hi guys
just had a brill day at delamere, my first day out on proper trails, love it. ive got home and washed my bike and noticed that when i spin my front wheel the rotor is catching on the pads. i took the wheel off and the pads closed and wouldnt open, managed to open them to put my wheel back on, but there not fully open. when i spin the wheel it will stop after a couple of turns. have i pushe dthem to hard this afternoon, i no i used them alot on the bike parks ! bikes less then a month old. there avid juicy 3 brakes. any help or advice really welcomed.

many thanks, gaz

Is the bike new? or under any gaurantee with the shop you bought it from? If so take it back and tell them you have a sticy piston in your front brake and ask if they could sort it for you. If it is not under warantee and you have a friendly local bike shop turn up with some biscuits and they may just sort it for you.

If you want to do it your self, idealy you will need a little brake fluid to wipe on pistons of the brakes and a small spaner

Remove the wheel from the bike, then remove the pads from the caliper, next thing you want to do is slide the spanner inbetween the pistons and press it against one pistons and pump the brake lever, this will push the opposite piston out BE CAREFULL NOT TO PUSH IT TOO FAR OUT. Smear a little of the brake flid on the piston and press it back in with the spanner. Repeate this process for both pistons a couple of times, push both pistons back ,clean everything with lots of water and put everything back together and it should sort the problem.

DO NOT GET ANY BRAKE FLUID ON THE PADS YOU WILL WRECK THEM.

thankyou, i will give it a try, how come this happens, is it just one of those things ?? bikes new and under warrenty buts its a canyon and i dont fancy sending it germany if i can sort it out myself with little trouble.

many thanks again

It happens by the seal holding the piston in place becomming dry, then the piston being pushed out and moving ever so slightly out of alignment. It is a common problem with avid brakes and i don’t know why it is so much of problem.

Avid brakes use dot 5.1 fluid but if you have a little dot 4 fluid kicking about it will do exactly the the same thing. On a previous thread someone had had good results with castrol red rubber grease (small amounts redily available on eBay) instead of dot fluid.