Any suggestions? Number one complaint is the brakes. New bb7 road calipers bedded in properly and they still barely stop. It’s probably the awful shifters. Debating on just going back to flat bars and running hydros
by Olderschoolwillie
Any suggestions? Number one complaint is the brakes. New bb7 road calipers bedded in properly and they still barely stop. It’s probably the awful shifters. Debating on just going back to flat bars and running hydros
by Olderschoolwillie
28 Comments
silver seatpost is out of place aesthetically.
Chrome the stem and cockpit, switch out pedals to chrome, and switch tires to black. Otherwise it’s nice build.
Go hydraulic and sintered pads. Then buy a comfort bar you like, or just a simple one with a lot of backsweep
I’m just going to throw this out there…
swap the saetpost for lack or get some more silver in the cockpit.
bar shape doesn’t match the build (to me), pedals clash, maybe get some color in your bartape.
Looks kinda reachy
That weld is a crazy level of commitment. Yeah. Full hydro for sure. I am also not sold on the drops.
Mechanical brakes should provide plenty of stopping power on a small, lightweight bike like that. Hydro is not going to solve the problem. Something isn’t right with the setup brake-wise.
Great looking bike!
compressionless housing is kinda a must imho, dont know which one you took.
another big thing is brake pads and rotors, assuming you run resin rotors, i would suggest kool stop or swiss stop pads, they are day and night conpated to oem pads.
i personally like the trp spyre much more than the bb7, but that might just be me and personal preference.
another option would be the trp hydro, its a mechanical actuated hydraulic brake, pretty nice feeling to it, comes in at around 120€ a piece i believe.
you could also opt for gevenalle levers, they would be available in 3×9 hydraulic, which is the only option for hydraulic 3×9 i believe.
shimano started hydraulic sti with claris 2x10c but that comes with a whole new drive train.
this excludes alixpress options, cause im too lazy to investigate the trustworthy ones, so ill stay conservative on safety stuff like brakes.
Which fork is that? Looks a little long
I will never trust a disc brake tab hacked onto a cantilever frame, no matter how nicely it’s been done. A lot of faff for no real advantage.
That said, BB7s are absolutely fine calipers, so check the cable pull of your levers and make sure they’re compatible with your brakes. You may have to go for bar end shifters and long pull brake levers. Tektro make pretty comfortable ones at a decent price.
Could be the photo angle, but the front wheel looks a little ‘under’ the frame. What’s the fork offset?
Sexy tires 🔥
Is this your normal sized frame for flat bars? How does the cockpit feel with the drops?
If your levers are indeed short pull then maybe something else is just not right with them.
Honey brown B17
1x
Sometimes new pads and rotors need a little time to break in. My Marin was like that when it was new, it’s fine now.
Also, it’s hard to tell from the picture, but are your rotors on backwards? That won’t cause breaking issues but the rotor could fail under stress.
I’m no expert. You brake housings, are they compressionless. I like the tires. Lots black bicycles out there, they’re kind of blah to me. Some kind of alt bars. It’s always easy to spend other people’s money though. My $0.02 ATB
Black seatpost, darker blue (VP Vice?) pedals.
Go with bar end shifters and Shimano aero levers.
Or… maybe you’ve got MTB BB7s not road brakes? If so you could try V-brake levers.
I love the BB7s
Many customers used them for touring when not wanting to pay for hydro road shifters (too damn pricey)
Plus, they had the benefit of adding auxiliary brake levers.
Loaded touring did not create an issue for these brake calipers.
Are those Sora shifters? I too, am not a fan of the leverage of those. Entry level shifters are intentionally designed to have a less powerful leverage ratio than race level components.
If you can source an older model of 105 or Ultegra, the I recommend that.
I would experiment with a larger rotor size before dropping $$$ on a new set of hydro
What about switching to bar cons and SRAM S500 levers? Something about that combo is really good. I would also just revisit your caliper/pad alignment.
Get surly corner bars and different shifters entirely.
I’ve found that compressionless housing helped my mech disc brakes feel a lot better, especially for the rear brake.
I have spyres with compressionless, and I have no complaints (other than the way they do pad adjustment, but that’s a different thing).
Don’t want to second guess but are you sure they are BB7 road? That would explain squishy long pull if you had MTB calipers on there
Have you tried adjusting the levers, so its “in” more. You extended the reach quite a bit, so now it requires more work to use those brakes.
Some good suggestions on color / aesthetic alterations made by other commenters.
I like to get ideas from here, too: [https://bikerebuilds.com/](https://bikerebuilds.com/)
For my Trek 930 (pic), I like the look and ride of the black Kenda Kiniption tires — with the caveat that they aren’t knobby. Definitely the tan sidewalls don’t jive with the black bar-tape and saddle.
https://preview.redd.it/zw074sudfbkg1.jpeg?width=3552&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64c2a2cfa8345bc814ed03525a726af91f10657c
is that a 700c fork? the geometry looks a little peculiar
I like my bikes a lil twitchy but with a tiny stem and drop bars and a less slack than factory fork you’re pushing it…. I’d go for longer stem and swept back bars no drops
Origin * drop bar-ends are great for flat bars if you are going to that positioning/look. Then you can run whatever shifters/levers you want. I always liked Crane for my mechanical brakes but lots of cheap options out there.
Flat bars all the way