PH wrote:Can't make out if you've gone for form or function or just had some random parts - the brakes look great, but are they a match for modern ones? Then there's that crankset, it draws my eye from everything else, looks like it belongs on another bike or era.
Have you heard my rants about pads rising into the tyre with wear on dual-pivot brakes? That design flaw irked me, maybe especially because I use rims with shallow brake tracks. That and being a young, light man (with consequently high grip strength for my body weight) prompted me to try single-pivot brakes.
As I said, the front squeals slightly. It improved during today’s ride so I think the new pads may have a skin or need a toe-in (which arises naturally from wear because the arms twist under hard braking to wear the heel more than the toe). I’ll give it another few days before deciding whether I need to tackle the squeal in some explicit way.
Otherwise these brakes are not much different from my BR-R650 callipers with BL-R400 levers in power or feel. They have a measurably lower mechanical advantage, but the friction in the non-aero cables is lower, not least because these cables are new. They have a light, smooth action until the pads hit and then they feel at least as firm as my BR-R650s. The arms flex more than the BR-R650’s in the fore-aft direction when pulled around by the rim while the brake is on, but you can’t feel that through the lever. I don’t recognise the complaints I’ve read about these brakes, which makes me think set-up is critical to their good operation. There are many things you can do wrong, from a sloppy pivot adjustment to high cable friction to spongy housing ends to old dried-out pads. My nearly NOS brakes both arrived with the pivots ludicrously loose and not a drop of lubricant anywhere.
You need to lubricate the pivots and spring contacts. I’ve already ridden with the Campagnolo brake on the rear on my old frame for several weeks (after the miniscule ball bearings in my rear BR-R650 turned into a corroded mess). It worked great, but I did need to periodically put a single drop of oil on each spring contact to stop them squeaking and to keep the brake centred. That job beats fiddling with pad height in my book. It takes ten seconds while lubricating the chain.
I don’t want to make any grand claims until I solve the squealing, but first impressions are excellent. These feel nothing whatsoever like the brakes on an old ten-speed! They feel pretty modern.
Everything on this bicycle was chosen for functional reasons first. Of course my priorities may differ from another rider’s. I’m seeking low running costs, low maintenance requirements, and good on-the-road reliability. Only after those were fulfilled to the best of my knowledge did I consider aesthetics, which mainly involved choosing silver components where there was a choice (e.g. rims, spokes, hubs, seatpost, stem; the handlebar was silver whether I wanted that or not) and matching the saddle and hoods colour (brown) for a little coordination to soften the contrast of silver versus black.
As for the cranks, they too were chosen for function but I’ve run into a couple of hiccups with them. The external bearings don’t last long either, even though I’m only 65 kg and don’t push the pedals that hard. I’m ready to try a good square-taper crank again. And, as if on cue, a friend gave me his old FC-7410 a few days ago. If it’s in decent condition (I haven’t got it yet), I’ll be trying that. Maybe that will be more to your taste.
