Front brake hanger - Noodle?

[roshi chris]

Hello all. Glad to be in a sane place again, that rader forum's shoot!


So anyway, on me Kaff', I have replaced crappy mini v brakes with cantilevers. Fine, but where the cable goes horizontally from the STI into the front hanger it kinks sharply to go through the hanger. I don't like the idea that every time I apply braking pressure it is essentially pulling the cable at near right angles to the vertical section where the cable runs to the brake arms.

Is it usual to use a V-brake style noodle to sort this out, or is there something else I am missing??

Cheers in advance

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Yes you can get hangers with a noodley bit, or one off a V brake might work. Alternatively some bikes use an upstanding bracket bolted to the hole in the fork crown instead of a hanger, but I find this less convenient.

 

[Monty Dog]

You can get tortuous cable runs, particularly if using a short stem on a small frame. From my own experiences, a vee-brake noodle is as good as anything, as is a short section of Nokon cables. You can also get a hanger with built-in noodle - but hard to find these days.

 

[roshi chris]

Cheers chaps, I should still have the noodles from the mini-vs somewhere so i'll try to bodge that. I just thought I might be missing something!

On a related note, my new cable/ brake hangers, both front and rear, have no 'stops' on them. What I mean is they guide the cable housing through them, but don't 'stop' the housing. I have seen others which do, and this would seem far more sensible and generally tidy. What is the advantage of my type of hanger? Or isn't there one??!

Ta

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Something must stop the outer with cantilever brakes. otherwise they wont work. Or am I not following you fully?

 

[roshi chris]

I'll try again, this is quite a test for my limit powers of description!

Take the front hanger as an example. The cable (inner and outer) runs from the STI to the hanger (which is attached to my fork steerer). The vertical cable guide hole through the hanger is of uniform diameter, with no flange or rim or anything else, so the cable inner and outer both run straight through this.

The cable inner and outer are now dangling vertically. they both extend a further couple of inches downwards before the outer cable ends in a ferrule and the cable inner continues down to the cantilever assembly.

The rear is the same. They do work, and the guy in my LBS says its fine, but it just doesn't seem quite right to me.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Well if they work, they work.

But I still can't see how you get any differential pull between the inner and outer if nothing is constraining the outer. Normally with cantilevers, the outer cable terminates on the hanger and only the inner passes through. Most odd.

 

[roshi chris]

Well, I spose when applying braking pressure the cable outer is stopped by the STI for the front, and the brazed cable stop on the top tube for the rear. When releasing the brake the outer is stopped by friction at the point where it passes through the hanger, both front and rear.

Seems a really strange design to me.

 

[fuzzy29]

Sounds a bit strange to me too. The outer cable should not move at all, only the inner cable should move. The outer should be fixed between the STi lever and the cable guide it goes in. This should only allow the inner cable through. Imagine a big hole at one end and a small hole at the other. If you think it looks a bit odd, take to another bike shop. While it might work fine in your shed, how will it act at 40 mph going into a hairpin bend? Apologies if you know all this, but I was a bit confused with your description.