Boardman CX Team braking issue

dee4life2005

My mate has an issue with the Avid BB5 road brakes on his new Boardman CX Team - it has SRAM Apex Double-Tap shifters and an inline brake lever on the flat-bar. He's tried taking it back to Halfords a couple of times, the first time the braking feel from the double-tap was sorted but at the expense of horrendous brake rub (couldn't even rotate the wheel 1/4 revolution!) and the other time they resolved the brake rub, but the problem with the levers returned.

I've set up BB5's a few times now on mine without any problems, so we thought we'd have a go at setting the brakes up to see if we could resolve the issues ourselves before he goes down the road of possibly rejecting the bike.

With the BB5's set up with the fixed pad setup to just avoid rubbing, the flat-bar level is very snappy and provides lots of braking force, but the double-tap lever still reaches the handlebar and the small shifter paddle gets stuck against the bar tape and needs to be flicked back by hand (the double-tap lever doesn't provide much braking force either - can't get the wheel to lock up for example).

Anyone else have this bike and had similar problems and they were able to resolve them?
Anything we may be overlooking ... ?

JayKosta

Perhaps the position of the hood/brifter on the bar needs to be changed to provide more clearance for the end of the hood-lever and paddle.

Can the hoods be moved further 'forward' onto the down-turn section and still give useable body position?

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

caad8

It sounds like there is too much cable between the STIs and the interrupter levers. I don't have much experience of this but maybe release the interrupter lever, set up the STI braking to what what you want, then re-attach the interrupter?

Monty Dog

Ditch the interrupters - they're a waste of bar space and fit some decent cables. The problem is probably due to cr@ppy brake cable outers flexing under load, not helped by the bar-top levers (which are next to useless and no serious CX rider would contemplate using them). There's nothing wrong with the Apex levers and BB5 calipers- trouble is, you're not helped by numbty mechanics in Halfords.

mcj78

I've the same setup albeit on a different bike - no interrupter levers though - i've found the brakes to be a bit fiddly to set up perfectly & require tweaking more often (maybe to the smaller pad size which wears quicker than BB7s for example - plus BB7s have 2 pad adjusters to compensate for pad wear without fannying around with cable tension all the time) however it should be possible to get there...

First I usually wind the cable adjuster all the way in, then slacken off the pinch bolt & pull the inner cable as tight as possible, next - whilst still maintaining tension on the cable - use a spare finger to physically rotate the caliper arm so that the pad just about touches the disc, then use the other hand (if you're already using 2 hands here, a prehensile tail / volunteer is useful) to tighten the pinch bolt firmly to hold it all in place - might take a few attempts but i've found it works with a bit of practice. For the back pad, you can simply wind it in using the adjuster as required, i've found they work best with absolutely minimal clearance between the disc & pad, the larger the gap the performance seems to suffer exponentially!

Hope that helps - I can usually get away with a couple of hundred miles of commuting just using the cable adjuster for slight tweaks before starting again once the shifter paddles start locking against the bars on braking - brakes are on my upgrade list for next year...

J

dee4life2005

mcj78 wrote:

I've the same setup albeit on a different bike - no interrupter levers though - i've found the brakes to be a bit fiddly to set up perfectly & require tweaking more often (maybe to the smaller pad size which wears quicker than BB7s for example - plus BB7s have 2 pad adjusters to compensate for pad wear without fannying around with cable tension all the time) however it should be possible to get there...

First I usually wind the cable adjuster all the way in, then slacken off the pinch bolt & pull the inner cable as tight as possible, next - whilst still maintaining tension on the cable - use a spare finger to physically rotate the caliper arm so that the pad just about touches the disc, then use the other hand (if you're already using 2 hands here, a prehensile tail / volunteer is useful) to tighten the pinch bolt firmly to hold it all in place - might take a few attempts but i've found it works with a bit of practice. For the back pad, you can simply wind it in using the adjuster as required, i've found they work best with absolutely minimal clearance between the disc & pad, the larger the gap the performance seems to suffer exponentially!

Hope that helps - I can usually get away with a couple of hundred miles of commuting just using the cable adjuster for slight tweaks before starting again once the shifter paddles start locking against the bars on braking - brakes are on my upgrade list for next year...

J

Thanks. That's exactly how I go about successfully setting up the BB5's on my Boardman Hybrid ... however, doing the same process on my mates Boardman CX Team doesn't work. Well, actually it does for the interrupter levers on the flat-bar ... but the SRAM Apex STI levers are still so easy to pull that they reach the bars before max breaking force. It's almost like the pull ratios between the two aren't compatible or something. I really don't understand what's going on, and he doesn't want to ditch the interrupter levers. Halfords have so far not been much help.

mcj78

Ahh right - it does sound like it's the interrupter levers are introducing a bit of slack in the cable that's throwing the adjustments out (as everyone's saying as I gaze up through the other replies now), not sure what else to suggest other than reinventing them as a paperweight i'm afraid - hope you get something sorted out, be a shame for your mate to go through the hassle of returning it over a pair of extraneous levers that most ditch straight away...

j

theotherjake

With BB5s the rotor has to almost perfectly true, plus its helps to bed the pads in before adjusting the clearance. Also bending the pad clip can help the pads sit true in the caliper, for me the major issue with BB5's is the outboard pad refuses to sit parallel with the rotor.

joao

This a quite old post but I just bought a Boardman CX team 2014 with the same issue. As none of the replies here solved the issue of the interrupter levers being adjusted and braking whilst the STI levers are a no go (other than ditch the interrupters which is arguably a solution). So after fixing my bike I thought I should share.
I assume Halfords assembles the whole thing by putting the handlebar tape on over the cable cover bit that goes from the STI brake to the interrupters, then they fix the interrupters after the tape ends. And probably only later they tighten the cable on the BB5. Here lies the problem, the interrupter has to be tightly against the bit of cable cover that comes from the STI brake so there is no slack.

How did I fix it?

Loosen the screws holding the interrupters tighten the brake cable If needed remove the end of the handlebar tape to let the interrupters go outwards While fully applying the brakes on the STI lever:

pull the interruptor outwards to make sure the cable cover stays close to the handlebar Tighten the screw to keep the interrupter in place

The slack between the levers is gone so use your favourite BB5 adjustment technique