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Front V Brake Setup


peggysue

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been thinking about possibly going to front v... rather than my magura...

im wondering what kind of setups people are using at the moment , levers ,calipers , pads etc....

oh and especially the cables , last time i had v brakes was about 10 years ago and i constantly snapped the inner brake cable at the lever end , because i have large strong hands , and pull very hard lol.... have the strength of inner cables improved much?

cheers guys

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One thing to bare in mind with front rim brakes is, do you want modulation or lock.

I purposely make my front brake worse. I give my front rim a light grind and put bog standard Avid pads on. This gives me good modulation, decent lock and no hugely annoying squeal (they are also very cheap to replace and last a decent amount of time). If you were to use trials designed pads (Heatsink, TNN etc) you will probably find they are very sharp and noisy. You could go for a smooth rim and Inspired V-pads, but it still could be sharp and nosey. But it depends how you want it, as some people prefer this.

In terms of V-brake arms, pretty much any Avid or Shimano arms are good enough. Don't go for anything too cheap as the springs and spring adjustment are usually useless. Any Shimano Parallel push linkage brakes (XT, XTR) will still work well, but tend to be very very slightly more spongy than a regular V-brake, and I've never noticed any difference in power with this brakes.

Avid levers are good and popular, and you can't really go wrong for performance and price.

As for the cables, I'd recommend Shimano XTR, they aren't hugely expensive for a full front and rear set (around £20) but for some reason always tend to feel the nicest out of any cables. You can just get a pretty cheap Jagwire inner and outer from your local shop and to be honest, with a bit of oil, it'll still feel perfectly fine. You won't get a huge difference in strength between inner cables, but if you get a stainless steel inner cable you shouldn't have a problem. But for piece of mind you could just change the inner cable every 4/6 months as they are only £1.50 - £3.

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As said, any Avid lever. I have an Sd7, one of the older ones on which the lever blade isn't "hollow" and doesn't bend, and it's awesome.

I have Avid SdTI arms, which are so solid it's just daft! They work so well.

A Clarkes cable(I've never noticed a MAJOR difference in cables), lubed up.

Heatsink CNC backings with Rock Green material on a completely dead grind and it's really impressive.

But like the others said, any avid set p will work well, and is very cheap!

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