Rear Brake Lever travel - Campagnolo Veloce

Calpol

quick question re; Rear brakes on my winter bike.

Set up is Veloce levers and calipers.
Front braking is decent enough - not as powerful as my Athena on summer bike fot pretty good.
Rear brake lever travel is much more to the point that the lever is almost touching the handlebar and it feels quite loose. Braking performance is well short of Athena on the other bike.

Accepting that Veloce is not Athena, Brake blocks are not worn down - what could be causing this?

I have pulled out as much slack in the cable as I can but still can't seem to get the lever to stiffen up. Is this excess friction in the cable run (internal routing through frame but through a liner). The cable has a very slight fray of one strand - would that be enough to affect performance?

Any thoughts?

g00se

Could be a few things - but I doubt it's the lever or the caliper. I don't think one strand would do that - more possibly incorrectly cut outers causing a bit of flex.

Maybe there's an issue where the outers butt up against the stops where the inner routes through the frame? Are all the outers seated properly into the stops at all ends (levers, calipers, frame)?

It does sound like the outer is giving somewhere and adding to the amount of cable pull required.

keezx

Yes, it has to be an issue with the cable routing/lay-out as the geometry of Veloce and Athena is the same.

Calpol

I thought as much. Time to replace cable and outers. Thanks guys - much appreciated

Stuart.M

Replace the cables but also simple checks like making sure the quick release lever isn't open on the calliper, and winding the adjuster on the calliper all the way in, then undo the 4/5mm Allen bolt, pull the cable through to take out the slack and re tighten. That should leave the lever feeling tight with not as much movement, and if you still want it tighter you can then wind out the adjuster again

desweller

Sounds like your outer housings are too short.

Calpol

DesWeller wrote:

Sounds like your outer housings are too short.

It seems that on the contrary a contributing reason was that they were too long. Anyway after much faffing and trying to stop cables fraying etc I ended up in a bit of mess. I had nabbed the cable of my summer bike as the original was too frayed to even think about using again. Had to trim 2nd cable a fair bit to get a good point that would thread through the housings and low and behold it ended up too short! So in order to be able to ride on Saturday I had to trim the housings back to shorten the cable requirement. Eventually got there and with about an 1.5" of cable to spare. Its solved the lever travel problem and provided I don't do any sharp RH turns the brakes aren't going to malfunction!

Thanks for the input chaps

rolf_f

I can't get my head round most of the above advice!

Stuart.M wrote:

Replace the cables but also simple checks like making sure the quick release lever isn't open on the calliper

This doesn't apply to Campag. All leaving the quick release does on Campag is cause the lever to move outwards - leaving slack between the lever and shifter paddle. It doesn't affect the brake operation.

DesWeller wrote:

Sounds like your outer housings are too short.

Unless you take it to extreme, I can't see how the housings can cause this problem. You pull the brake lever - that causes the brake cable to move by a certain amount. That amount is the same at the brake cable whether you have 30 inches or 30 miles of cable (well, obviously it isn't if you exaggerate that much!) - if you are able to move the lever a certain amount, nothing within reason will alter the amount of cable movement at the other end.

If the lever is touching the handlebar when the brake lever is operated, then the pads really must be too far from the rims to start with. If there is a problem with the outers, then that would tend to show up as the brake lever being slack due to the caliper spring being too weak to pull the pads away from the rims.

If your Athena is more powerful than your Veloce then you've got problems anyway - they should be exactly the same unless the pads are different.

Calpol wrote:

So in order to be able to ride on Saturday I had to trim the housings back to shorten the cable requirement. Eventually got there and with about an 1.5" of cable to spare. Its solved the lever travel problem and provided I don't do any sharp RH turns the brakes aren't going to malfunction!

Thanks for the input chaps

This is the perfect opportunity to switch to left front braking - you'll probably find you need less cable outer anyway!

desweller

If the housings aren't long enough to reach the frame stops at minimum load then they move around a lot when the cable tension increases and you get a compliant lever.

When I say 'too short' I mean really too short.

Glad the OP got it sorted though.