How to make cheap brakes great

[Tony Prioli]

I just put together a better bike to ride until I get a new serotta. I had very little cash to put it together with. My centurion le mans, had to go. I went with campy mirage brakes, and had some extra nokon brake cables from a odd repair I did at the shop, that left me with a lot of nokon brake parts. I installed them and went to North Carolina yesterday for Blood sweat and gears. It has about 10000 feet of climbing, and lots of descending. My brakes felt as good, or better than my record differential brakes on my serotta. These are 25.00 dollar brake calipers, with 45.00 cables. A total price of 70.00 and record brakes are over 200.00. AFter this weekend, I no longer want record brakes.

Tony

[dbrk]

Now, if you can stand the color, the salmon Koolstop pads (made of the same compound as the fabled Mathausers) make a tremendous difference. I have never been one to spend money on brake calipers since I think the RX100s work every bit as well as the DA and Centaurs as well as Record. But if you add these Koolstops, you stop. Deathgrip stopping is not a common feature of riding in the easygoing Finger Lakes with long descents and few difficult traffic spots, but I'm with you on this Tony and will look for the Nokian cables. Great tip. Many thanks.

dbrk
who is putting Diacompe centerpulls on his repainted Mercian...
'cause they work great and look all that on a frame with a barbershop pole seattube...but who paid about 4x as much for the paint as he did for the frame...stupit is as stupit does, I suppose...

[Ken Robb]

I'll bet you have some other art for which you spent more than 4 times the price of the "frame" or raw materials for the finished project and they also give you pleasure. Ken, the old philosopher, Robb