Road question – underpowered brakes, what's the solution

I’ve just started riding a road bike (2nd hand forum pick up obviously) and the brakes are not exactly filling me with confidence. Ignoring the fact there’s a lot of pull to get the rear to do anything, it doesn’t want to stop me when it does hit the rim. Is this likely to be new pads needed or something else as it’s not filling me with confidence and I was crapping myself coming down off Ranmore common. Oh yes, they’re Shimano 105s.

New cables and pads.

Road brakes will never be and do not need to be anything like as powerful as Discs on a MTB, you simply haven’t got the contact patch to use the extra power.

However there are options, first check the pads, not glazed, worn, cheap aftermarket, etc. Next check the rims, no oil, or brake residue on them?

As for the brakes, 105 shouldn’t be that bad so changing to Ultegra or Dura-Ace shouldn’t make much difference

My roadie brakes have always been rubbish, even with new cables and pads at the beginning, but they’re soras so I guess that explains it…

Although doesn’t help when going very fast down a hill which you know has a junction at the bottom and you need to stop 😕

try adjusting cable – tighter- and reduce the gap between pads and rim
They will never be as good as dicsc but they should work well and fill you with confidence that they will work when needed.

Just make sure the wheels are as straight as you can get them, then adjust the brakes so they hit the rims within a cm of lever movement. that’ll be good enough to stop you quick enough.

There is no such thing as poor road brakes, just poorly set up ones.

Clean the rims with something like cif bathroom cleaner. Anything that will clean and degrease. Take the pads out and either sand them down to fresh rubber, or my preferred method is to scrape them on concrete (garage floor for me) to take the glaze off. Then to stop them sounding like a duck you need to “toe” them in, which you do by putting about 1-2mm of card under the rear end of the pad, squeeze the lever then align/tighten pad bolts as usual.

My bmx brakes were always the best 😀

Ranmore Common is particularly steep!
All good advice above, as is not letting momentum build up so much as your braking capability on a road bike is never likely to be as good as discs.
I would say though that the top end brakes I have on my summer road bike are a hell of a lot better than the brakes on my winter road bike. 105 should be good enough but some of the hills in Surrey Hills whilst short, are quite steep and it might be worth upgrading if your adjustments don’t leave you happy…

adjust them like others have said plus try a new set of pads – koolstop salmon coloured ones or swisstop green are generally regarded as the best for alloy rims

i fitted some ridiculously expensive campag brakes to a road bike once when i still worked at a shop. I couldnt believe how powerful they were for road brakes, very impressive. Might be worth looking into if your desperate for more power?

105 will be fine. No need to “upgrade” unless it’s for weight purposes. I can lock the wheels in the dry with standard pads so cleaning the rim and new pads is the first port of call as mentioned. T

poor set up if you have 105

if you had tektro or some other no name crap id say change but 105 can be made to work fine by setting them up correctily

As said before new pads and cables. Maybe check the pivot bolts too. Also pads sitting close to the rim are a bit more powerful. Otherwise – which way off Ranmore? Into Dorking or Westhumble takes very little braking. Whitedown and CrockNorth are a different matter 😀

Having said that I ride Campag Record and never feel I need to stop any quicker without locking up.

Into Dorking but as it’s the first time I’ve been down there on the road I wanted to at least have some control over how fast I was going. Cables are new (bloke who sold it recabled for me) so I’ll swap the pads and clean the rims and see where that leaves me.

If it’s particularly steep and scary are you feathering the brakes as you use them?

Clean the rims too.

Be aware that braking with 105s is nothing like braking with discs. You’ll have to plan further ahead and reduce speed more gradually.

If it’s particularly steep and scary are you feathering the brakes as you use them?

Yep. I wasn’t hauling on the levers like a crazy man, just trying to control the speed but given my earlier issues with getting it stopped I wasn’t confident enough to let it gain any more momentum. I’m not expecting it to stop like discs but stopping as well as my 20 year old Raleigh with Wilkos brake pads would be a start.

there’s a lot of pull to get the rear to do anything,

I know you said ignore this but have you done the cams up on the calipers?

Every time road brakes come up, someone says “You haven’t got the contact patch to use more power”.

Basic physics will tell you that the contact patch has very little bearing on grip. The equation is F = uN

F is the force generated (ie, grip),
u is the coefficient of friction (ie, how grippy the tyre is)
N is the force between the two surfaces.

Differences in ultimate grip will result from different tyre compounds (ie, higher coefficient of friction), but contact patch is fairly irrelevant.

As for the brakes, assuming they’re dual pivots, you should be able to pull up pretty sharpish. Pad clearance needs to be VERY slim for them to work well, make sure all the contact surfaces are clean and that the cables are decent.

Adding nothing new, but new pads, new cables, clean the rims, and that’s ^ a useful remainder about the cams … I’ve come back in and wondered what’d gone wrong with my R break, only to find I’d left the cam open from a tyre change … 🙄

Well set up road brakes are good, lots of power / modulation – the older single pivot versions are a bit wooden, but the double-pivot stuff that’s been around for a while is pretty good. Clearance is key if you don’t like too much lever travel, so decent wheel tension comes into it.

Never ridden on them, so I’m taking this as anecdotal – but I’ve heard people say that carbon rims can be a bit vague as a braking surface …

Not sure if anybody mentioned this above but the back brake won’t stop you even when set up perfect. You might want to try using the front more.

Where are you applying the brake from? Hoods or drops? Always find it a bit harder to apply force from the hoods but that might just be me

no – it’s harder to exert the same leverage from the hoods IME. for this reason i usually run a reasonable gap between rim and block so that i can exert more pressure with the lever further in, but apparently i’m ‘doing it wrong’….
tektro brakes, OEM on my langster, were great until i replaced the pads, now merely ‘ok’.

New 6700 Ultegra pads are by far the best compound i’ve used, they have bags of power and seem to come on nicely as they heat up, no grab but really well controlled.

D/Ace meant to be even better. Much of it is down to pad quality. I like the Aztec dual compounds i’ve used too, similar to the Ultegra 6700 in feel but not quite as powerful.

I’d try swisstop green (v expensive) or koolstop salmon pads. They make a difference, especially in the wet.

I had the same problem with a 2nd hand bike.

New cables and pads didn’t help much.

The problem was in the pivot bolts. I took the calipers apart and the pivots had rusted creating a lot of friction in the brake itself. They should be nice and shiny like this
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/shimano-br-6500-pivot-bolt-assembly-507-mm–83h-9803-prod15893/

I solved the problem with a new bike and some Avid bb7s. Can now stop very quickly (despite the small contact patch)

So that might be on the list of stuff to check?

My dura ace pads are excellent, I ride Honister and the like regularly in all weathers and never feel like I’m under braked. Upgrade the pads.

105s are fine, they’ll do a perfectly good job on descents.
Setting up isn’t rocket science.

There shouldn’t be loads of pull, we’re talking fag paper clearances.
Bog standard Shimano pads and cables are perfectly good enough.
Don’t over torque the stirrup to the frame.
Light lube the pivots once a year.

Slight improvements can be made with high quality inner and outer cables. Use metal ferrules to stop compression.

Never forget it’s just a lever pulling a cable.

Ah, the mythical Dura Ace brake pad compound….

FYI, since 2005, all Shimano pads have been made with the exact same compound. So, those 105 pads are the same as the Dura Ace pads. Fun, huh? I think it is called the RRC52 pad.

The new groupsets have a improved compound in the pad to improve wet and dry braking so yes 105 is the same as 7900 Duraace but if OP hasn’t got the latest 105 group the latest pads will improve things.

You’ll get used to it

Use a lot more front brake, down there you should be on the drops and then you have a lot more leverage, but work up to it – I wouldn’t want to read a ‘actually road brakes can pull you up pdq’ thread written from a hospital bed

Don’t forget you are going pretty quick on a roady- I do 65-70 kmh down there – which is a bit quicker than I am on the MTB unless in freefall 🙂

I solved the problem with a new bike

😆

Don’t forget you are going pretty quick on a roady- I do 65-70 kmh down there – which is a bit quicker than I am on the MTB unless in freefall

Yeah, I hit 66kmh according to both my GPS and computer which was when my confidence wavered and I attempted to slow down.

Stay off the brakes. Simple.

HoratioHufnagel – Member

I had the same problem … was in the pivot bolts. I took the calipers apart and the pivots had rusted creating a lot of friction in the brake itself.

same here.

forget about the braking performance for moment, flip open the tyre-release cam-things and squeeze the levers – there should be very little friction.

Tron, they are partially correct in referencing contact area. Friction force cannot be exactly calculated for rubber by using F = uN as there is microhysteresis and macrohysteresis to take into account (although pretty small forces relatively).

The problem was in the pivot bolts. I took the calipers apart and the pivots had rusted creating a lot of friction in the brake itself

It was pivot rust that finally killed the cheapy no-name brakes on my road SS commuter bike. The replacement Tektro brakes I fitted were still pretty cheap but the difference was incredible.

As mentioned above, even bog standard brakes will do a good job, they just need setting up properly on clean rims and it’s always worth putting some new brake cables on as well.

Just bought my 1st road bike on Friday, a Brand New Trek 1.1, got it from All terrain Cycles, they seemed to be very thorough setting it up , although the brakes are quite poor (Tektro), modulation is fine but stopping power 2/10. I guess they need to bed in, I have only done about twenty miles on the thing. If they don’t get any better I will have a go with some better pads.

Still prefer my mountain bike, but the roadie is good for mid week training.

I have 105 brakes with standard shimano pads on my commuter/ training bike, with fulcrum 5 wheels, and have always found their performance great. I can’t say i set them up with ‘fag paper’ tolerances as I like some pull at the lever, and find the 105’s offer enough stopping power for that.

I’ve used spares lying around the house to set the brakes up again and they feel a lot better. I’ll drag myself over to Ranmore again in the morning and see if I die going down the hill.