Alternative placement of Travel Agent

[TimO]

Click for bigness

Last week I fitted some Shimano XTR parallel push full sized V-brakes to the rear of my Pomp, to replace the Mini-Vs originally fitted.  Once I'd removed the originals and put the new ones on, I realised that I couldn't fit the Travel Agent, because it's not quite as slim as the Noodle (see the above image), and the rack gets in the way.  I've sort of bodged it, since the levers can be opened up a bit more (I assume this a feature to aid tyre removal when visited by the fairy), and with some adjustment they still work, but not as nicely as they should.

Looking at it, I don't see any reason why I can't cut the cable outer a couple of inches shorter and fit the Travel Agent so that it goes into the noodle, instead of directly into the brake bracket.  I realise that this isn't a normal arrangement, and I loose the low friction advantage of the Travel Agent replacing the noodle entirely, but it seems to me that this should work, and avoids the Travel Agent fouling on the rack supports.  The travel agent should reduce the friction of the current curved cable run, so it isn't all bad.

In an ideal world, I could use a short straight noodle, just to position the Travel Agent further away, but I don't have any easy way to make such a thing, with the right diameter, and the edges to mount correctly and firmly into the brake.

I also thought about getting an inline Travel Agent, but aside from the relative difficulty of acquiring one (for the bog standard Travel Agent, I just popped into BikePlus), I'm not sure there is actually a convenient place to put it, there isn't much (any?) straight cable run to the rear brake.

Can anyone suggest any reason why I shouldn't do this?

[chris]

Diacompe and Tektro do levers for drop bars that are designed to work with V brakes. I have the Diacompe levers (about £30) fitted to my tourer and they work very well. By all accounts the Tektro levers are even better and only £15.

[tatanab]

On a machine with similar issues (at the front only) I hung the travel agent from the stem pinch bolt, old style 1" quill stem but something similar could be done with a front loader.  I used the top bracket from a front mudguard to hang the travel agent from.  The only trouble with doing this is that you need to have cable outer leaving the travel agent.  I did this by getting a double ended ferrule and paring down the exit of the travel agent slightly (the bit that normally fits into the brake) and it worked very well in deed.

So in your case you might do something similar at the front and hang it from the seat tube pinch bolt at the rear.  Or maybe hang both from the same bracket at the front.

CTC Chris Juden says that travel agents are most effective when fitted nearer to the lever.  I don't recall the justification.

[PH]

If the only problem is the rack stays being in the way, consider them and fitting the brakes as designed.
M Part make a seatpost clamp with rack mounts, I use one on a bike with no eyelets and it works fine;
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/images/mpart%20spt102.jpg