Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Folders => Topic started by: Gattopardo on 08 September, 2017, 07:52:59 pm
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How to improve brompton braking. Is the only choice brompton leaver and brompton dual pivot brakes.
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There might be other options but for £100 all in I can't fault the Brompton offering.
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The Brompton dual pivot calipers are good enough for most purposes. I run mine with v-brake cartridge pads, and my lovely old Dia Compe SS-5 levers. I've found the caliper pivots are a bit prone to seizing, and respond well to semi-regular greasing.
I did experiment with a Birdy fork on my bike; the braking was necessarily with a v-brake, and it was very noticeably better than the dual pivot. For much more money you can have Ben at Kinetics do a disc fork; a disc rear would require something other than the BWR hub.
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Kinetics do a rear disk brake too but it requires a new rear triangle and Rohloff or Alfine hub with a full or half walletectomy respectively.
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First thing to improve Brompton braking would be to have the current iteration of the Brompton brakes. They greatly improved the levers in 2013 or so.
I fitted KoolStop salmon pads to mine, but that's more about rim wear than actual stopping power.
It's got me down several double-chevron descents without too much drama, but my hands were quite fatigued afterwards. The nature of the Brompton fold means poor brake lever ergonomics.
If you're doing heavily loaded touring, then discs might be worthwhile. But likely so would anything that's not a Brompton.
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While they are probably the shittiest of the brakes on any bike I own, they work bearing that in mind and you need to keep a lot of pressure on the levers. Which is good, because my steep drive opens out on a 25% descent (keeping traction in the wet is far worse than the actual braking, even with my entire weight on the back, especially in autumn where the road is slimy with leaf mulch and even feathering the front brake becomes a bit treacherous). There's a lot of hills and descents hereabouts, so any brakes get a workout.
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As Greenspeed seem to stopped making the special narrow brake hub
(I had sort of expected an official version as an option from Brompton: I don't see why SA couldn't easily narrow the hub by removing mid-section without the mad spoke attachment of the Greenspeed):----
Steve Parry has recently squeezed a standard SA front brake hub into a Brompton (see Ato B mag 116 article). Presumably he used 100mm forks....perhaps Kinetics sell such forks?
Using a standard width SA hub brake could allow use of combined brake dyno option
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Er maybe checking that the single pivot brakes actually move as freely as the should and lubing the cables with ceramic grease seems to have worked wonders....opps.
At £100 for just calipers and levers feels a bit steep to me. the rims seem a little worn too. So made a decision that fix things that are needed and look at rim umpgrades and then the brakes. Part of me has looked on the ceeway website and fancies having a go at making my own forks with disk brake mounts.
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I actually find the dual-pivot brakes on my 2017 Brompton very good, they actually seem better than the Tckro caliper brakes on my Hewitt touring bike!
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I actually find the dual-pivot brakes on my 2017 Brompton very good, they actually seem better than the Tckro caliper brakes on my Hewitt touring bike!
I assume you're talking about the current ones though: pretty sure GP is doing up an older Brom, so will have a previous generation's kit. Mind you, I find the DPs on my Brom perfectly adequate - not quite sure how old it is, but I got it S/H in 2010, and think it was at least 2 or 3 at that point.
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I actually find the dual-pivot brakes on my 2017 Brompton very good, they actually seem better than the Tckro caliper brakes on my Hewitt touring bike!
I got mine in April 2015 and I think mine are still the current ones. I'd say they are very good, and better than the low-end shimano dp callipers i have on my condor audax.
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I had the new ones fitted to Mrs GC's very very old Brompton. They are (comparatively) amazing.
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I actually find the dual-pivot brakes on my 2017 Brompton very good, they actually seem better than the Tckro caliper brakes on my Hewitt touring bike!
I assume you're talking about the current ones though: pretty sure GP is doing up an older Brom, so will have a previous generation's kit. Mind you, I find the DPs on my Brom perfectly adequate - not quite sure how old it is, but I got it S/H in 2010, and think it was at least 2 or 3 at that point.
It has the original side pull brakes. Things are alot better now. The levers do feel quit flimsy...so hoping Ebay comes up trumps for me.
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Lose weight
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I have just had my Brompton back from Ben at Kinetics (http://www.kinetics-online.co.uk/folding-bikes/brompton/tobys-upgraded-brompton/) and I have to say it's worth every penny. Not only is Ben a great bloke, his design, fit and finishing is wonderful. The Hope brakes are as superb as you'd expect, and the Alfine 11 has a real turn of speed if you want it.
I can't recommend this conversion highly enough.
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on CTC forum: a conversion of long reach centre pull into TT style side cable entry brake:
would suit Brompton at front I think:
https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117430#p1165429 (https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117430#p1165429)
https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117430#p1165447 (https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117430#p1165447)
long DROP Dia - Compe 750 Centre Pull calliper brakes available new for 20pounds, from
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/brakes/diacompe-750-centre-pull-calliper-brake-6278-mm-drop-nut-fitting-front-or-rear/
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I have just had my Brompton back from Ben at Kinetics (http://www.kinetics-online.co.uk/folding-bikes/brompton/tobys-upgraded-brompton/) and I have to say it's worth every penny. Not only is Ben a great bloke, his design, fit and finishing is wonderful. The Hope brakes are as superb as you'd expect, and the Alfine 11 has a real turn of speed if you want it.
I can't recommend this conversion highly enough.
That looks right nice... and spendy.
Does it add much weight to the bike?
Love that rear rack/triangle
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I have just had my Brompton back from Ben at Kinetics (http://www.kinetics-online.co.uk/folding-bikes/brompton/tobys-upgraded-brompton/) and I have to say it's worth every penny. Not only is Ben a great bloke, his design, fit and finishing is wonderful. The Hope brakes are as superb as you'd expect, and the Alfine 11 has a real turn of speed if you want it.
I can't recommend this conversion highly enough.
That looks right nice... and spendy.
Does it add much weight to the bike?
Love that rear rack/triangle
Think no increase in wieght
Can I dibs your old rear trinagle ;)
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No increase in weight? The Alfine 11 is about 600g heavier than the BSR hub , then you have the (minor) extra weight of the disc brakes and the weight of the dynamo hub. If the original was 2-speed, weight difference even bigger. So if there's no weight increase, there's been significant savings in the replacement of steel parts with Ti. The bike's still going to be significantly heavier than a ti-converted Brompton that didn't also have the Alfine.
Had my first experience today of hard breaking on a Brompton in the wet. Was turning left into a side road only to find a car speeding down the right hand side of it. Brakes worked just fine but the rear wheel did an impressive sideways skid leaving me pointing directly where I wanted to go. Of course, I carried on as if that was intended.