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What To Do About It?
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I called Green Gear and spoke with Wolf (their technical support department at
the time) who offered several suggestions.
The first (and most significant) was that the pulley on the Travel Agent had
probably shifted and I was therefore
running out of pulley rotation before the brake calipers were fully engaged
against the rim. He promptly mailed out a new pair of brake cables and
Travel Agent installation instructions. I easily installed the new rear cable and
was rewarded with slightly better braking for several rides. The
improvement wasn't dramatic enough and my wife asked me to see what else I could
do for it.
- I added fenders to redirect the Juneau road grime. If I could keep
some of the Juneau grit out of the Travel Agent, there would be less pulley
friction. The stock fenders were too short to do the trick, so I had
to extend them with a section of soda bottle to get fender coverage all the
way to the chain stays. The soda bottle plastic was clear and very
flexible. ( Unfortunately, I no longer have a photo of this addition.)
- I replaced the rear cable with Delta cables by Aztec (or Aztec cables by
Delta, I can't recall which). They have a nice hard Teflon coating on
the inner wire, and spiral wound compression less housing. They work
very well and don't cost as much as Gore Ride-on cables.
- I removed the stock Shimano V-Brake "noodle" that redirected the cable
towards the bottom bracket. It was contributing a great deal of cable
drag and the brake worked better with the cable run directly into the Travel
Agent. (This is pictured to the right)
- The derailleur cable traded places with the rear brake cable in the cable
stops on the
mono-tube. This gave me a better cable line for the brake cable
and didn't result in a worse line for the derailleur.
- I moved the inline adjuster almost to the end of a cable run and installed
larger housing ferules. This brought the OD a little closer to the ID and
produced less shifting in the cable under tension. The adjuster is not
able to be placed at the end of the cable, so I put a very short
section of housing on one side of it. (This is pictured to the right.) An adjuster placed directly in
one of the cable stops would be preferable, but I couldn't find one in my
parts box that fit well.
- I pulled the rear brake calipers off and moved the springs to their
strongest position. This provided enough force to overcome the cable/pulley
drag and open the calipers fully when the brake was released. It made
it much more difficult to work the brakes, however.
- I twisted the cable hanger on the rear brake so that the Travel Agent
pointed down towards the bottom bracket (also pictured to the
right). I can hear the lawyers from
Shimano and Green Gear running to their phones. Remember, I am telling
you what I did. I am not telling you to do this.
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All of these steps produced a rear brake that stopped about as well as a five
year old Huffy in the rain, and required a strong hand to operate. It was
ridden half of last year in this configuration. After a ride with two
children in our Burley Lite trailer, my wife let me know that more work was was going
to be required.
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