The kids bmx has rim brakes (fortunately he hasn’t succumbed yet to the ‘no brakes at all’ fashion which is sweeping the scene), however the rear brake (center pull), I’ve learned, is COMPLETELY pony. it just doesn’t bite on the rim at all. Nothing. Nada. not a sausage.
it has absolutely no stopping power whatsoever. it won’t even slow the freely spinning wheel when the bike is on the workshop stand.

I’ve tried:
cleaning the pad
cleaning the rim
scuffing up the pad (the rim is already scored up)
centering the wheel &
aligning the pads
There is loads of material left in the pad & they are the same age as the front pads (which pull up fine).

Any ideas why the brakes don’t actually stop the bloody wheel turning??
& what the solution is?

my next port of call – I’m gonna swap the fronts for the rears to see if the problem travels with the pads…

Are the pads actually making contact with the rim?

Try replacing the cable inner and outer with decent quality cable. Makes a huge difference on long cable runs.

(Assuming that the brake is not rubbish like most kids bike brakes)

what Epi said

what brake is it? and is it running through a gyro?

I found BMX brakes to be useless back in the day (Dia Compe AD990 time) and even went brakeless so I wasn’t irritated by the fact the brake was so poor, bought an Oddysee Evolver when they first came out and couldn’t believe the difference!

Gyro’s make it way more fiddly to get the brake set up niceley and I find the plates flexy so you never get a good solid brake feel, chuck it in the bin!

Also, decent pads (the oddysee came with their own pads, called 1×4 or somethin, also do 2×4 which is for deeper section rims) and clean the rim.

Ah ha the splitter behind the Giro!!

on closer inspection – it’s not got a continuous cable like an MTB. it has a giro on the headstock to allow bar spins & a cable splitter under the top tube to bring the 2 cables back to 1 to link to the rear brake caliper.
The “splitter” has a very limited amount of travel inside it, so adjustments for pads need to be done behind the splitter & adjustments for lever travel etc need to be done in front of it.

EDIT> (mike> it’s a tektro centre pull. not sure if the plates flex. :/ it’s a pretty cheap Viper got for my kid to hack about on. As long as he can stop it before he hits another car I’ll be happy)

There you go – enjoy

Bin the gyro thing and fit a full length cable… I tried for ages to set up my nephews bike when it was new, the gyro things seem at best rubbish.

yeah, but everyone knows BMXs aren’t for riding on – they are for kids to use to assert their self image. it wouldn’t be the same unless it ‘looked’ like it can do bars spins – irrespective of the riders ability to do bars spins.
for what it’s worth I can’t drive down the motorway @ 155mph, legally or otherwise with the traffic these days, but I still (stupidly) own a car that can.

do you think there is a practical reason to ride a bmx to his girlfriends house (at the other end of town) when he’s got a faster lighter spesh XC mtb in the garage???

none of the cool kids run gyros

alacantra

I bet he doesn’t ride to his G/Fs house without brakes either

And he ‘might’ be talented, but he looks like a feckless **** who should have grown up & got a job 😉

he looks like a feckless ****

I think he’s just Spanish!

He is the best rider in the world though imo

I wish I had a fraction of the skills I see on some of those kids on BMX bikes 🙂