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yellow belly
Member
Old brakes are old brakes. Got super record on my Paletti but need to think about braking and use my brain more than when using modern Ultegras. Just learn to ride with them and think ahead.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
The pads are too hard, either use Coolstop Salmons or Clarks. Also be aware that those brakes will not work with your hand on the 'hoods' and 2 fingers on the brake lever.
Also you say it was your first ride, had you set up the pads correctly or are they only making partial contact with the rim (until they 'wear in')
mikeymustard
Guru
Why is the drop so big, have you changed to 700c? As a - ahem - larger gentleman, I like to put dual pivot brakes on if I know I'm going to be riding the bike myself much. When I needed a longer drop I used these:
they're a nutted design rather than recessed.
Obviously the longer the drop, the more the arms are going to flex, and I was quite worried that for the price they might be shoit, but I've got these on the rear of a bike which has normal drop RSX dual on the front and there's no discernible difference.
Oh and I changed the pads for Clarks 3 colour pads
Illaveago
Guru
I was thinking about the stopping power of the old Weinmann brakes and remembered how I damaged the rear wheel on my Holdsworth. It was back in the 70's and I was chasing a mate to work, he was in a car ahead of me when he braked hard. There was no other option than to grab a handful of brakes, the front wheel locked and I went over the handlebars, the rear wheel slamming into the road buckling it.
The brakes were Weinmann centre pulls with pink ish brake blocks on ally rims and seem to had enough stopping power in their day.
The brakes were Weinmann centre pulls with pink ish brake blocks on ally rims and seem to had enough stopping power in their day.
sidevalve
Über Member
When well set up weinmann are good brakes. Either you have contaminated blocks / rims or something seriously wrong with the levers /cables / callipers or the callipers may not be fixed on their pivot-s properly. Unless as above you have the blocks only partially touching the rims.
tyred
Squire
They should be more than powerful enough if set up correctly with decent pads They will however need more hand pressure than modern brakes so anyone with small hands might find a problem.
It's worth stripping them down, cleaning and putting a smear of light grease or oil on the pivot and also the important but over-looked bit, clean the spring and the part it slides on on the calliper arms and apply a drop of light oil. If you have problems with any single pivot brake that won't stay centred, this often fixes it. Make sure cables are in good condition and oil the pivots on the brake levers.
It's worth stripping them down, cleaning and putting a smear of light grease or oil on the pivot and also the important but over-looked bit, clean the spring and the part it slides on on the calliper arms and apply a drop of light oil. If you have problems with any single pivot brake that won't stay centred, this often fixes it. Make sure cables are in good condition and oil the pivots on the brake levers.
Spokesmann
Keeping the Carlton and Sun names alive...
With the right brake set up/adjustments and modern blocks, they're still good stoppers. Sadly the best braking is on alloys rims, I still have a few bikes on steel rims and the braking is acceptable in the dry, never in the wet though... 