Cable cut by caliper?!

pcandyhk

Hi all,

First of all, I had no experience on fitting and adjusting brake/shifter cable.

I was assembling a new bike recently delivered to me, and installed the rear derailleur fine.
However when I installed the cable at the front brake, which is Tektro R540, and readjusted it a few times, a half dozen of wires of the cable are cut.

I wonder whether thats due to I have tighten the cable too hard, or thats a defect (sharp edges) of the brake caliper?
Should I get new cables and brake caliper?

Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy

andcp

Where have they severed? if it's at the bolt/washer that holds the cable to the caliber you may have overtightened it. If there is a sharp edge on the caliber, you may be able to file it smooth, but a new cable sounds to be in order. A photo or two would be helpful.

ayjaycee

Personally, I would replace any Tektro brakes whether they cut cables or not. Three words - 'they are cr4p'. Have a look at the multitude of other threads on the subject here on BR for alternative brake recommendations.

pcandyhk

Andcp: Yes it is near the bolt, sounded like I have overtightened it. Hopefully a new cable would solve the problem! May be a good excuse to get rid of the secondary levers as well!

Ayjaycee: I have scanned through some discussions over the web, some suggested the Tektro caliper is 90% similar to 105, and the 10% is made up from the sloppy pad. Do you think a pad replacement would be sufficient?

ayjaycee

I initially replaced the Tektros on my Allez with 105 5800 calipers and the stock 105 pads and they were much better than the Tektros. I then swapped the 105 pads for Swisstop Flash Pro BXP (the blue ones) and there was another improvement - I would therefore say that the difference between the Tektros with original pads and 105s with Swisstops was significant and worth every penny. That said, I have never tried Tektros with the Swisstop pads and you may find that would improve things enough (but only you can make that judgement!). I have Ultegra 6800 on another bike (with same Swisstops) and they are better again BUT I don't know whether that is down to the calipers, the Ultegra STIs, the different rims or just because I want them to be. In an ideal world, I would also have fitted Ultegras to my Allez as well but they do not have enough room for my chosen mudguards whereas the 105s have a bit more room in them.

Somebody will probably be along in a minute to say that all the improvements are, indeed, in my imagination but I would rather listen to the voices in my head than the dissenters any day.

As an aside, none of the above are quite as good as the hydraulic disk brakes on my hybrid but that's a whole new debate. Suffice to say that I have never really felt the need for disks on my road bikes but they will probably feature on the next one I buy (although hopefully that's some way in the future as I am more than happy with what I currently have, at least until I get the N+1 bug again).

pcandyhk

At the end I did the same replacing the Tektros with the 5800 caliper at the front, the braking power is so much better indeed.

P.S. I think the design of Tektro is not good enough, easily cutting cables, have to be extra extra careful for installation. In comparison the 5800 caliper is so much easier to install and adjust... and with much better pad.