Very basic brake advice

[two choices]

There seems to be quite a lot of play on my brake levers, and although they're still working ok, I'm wondering if I now need to some adjusting or change of the brake cables.

The bike is a Dawes Karakum, the brakes are V brakes & I've done over 1000 miles on it since I bought it new in April. I'm a complete novice when it comes to bike maintenance but want to learn how to do the basics. Can anyone help?

[thirdcrank]

What do you mean by 'play.' I think many people will mean that the levers themselves are loose and will waggle from side to side. If you mean that the levers need to be pulled further than they used to need, in order to work the brakes, then the cable probably need tightening. There should be some sort of screw adjusters, probably on the levers themselves or possibly further down the cable. They only work for fine adjustment and eventually, you may need to adjust the cable where it is fastened to the brake by loosening the fastening, moving the cable through a bit and then retightening the fastener. Eventually, new brake shoes will be needed when the originals are worn out.

The specific details depend on the model of brakes and without knowing that, it's not easy to say more.

From a quick google, they seem to be Shimano. Shimano service instructions are here

http://techdocs.shimano.com/techdocs/index.jsp

Navigate to your model of brake. SI = service instructions (which is what you want) EV - exploded view, which is for identifying parts by serial number if you need spares.

[two choices]

It's the latter, thirdcrank. I.E. the levers need to be pulled further than they used to. I'll have a go at search out & adjusting the screw adjusters.

[iandriver]

Here's a vee brake how to from park tool. Most likely, you'll only need to turn the barrel adjuster (see pic in link) but if that's run out of adjustment, you'd need to adjust the cable, as previous poster says:

http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=21

[thirdcrank]

two choices

Just so you understand what you are trying to do. A combination of brake wear and possibly some slight cable stretch means that your inner cable is now slightly too long to apply the brakes as you expect. (The design of V brakes means they are more sensitive to this than other styles of brake.) The easiest way to take up some of the slack is with the adjuster - usually on the lever - which, when it is screwed out a bit, effectively lengthens the outer cable by that amount. You can only really use trial and error to know how much and then screw up the locking ring to ensure that the adjuster does not work it's way back. You need to keep a regular eye on the brake blocks AKA pads - the bits that rub against the rim to stop the bike - because they will wear out, sometimes quite quickly in mucky conditions. If you let them get too far without replacing them, eventually the metal bits which hold the brake shoes will come into contact with the rim, and even if the loss of braking effect isn't immediately noticeable they will scrape the rim, eventually scoring it and causing permanent damage.

The brake shoes normally have little wear indicators to help avoid getting that far.

[two choices]

Thanks for all that. (I've been offline for a couple of days.) Hopefully tomorrow will be brake maintenance day , I'll let you know how I get on.