Hello, I'm Michael from Ivanhoe Cycles. I'm
going to be showing you the basics of a V-brake
system on the front of a bicycle. There are
a few different components you need to be
aware of; the brake lever, the brake adjustment
at the brake lever, the outer cable, the inner
cable (which runs through the outer cable
up to the brake lever here). These are called
V-brakes. You've got one arm each side, which
are located to the front forks. You've got
brake pads either side. There's a locking
nut here, which bolts onto the cable. The
small rubber boot that you've probably noticed
on your bicycle, stops water going up inside
the cable. Ok. That's what a brake cable looks
like when you buy it. Six dollar brake cable
like that. That's what brake pads look like.
So in adjusting V-brakes, you want your lever
to move from a comfortable position, to a
comfortable position for you. The point where
the lever starts at can be adjusted on most
bicycles via a screw underneath or in the
front side. Where the lever ends up on a brake-pull,
must be somewhere where you can exert force
on it - so you can stop the bicycle. If it's
anywhere other than that, come and see and
we can adjust it for you, or watch this video
and learn how to do it yourself. There are
two main points of adjustment on a V-brake.
One is the bolt - that does major adjustments
on the cable - the second point is the barrel
adjuster at the brake lever. When you pull
the brakes, each arm should move at the same
rate. They should come and meet the rim at
the same time. See how both of these move
together? If they didn't move together, you
can adjust them either side by the adjusting
screws. I'll put this out of adjustment so
you can see what I mean. So I've wound that
adjusting screw out. Now when I pull the brake
lever - see only one side's operating? That's
when you get the noise of your brake rubbing
on one side. The adjustment screw adjusts
the spring. By this spring. That spring pushes
away. The screw here, by moving it, adjusts
that spring in or out.
That's better.
These V-Brakes are now out of adjustment.
The lever's going almost all the way to the
handlebar, which means there'll be no braking
until it gets there. There's two ways to adjust
this. If you're out on the track, you can
wind the adjustment barrel. As you wind it
out, it pushes the outer cable and effectively
pulls the brakes together.
Now you've got about half a lever movement
and you'll get braking again. If that's occurred,
either the cable's stretched, or it's fraying
- breaking inside - or it's slipped on here.
So just be aware with your braking. But nothing
like that's occurred. If it's come loose here,
you'd use a 5mm allen key. By undoing the
allen key, the cable's now free to move on
the brake arm. By pulling it in, and just
holding your hand against it, and locking
the brake up again - locking the bolt up again
- now the brake's fully in.
So if you wanted
to remove your front wheel, you'd have to
disconnect the guide (or noodle) from the
brake arm. It's a simple case of putting a thumb
against the brake arm, two fingers inside
the noodle, and a thumb on the back of the
noodle. You'd do this so you can direct and
guide it around. As you push that in, just
clip the holding device off and the brakes
will open, thus allowing your front wheel
to come out. The other thing you can see here,
is the front surface of the braking pad. It's
worth looking at that every now and then and
seeing if there's any aluminium stuck in it
or little small pieces of stone. These will
wear your rims away really quickly. To hook
it back together, again, two fingers inside
the noodle, and a thumb on the back of it,
one thumb on the back of the brake arm, pull
it together and clip the locating device back
on again. That is the easiest way to do it.
I see a lot of people trying to just pull
it off just by pulling that way. You've got
no direction and you can't actually unhook
it. You really need to put your two fingers
inside, one thumb on the back, so you've got
direction of the noodle. Quite easy that way.
Always remember to put the rubber boot just
back on the end of there. What that rubber
boot does is stops water going up inside the
cable and rusting or causing friction to your
cable.
I'm going to show you how to remove
a brake pad and replace it with a new one.
The first thing you would need to do is un-clip
the brakes and open them up. Most brakes are
either a 5mm or a 6mm allen key. Some are
also a 10mm spanner. I'm just going to undo
this brake lock.
Now there's several parts of the brake lock
when you undo it. There's a nut, washers,
conical washers - these all allow the brake
lock to move around and go flat against the
rim. So here's some new brake pads here. When
you put the brake pad in, make sure on the
inside there's the two conical washers, which
allow it to rotate and move around. So to
put a brake in, put it inside like that, and
then pull the brake lever. That holds it still for you.
So, put these on in order.
So the brake pad's staying there because I'm holding the lever in.
Just nip it up a little bit. Now if you keep
pushing further, the pad may turn. So at this
point, just grab hold of the pad and lock
it up. That's a pad replaced. When you look
at it on the rim, it should hit the rim flat
along the rim. That's good.
It's actually not a difficult task. You could
try yourself or you could come in for one
of our lessons and do it with us. Thank you
for watching.