A couple of weeks ago I spent my sunday morning trying to improve a secondhand BSO for the coordinator of a local charity for whom I am going to be sorting a few donated bikes for cheap transport. Greased front wheel, adjusted gears (as much as one could). Before her husband took it away we rode it briefly up the road. Horrible squealing, no stopping (and on the stand the brakes looked fine). Closer inspection revealed that the pressed steel brake arms had an alarming amount of play. I promised to look out the V-brakes that I took off when I converted to discs.
Cue yesterday morning. A late start due to Sofiane forgetting to warn me he was coming. He turned up with the cheap chinese bike and a cheap Decathlon vtt that he had bought secondhand for me to look at. The vtt also had lots of squealing and not much braking (the neightbours will think I spend sunday mornings killing pigs). A lot of time was spent trying to clean and degrease brakes (although I didn't bother going as far as taking the pads out) without a lot of success, just slight improvement. Holding the front brake on I could see the leg of the suspension fork vibrating.
I then turned to Marie's bike. A slight bother with one brake arm screw seized but otherwise success. Secondhand V-brakes fitted (had to clean a bit of paint off one pivot), new pads fitted, didn't bother to change cables, they were fine. Try it out,now that's stopping power! Front brake squeals a bit just before stopping but there is movement in the fork pivot (rigid fork). I look at trying to grease and readjust the headset but there is a bit of gubbins to shift with her front basket mount. Even just tightened slightly improved things so now I will have to have it back to do properly when I have a bit of time.
Moral of the story: there's no "discs are better than V-brakes" in the BSO market. There's just good brakes and crap brakes. And manufacturers will give you a transmission that works fine, even wheels that are (nearly) round but they all cut corners on the brakes! Why??
For information the vtt was a Rockrider 520, entry level bike but with pretentions. The previous owner had bought it new and the realised that he had made a mistake and that cycling wasn't for him and had left it in the shed for a year. The brakes are Hayes cable discs (which might be Avid clones but don't look the same as my Avid clones, for which reason I wasn't getting too involved in seeing if my spare pads were the same). Normally Sofiane should have gone for new pads today, which I think might improve things a bit.
