Cosmic Brake Alignment

This blog is already bordering on being a Fly fanzine I know, but I put the blame squarely on their stream of simple ideas. And on that note, here's another:


Surprise! It's a new removable brake mount design!


The titanium grub screw market is now officially wide open

Up until a couple of years ago kids were suffering the obscenity of having impotent and demoralised brake mounts de-cooling their life when they rode street. Inexcusable. And frame manufacturers were being forced into producing two versions of every frame just to keep these little pricks (ahem... valued customers) happy. Ying was not yang.

So desperate was this situation that Fly came up with the idea of removeable mounts and, not surprisingly, every frame manufacturer saw the chance to realign their inventory chakras and jumped on board. Fair enough, but you think that one of them could at least have chipped in and done their part in the evolution of the idea. Instead Fly have done the evolving, and now, by undoing a little grub screw in your frame, you can remove the brake bosses with brakes still attached and so avoid fiddling cables, barrels and knarps each time you do it.

That's good, but were I see the major advantage is that when you turn 30, you can just put your brakes back on without having to avoid the temptation to buy a 24" or worse still - a cruiser.

In terms of exactly how this all happens it's probably easiest if you just watch Sergio:


Since most people either ride brakes or don't, you'd have to say the original idea was a bigger deal than this in that the real advantage was for the frame manufacturers and that race has been run already. But since this design shouldn't cost any more than the current standard, it's hard to see why those manufacturers won't now switch to similar systems - it's like something for nothing. And who doesn't like something for nothing? It's just so much better than nothing for something. Follow?

8 comments:

Claude said...

doesn't this defeat the purpose? which is having clean, "hardwareless" stays? Instead of one hole, we now have 2!

I thought their previous incarnation of the removable mount was the nicest and cleanest. One hole that could barely be seen. No ugly welds. they had to mess it up!

Now once again, Fly has succeeded in solving problems that do not exits.

Thanks Flybikes, for another innovation that we didn't need and will have disapeared from our minds in a few years from now.

Jeff said...

Aaawwww... Claude, you're fucking with my Fly fanzine concept.

Anyway, so you're not feeling it - fair play. But don't you think this cleanliness obsession has just about reached the point of being a disorder? I mean a 3mm hole? That's almost not a hole. And it doesn't seem to have stopped the removeable gyro tabs taking off. We'll see I suppose.

mark said...

Will the tiny grub screw really hold the lugs firm when sending a massive skid down a hill, or fufanu-ing a backrail. It likely wont break/strip thread, but brakes are already flimsy as they are. No manufacturer seems to have made a brake that doesn't roll side to side on the spring at all.

Whatever happened to enclosing the springs on a brake too - have to clean a world of shit out of the springs on mine every month.

Off topic, but still slightly on - couldn't Proper/many others have specced its brake with screws with a slightly deeper hole for the allen key. No where near enough grip to get the springs locked to a reasonable tension. Not without rounding the bugger off anyway.

More of a rant than a relevant post. I spent two hours fixign minor problems yesterday. Guess i'm still pissed.

jeff said...

Mark, I hear ya.

I hate working on brakes but also like them to be perfect. It's a bit of shit combo really. I can't talk with any authority on removable mounts cause I ain't never rode 'em, but I can tell you that if you file down the tops of the bosses on regular mounts until there's only 0.5mm left sticking out from the brass bushing in the brake caliper, you can eliminate most of the wobble.

As for whether the grub screw will do the work, your guess is as good as mine. But you definitely wouldn't want one to work loose at the wrong moment - it'd be such a shame to die at the hands of such a little piece of hardware.

mark said...

Tell you what has redeemed the whole experience and made me reconsider going brakeless - have you tried the Proper/Ilegal brake pads? They make a noise like a goose on fire, but have the stopping power of hydraulic brakes.

Grub screws do have a habit of working loose. If Fly's system were to work there would also be a hell of a lot of force on a tiny piece of metal/screw threads. Any ideas how long Fly have been testing?

jeff said...

That is surprisingly the most accurate description of a dialled in brake I've ever heard. Not that i've ever put flame to a goose.

Jack said...

I think its a really good idea. A mate of mine has a federal with the current removable brake system, i think its shit, you can seem to adjust the springs on the old one, plus when we took his brakes off the lugs came off too.

kyle737@hotmail.co.uk said...

i think fly should make one of thoes thing so if you want to ride breaks and your frame does not have lugs you can just put them on i no i would buy them

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