My gf has a Cotic Roadrat fitted with v-brakes. The fronts are fine and work great but the rears are a bugger to set up properly and get a nice feel. I personally feel that the Rear seat stays and canti studs are to far in. When the arms are fitted with the brakes touching the rims and the small brake pad spacers on the inside the arms sit out at quite an extreme angle, giving the brakes a very soggy feel. She is running LX brake arms on Mavic A319 rims. I have tried narrower rims and parralel push brakes but still encounter this problem. Has anyone come across this problem or does anyone have an idea about how to solve it without going to discs?
Its not just what all V-brakes do is it? Ie the (compressible) brake cables (which theres more of to the rear) is squashing more, hence feeling more spongy?
If you've tried narrower wheels and different brakes i'd assume it is the cables/ cable run. Also what levers are you using?
I can't remember what the canti stud mounts look like off hand as I use discs on mine, but if *it is* being caused by the distance from the canti studs to the rim, can't you swap the direction round so they're mounted to the frame the other way?
And your return springs are in the right stop hole? I'm struggling to visualise this, but messing about with spring stops often helps....
I would agree but I am no V brake expert.
I had XTR V's on mine and that was my first experience of that kind of brake. They really stuck out at the back.
I got rid as I was getting through pads at such a rate it was costing a fortune. Running disks now. Much better!
MM
Tried all of the above and they still angle out quite far when pads are in contact with the rim. If they would sit more vertical like on my On-one then it would be fine. She is running deore levers by the way. It Seems to me that the canti studs are placed to far in.
As soon as I left the office yesterday and looked at the back of my 'rat I realised what a numpty suggestion I made 🙂 Of course you can't mount the canti stud brackets the opposite way... duh
The rear vee on my ROADRAT has arms sticking out at angles, but is NOT mushy at all. Works really well, just not pretty.
Yep, same here. Front shimano is fine, rear Avid Single digit thing with avid lever worked well but stuck out so far i took it off cos it just looked wrong. Only commute on it though so front brake is fine.
+1 this problem. As far as I can tell, the posts are way too close together. Compare the post-to-post distance in the front (or indeed, any other MTB) to the rear.
Between this and some disc tab alignment issues, I'm not exactly thrilled with my RR experience thusfar....
Can relate to this problem to with my RR - brake arms don't quite stick out at 10 to 2 but they're worse than 5 to 11. Thought I'd got something in the wrong place when I changed pads. Got a BB7 on the front and will probably put disk on back at some point to though then think adjusting chain slack might become more of a PITA
Just looked at date of OP. Good bit of forum archaelogy Marburg!