Hello,
My 1980's Raleigh road bike suffers from poor braking at the back, the front is just about acceptable, but obviously much less important. What happens is I pull the handle and nothing happens until the very last part of the travel, when it then it grabs lightly. The 'feel' of the braking action is soft and unresponsive with lots of stretch.This has been going on for a few years now, but gradually getting worse, to the point where I'm not happy cycling around other road traffic, as the bike just doesn't stop in time.
What I've done in attempt to remedy this, is: replaced the brake cable - made no difference, I then replaced the full length of outer cable, this improved things a bit, but I did this a few years ago, and things are worse now. I recently replaced the rear wheel as it was not particularly straight and the rim was heavily scored - I think from dust getting in to the brake blocks. I replaced the brake blocks at the same time as I didn't want the possibility of this happening again on the new wheel. As this hasn't improved performance, I also cut down the outer cable so there's less flex in the cable, and I've just now replaced the inner cable again as well.
How well do you think I need to strap the outer cable at the handlebar end? It does move around a little when pulling the handle. It doesn't look like there's much wrong with handle end - The only thing left is to get new callipers but as the bike is old fashioned now, they seem difficult to find.
My 1980's Raleigh road bike suffers from poor braking at the back, the front is just about acceptable, but obviously much less important. What happens is I pull the handle and nothing happens until the very last part of the travel, when it then it grabs lightly. The 'feel' of the braking action is soft and unresponsive with lots of stretch.This has been going on for a few years now, but gradually getting worse, to the point where I'm not happy cycling around other road traffic, as the bike just doesn't stop in time.
What I've done in attempt to remedy this, is: replaced the brake cable - made no difference, I then replaced the full length of outer cable, this improved things a bit, but I did this a few years ago, and things are worse now. I recently replaced the rear wheel as it was not particularly straight and the rim was heavily scored - I think from dust getting in to the brake blocks. I replaced the brake blocks at the same time as I didn't want the possibility of this happening again on the new wheel. As this hasn't improved performance, I also cut down the outer cable so there's less flex in the cable, and I've just now replaced the inner cable again as well.
How well do you think I need to strap the outer cable at the handlebar end? It does move around a little when pulling the handle. It doesn't look like there's much wrong with handle end - The only thing left is to get new callipers but as the bike is old fashioned now, they seem difficult to find.