 mtb tyres, that is probably largely due to the knobbles actually offering a smaller contact patch, and the squirm that the movement of the knobbles cause.

portuguese mike

as a previous reply suggested it could simply be the pads or set up. it could, however, be crap calipers. i have a cannondale R900 which came with 'own brand' omega brakes and they were bloody awful (even with koolstop pads). i only realised just how useless they were when i got my new bike which has campag centaur skeleton brakes (again with koolstop pads) and the difference is unbelivable (better than my slick shod mtb with v brakes). they were so much better that i ended up binning the omega brakes and fitting some campag veloce calipers which are so much better.

northpole

Also make sure that your rim is clean especially after being out in wet weather - removing all the gunk can make a huge difference to the bite available to the pads.

Peter