Matching sti levers to v breaks.Can I make v brakes work?

jonnya777

Hello all,
I have put a pair of drop bars on a 2005 Specialized Rockhopper and put sti flight deck road levers (2002 year) on the bike and stripped it to a single gear bike. It has XT v brakes. I have noticed the levers dont have enough 'cam action' (is that the phrase?) to give the v brakes enough power to brake before the brake lever touches the handle bar. Also when setting up; if i give the blocks 1mm of clearance to rim there is now braking power whatsoever!!!!

Is there a fix for this? Can I get the levers to work with the v brakes. Please let me know. Thank you, Jonathan.

The Rookie

Yep, you need road pull brakes to go with the road pull levers (higher leverage ratio and pull less cable overall), either cantilever (if you can call them brakes) or mini V-s.

You can just about get V's to work with road pull levers if the wheels are dead true and you run the pads REALLY CLOSE, but it's not ideal, also a quality low(er) compression cable helps.

jonnya777

Thanks,
The best first reply I've ever had from a forum.
I'm going to try to also position the levers high on the bar (not daftly high) to get more ' cable pull' on the v brakes...lets see if that works.
Thanks again.

dgmoose

I've built a couple of drop bar mountain bikes myself.

The Specialized Rockhopper is a good choice for a frame since it has downpull front derailleur cable routing and a seatstay bridge which make it ideal for drop bar conversion.

If you want to keep the v-brakes then you need to convert the pull ratio using something like Problem Solvers "Travel Agents" device on the front and rear brake.

If you switch to mini-vees then tyre clearance will be a problem.

If you switch to canti brakes then you will need two cable hanger-stops for the frame. If you have a suspension fork then you need the version that bolts onto the fork brace - this can also be bolted to the seatstay bridge (or get a seat clamp with built-in hanger-stop). For a rigid fork, get the version that mounts on the steerer tube.

jonnya777

Thanks for that...useful information. I found the travel agent component on ebay. I was going to buy a pair until I remembered whilst rebuilding a Dawes tourer for a friend...(it had drop bars and the earliest v brake style around 1997-99?) quite splayed /wide v brakes...I have some in a draw in my workshop..I found them and have all component parts. I will install this weekend. Thanks again, Jon.

If they dont work I will obviously use the travel agent!

trek_dan

If you running single speed you can by Tektro levers (circa £20) that have the correct pull ratio for full size V brakes. I run this setup on singlecross bike as road pull mini-Vs don't give much mud clearance and decent canti's are a fortune.