Upgrading long reach brake calipers

Greggyr
Greggyr Posts: 1,075
edited October 2009 in Workshop
I have a Shimano 105 groupset including shifters, but unbranded brake calipers. Having ridden a rental bike last week, I have realised my brakes are very innefficient. Is it because long reach are generally like that or would a branded one be better? Any specific recommendations gratefully received,

Ta

Greg

Comments

  • mrushton
    mrushton Posts: 5,182
    Shimano long-drop are fine (BR650) esp. if you use Kool Stops
    M.Rushton
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    If your current brakes are long drop, replacing them with standard 105's might mean the pads cannot be adjusted to meet the rims.

    Wot bike do you have?

    I have a Kinesis Racelight Tk with mudguard clearance so it has long drop brakes but they are Shimano and seem OK to me
  • Greggyr
    Greggyr Posts: 1,075
    A Spesh Sequoia. I need to continue with long drops as the bike has (limited) mudguard clearance.
  • amaferanga
    amaferanga Posts: 6,789
    I noticed a big difference between the unbranded ones on my Giant SCR and the Shimano BR650's I replaced them with.
    More problems but still living....
  • Greggyr
    Greggyr Posts: 1,075
    many thanks to all, BR650's it'll be !!

    Greg
  • geoff_ss
    geoff_ss Posts: 1,201
    keef66 wrote:
    If your current brakes are long drop, replacing them with standard 105's might mean the pads cannot be adjusted to meet the rims.

    Wot bike do you have?

    I have a Kinesis Racelight Tk with mudguard clearance so it has long drop brakes but they are Shimano and seem OK to me

    Yep, me too. Though I have flat bar levers which seem to be more effective than even good drop levers in my experience. Deep drop brakes will always have less leverage than shallow ones but they're still good.

    Geoff
    Old cyclists never die; they just fit smaller chainrings ... and pedal faster
  • tim_f
    tim_f Posts: 12
    I also got a Sequoia.

    Was unimpressed with the brakes and replaced them with Shimanio R650 long reach brakes from Ribble.

    Now braking is excellent.
  • Chris James
    Chris James Posts: 1,040
    Out of interest, had those of you who have replaced brakes, previously tried your old brakes with different pads?

    Given that brakes are only beams of metal pulled by a cable I wouldn't have thought the exact design would make much difference, with pad compound being more important.

    By the sound of it, people's experiences above would suggets that it is a bit more complicated than that?

    I have Tektro deep drops with Koolstop pads on my audax bike and am happy with the braking. Then again I grew up with single pivot sidepulls and steel rims and after that anything seems good!
  • Mister W
    Mister W Posts: 791
    IMHO braking performance is mostly about the pads so if your brakes aren't as good as you'd like, try better pads before splashing out on new brakes.

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