Brake question

jedidiah

Ok so I am only just into real road cycling .. i have had a pretty decent hybrid for many years and can happily cycle 100 mile days on it. I bought myself a lovely second hand road bike with full dura ace some weeks ago; first thing I did was take it down my friendly independent LBS to check everything was ok which apparently it was.
Now the thing is, I'm not 100pc convinced the breaks are set up correctly .. there is no response at all for the first couple cm of the lever and I find it very difficult to bring the bike to a complete standstill particularly when going downhill .. this is significantly limiting my confidence in going at decent speed. To get the bike to completely stop the levers seem to need to be crunched all the way they can go, and to me the breaks seem worse than any bike i've ridden before, which obviously i didn't expect with top of the range material, though as said I have never ridden a real road bike before so maybe this is how it is meant to work?
any help or advice would be really appreciated!
Thanks

Fypo

Thats definitely not how its meant to work, your brakes may just need some adjusting which is very easy to do, the channel GCN on youtube has a few videos on it, if that doesn't work you may need to replace your brake pads but I cant tell without a picture.

simon_masterson

It sounds like you just need to take in some cable - undo the anchor bolt, pull some cable through (needle nose pliers are good for this), retighten anchor bolt when you have the braking action you want. I would really hope that a bike shop would cover something so basic.

ElectronShepherd

It would also be worth checking that the quick release lever (the one on the brake caliper, not the wheel axle) is fully home.

If you're not familiar with it, there's a lever on the caliper that widens the gap between the brake pads. It's not there to adjust the brakes - that's done with the clamp bolt as already discussed. It's there to allow a fully pumped up wheel to be easily removed, since usually an inflated tyre won't go past the brake blocks if they are properly adjusted.

It's easy for it to get knocked open, especially if it's been transported to and from an LBS.

See http://si.shimano.com/php/download.php? ... 00-ENG.pdf for a diagram.

trailflow

How old is the bike ? What version of Dura Ace calipers are they ? How old are the brake cables ?

Lots of possibilities
Bad cablse and housing
Wrong Lever for the caliper
The pads could be contaminated
The pads could be cheap and useless
The rims could be worn (concave) or filthy/contaminated
Pads in the wrong position
Loose brake pad holders
Cable too slack
Cable clamped wrong
Brake loose on fork
Damaged caliper

cougie

My money is on the OP having the qr undone on the calipers.

DA is excellent so it will be set up to blame but really it's not rocket science to investigate this.

step83

cougie wrote:

My money is on the OP having the qr undone on the calipers.

DA is excellent so it will be set up to blame but really it's not rocket science to investigate this.

Same, number of times ive set off gone to use it an its not there because the QR is open its near enough every other ride

jedidiah

Thanks a lot guys .. I was aware of the QR on the brakes as I'd needed to take the wheel off for transport and that was set correctly. I guess it probably just needs taking in some cable a bit as per the suggestion, and Ill have a go at that.
The model is, Shimano Dura-Ace BR-9000
Thanks again,

keef66

Well I just put 105 5800 calipers on my summer bike and they are awesome. They use the same brake blocks as are supplied OEM with Dura Ace calipers, so yours, properly set up, should also be very effective.

Whip out the brake blocks and roughen them slightly on a piece of emery paper on a flat surface. Pick out any embedded stones or bits of metal while you're at it. Also give the brake tracks a good scrub with hot, soapy water, then rub them clean and dry with a clean cloth.

As above, adjust the cablles to get the blocks a bit closer to the rims, so the brakes start to bite a bit sooner and you're not able to pull the lever all the way back to the bars.

jedidiah

keef66 wrote:

Well I just put 105 5800 calipers on my summer bike and they are awesome. They use the same brake blocks as are supplied OEM with Dura Ace calipers, so yours, properly set up, should also be very effective.

Whip out the brake blocks and roughen them slightly on a piece of emery paper on a flat surface. Pick out any embedded stones or bits of metal while you're at it. Also give the brake tracks a good scrub with hot, soapy water, then rub them clean and dry with a clean cloth.

As above, adjust the cablles to get the blocks a bit closer to the rims, so the brakes start to bite a bit sooner and you're not able to pull the lever all the way back to the bars.

Thanks .. you can easily get the wheels off mine without undoing the brake QRs so Im pretty sure it needs adjusting a bit .. im bit sad my local bike shop didnt notice this when i got it serviced though.

shimanobottombracket

jedidiah wrote:

keef66 wrote:

Well I just put 105 5800 calipers on my summer bike and they are awesome. They use the same brake blocks as are supplied OEM with Dura Ace calipers, so yours, properly set up, should also be very effective.

Whip out the brake blocks and roughen them slightly on a piece of emery paper on a flat surface. Pick out any embedded stones or bits of metal while you're at it. Also give the brake tracks a good scrub with hot, soapy water, then rub them clean and dry with a clean cloth.

As above, adjust the cablles to get the blocks a bit closer to the rims, so the brakes start to bite a bit sooner and you're not able to pull the lever all the way back to the bars.

Thanks .. you can easily get the wheels off mine without undoing the brake QRs so Im pretty sure it needs adjusting a bit .. im bit sad my local bike shop didnt notice this when i got it serviced though.

Thats because they are crap

cougie

Jeez who set that up then. At least it's something you can fix yourself eh?