Advice required - brakes

steve1556

Just wondering if someone can help me out. I've recently bought a Easyway CX 2.0 bike, and on the first ride the brakes started binding. After speaking to the warranty people at Tredz, and taken through how to adjust the brakes (Avid BB5), they were still binding so they said to take it to a shop. I took the bike to the shop they recommended and after setting them up several times, after every test ride the brakes were beginning to bind again. Tredz offered to send out some new brakes, this was Wednesday last week, and the received them in stock on Monday, but didn't send them out till Thursday. I've just spoke to the shop, and was told that the replacement brakes are the Shimano Sora ones, which the shop said 'they have done me no favours by sending out the cheapest and worse things they could find'. They are having the same problem where the brakes are binding after every test ride and have said that a set of decent brakes would solve this.

Am I right in saying that I should ask Tredz to supply brakes at equal or better level, as I bought the bike brand new, and one of the reasons is that it had Avid BB5 brakes on it. I'm now at the point of ordering a decent set of brakes and asking the shop to fit them for me, but what brakes would people recommend?

sungod

bb5 work fine if installed and adjusted correctly

step one is to make sure wheels are fully seated in drops *before* installing, loosen qr, put weight over wheel, tighten qr

make sure the pads and spring are inserted correctly too

then redo install and set up process from scratch - loosen the mounting bolts, apply brake to clamp pads to disc, gently wiggle the brake body to make sure it's aligned, carefully tighten bolts without moving the brake off line, release brake, adjust pad clearance

steve1556

Thanks for the reply! So you think the problem is that they may not have been installed properly? The bike shop I took it to didn't take the calipers right off, just loosened the calipers, applied the brakes then tightened them, with adjusting the pad adjustment.

Do you think it's worth asking the shop to put the original calipers back on and go from there? One of the many reasons I got the bike was because it came with BB5 brakes.

sungod

it's straightforward to diy, i suggest learn how, then if in future you need to adjust/service you won't need to go to a shop - especially one that seems unable to set them up

they may not be the best brakes but i've used them and they're ok, it's all down to the installation

the clearances are small, this is why you need to ensure the wheels are fully seated before installing/adjusting, otherwise over time if the wheel moves slightly in the dropouts the angle of the axle will shift slightly causing a corresponding change in the angle of the disc (having the discs rub/bind after a while suggests that something has shifted, really only likely to be the wheel or the brake itself, unless a disc was bent)

there's a guide here, may be for the mtb version but the process for the road ones is the same...

http://www.ecovelo.info/2011/04/15/a-fo ... sc-brakes/

...i never used the card shim trick, but probably simplifies things, getting the the 'fixed' pad correct is important

How Far is too Far

One other thing to check is are the rotors straight and not warped/bent.

BB5 are good but can be a faf to get set up, I have bother BB5 and BB7 on different bikes and the 7's are easier to get set up. But BB5's just need a bit more time to get them right. I find they work better with a bit of moment left on the leaver to give as much gap as possible with the pads.