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Dominic just came home with this stuff. Pink cables. Pink brake pads. I can’t believe how very PINK this bike is going to be. I hope pink matches mud colors.
I meant to post this picture a couple days ago when the last clear coat was applied. The fork is wicked. The whole paint job is just awesome.
I’m going to be replacing some of my road races with MTB races. You guys are inspiring me. Good luck to Gnome and Dirty Biker this weekend. Tear it up.
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Nice. That fork reminds me of the old T-Mobile women bikes.
dont forget to post a photo once it’s all built up…
Sweet! The singletrack is calling you.
Juuudi…Juuuuuuuuuudiiiiiiii…
Since you only have a little pink on yer bike, and Big Kitchen has a total pink beast sitting in the garage, I guess we now have to name you Little Kitchen ?
Or would Grasshopper be better ?
Go forth and conquer.
Don’t jinx yourself…..Brake pads.
good call. i fixed it – …i’m an idiot!
The full old school.
I just put my old workbike back together, a 1993 Gary Fisher Advance.
A replacement 1 1/4″ threaded fork to replace the one snapped when I got car doored in ’96. A single speed drive train for simplicity. A set of v-brakes so it will stop.
Judi, I saw the straddle cable, say “NO!” to cantis on mountain bikes, save those things for your Cyclo Cross weapon.
I must double post and concur with Bjorn. Canti = Sucki
Especially for the price you can get good xtr v-brakes.
Lucky and Bjorn – Dominic said we’re keeping it old school. He’s putting a v-brake on front and canti’s on the back (because that’s all we have, LOL). This bike was built with parts we had in the basement already except for the frame and wheels which we bought from some lady for 40 bucks.
Hi Judi,
Good to hear you are going the V-brake on the front, there is little or no value in out climbing and out handling them, when you get dusted on the descents.
Dont know your finances, but cheap ($10) Vs are better than any canti if you have good levers.
My old Fisher has XTR front and BR 420 rear (That’s quality somewhere south of Alfine).
Is your frame suspension corrected?
I concur— for the Giant build, I removed and THREW AWAY the canti brakes and installed short-throw linear pulls that cost all of $15 for each end of the bike. Sketchy braking seriously reduces the fun of the ride… especially if you fail to make a turn.
canti’s can be set up to be very powerful. Unfortunately, they need continual adjustment as the pads wear, because small changes in pad thickness changes the geometry of the cable pull. Linear pull brakes are much easier to set up and don’t require much more than adjusting cable pull.
In fact, cantis are SO useless, my ‘cross bike runs disc brakes (Avid BB7 mechanical). It means I can’t line up for a UCI points-paying race, but that hasn’t been a problem yet. :)
Of course disc brakes rule over all…
“Of course disc brakes rule over all…”
jefe— I reckon this notion is subject to debate. V brakes are extremely simple and light. Even my BB7 mechanical discs are heavier. Hydraulics stop like hitting a wall, pretty much de rigeur for long MTB descents, but they’re heavy and I have found them fussy to keep tuned. (I have run Hayes and Avid.)
Well if you wanna talk cross bikes, a fixed cog renders front brake choice moot.
all i can say various bike rigs all have advantages and drawbacks. canti brakes and vulcanized rubber tires have all been used in the past to achieve great things in cycling folklore. i tend to think getting aggressive on a bike with the tech of old is totally rad. much funner to bomb down hill and get a little nervous about stopping. its about the bike skill not the bike.
dominic
used to use those odyssey straddle cables for cantis quite effectively. they were nice because you could constantly micro-adjust as the pads wore.
Thought they were pretty cool. Except for the one that snapped on me in the middle of a race at Estrella…
Dominic,
I won’t argue that great things have been done in the past on gear that is now outdated. Great things have been done on steel rims, but I wouldn’t put them on any bike I planned to compete on.
The same goes for brakes, cantis were better than caliper brakes, but they were still pretty average. The first V-brake was a revelation compared to them.
Judi said she’s planning to race, so why make it more difficult just to be “totally rad”.
By the way, I really dig the paintjob on the Trek, it looks like you are a real craftsman. I look forward to seeing final build pictures.
because being rad is much more important to me than being smart. lol.
dominc
Ha, ha. Good luck with that Dominic.
I’ve had my genetic make-up analized and lack the R A D grouping, so I set my bikes up to flatter my limited talents.
Having any cable snap mid ride sucks. Having the brake cable snap sucks most…
Mikey, I’ve been running the Hope brakes for years, always thought they were a bit more progressive than they Hayes. (I’m sure all of them have improved since I was at the shop…) The BB7s, are great for a cable-disc, but hydraulics are the way to go. We don’t use mechanical brakes on our cars, why should we use them on bikes? The UCI will never allow the development of discs on road bikes (what was their justification with cross bikes?). When you count all the weight, (brake posts, rims, etc) it’s not a huge penalty for discs, and some of that weight is off of the outside of the wheel, which is the best place to take if off. But then I’ve never been a weight weenie… Even when I was racing, I’d take something that always worked over the lightest thing available.