Brake failure

[summerdays]

I learnt a bit more about bike maintenance today... spent an hour yesterday trying to fix my sticking back brake... (OK I know very slow by most peoples standards), but I felt pleased that I had managed to adjust it slightly so it didn't rub (started rubbing on Friday).

Today rode into town and it seemed to start sticking again... little tool out again adjusting that screw ... didn't seem to work... decided to cycle home and take it to the LBS instead. On the way home the treacle effect became so bad I stopped again, decided to detatch back brake just to get me home via the back roads. Thats when I noticed that the spring had broken!!!! So tied it up with a jubilee clip and went to the bike shop and I'm now the proud owner of a new back brake but a little poorer.

I'm posting this incase anyone else is as thick as me and didn't know that the spring bit could fail - it just presented itself as a rubbing brake block.

Should it have been something I checked when it started rubbing?

 

[Paulus]

Hi there summerdays, I think you were a bit unlucky. In forty years of cycling I have never had that problem. Sticking calipers that needed a little TLC but nothing like you had. Still, at least you now know how to adjust your brakes up and how they work.

 

[redjedi]

I had the same problem with my front brake on my old bike.

I took it apart and fixed it 3 times before I gave in and went and bought a new brake.

Although I shouldn't have bothered as I purchased a brand new bike a few weeks later.

 

[frog]

Thats when I noticed that the spring had broken!!!! So tied it up with a jubilee clip and went to the bike shop

Congratulations! You are now, officially, a 'Cyclist'.

Roadside repairs with things like jubliee clips and oddments found in the gutter are what put us above lesser mortals (ped, drivers etc)

 

[summerdays]

Hmm it was on the old C+ site that I read about carrying them for emergency repairs - I was impressed that I had remembered I had them in the bottom of my pannier. So thanks to those who mentioned they were useful in the past.

 

[mickle]

Plastic zip-ties are the new jubilee clips.

 

[summerdays]

Yep thats what I meant... sorry my terminology isn't always very accurate.

 

[mickle]

S'okay I can read peoples minds.

 

[Arch]

Which book was it... Richard's 21st Century Bike Book perhaps?, that had a picture of a bike that had been 'emergency fixed' with all sorts of odds and ends - tyres stuffed with grass, a small branch screwed in as a replacment pedal, a tin can tied into a cable run for a snapped cable, bit of bent wire holding the chain together, zipties holding all sorts of things together... That's the beauty of bikes (especially perhaps, older, simpler ones) - you can bodge something together to get you home in a way that you can't with a car, well not a modern one...

 

[mickle]

Which book was it... Richard's 21st Century Bike Book perhaps?, that had a picture of a bike that had been 'emergency fixed' with all sorts of odds and ends - tyres stuffed with grass, a small branch screwed in as a replacment pedal, a tin can tied into a cable run for a snapped cable, bit of bent wire holding the chain together, zipties holding all sorts of things together... That's the beauty of bikes (especially perhaps, older, simpler ones) - you can bodge something together to get you home in a way that you can't with a car, well not a modern one...

Arch, did you know that I built that bike for Richards book? I feature in the photos too, thats me riding the red Trek city bike.