Front Brake Noodle Mod, tidy your front end................

[oldschool rider]

Hi Guys,
            This might be an old modification but i've never seen it before.

I know there is a few of us here who run front brakes on our bikes so this might be of interest to you. Running a front u brake on your bike is great except IMO the fact that your cable passes on the outside of your forks due to the adjuster set up you get with your brake and i think it looks untidy, so when i read a thread on here about someone using a Vbrake cable noodle instead of the usual adjuster I thought what a great and simple idea.

So I went to the local bike shop and got a 90º Vbrake noodle and headed home to give it a try.

5 mins later (After cutting noodle to length) I was finished and very happy with the result, Not only has it improved the look buy tidying up the cable route but it has taken the spoungyness out of my front brake to. 


BEFORE..........


AFTER.........

[jstring]

I've got the same mod on mine.  In fact I've gone nodle mad and put them on the back too. This isn't the best pic but you can see what I have done.



The noodle mod does make a difference. It takes out the spongyness that you get when a cable is looped and allows it to be routed more neatly.  It is especially good because you can remove the plastic liner from the noodle, take the noodle apart, and dremmel off an inch or so.  This allows the (now) excess inch of plastic liner to be inserted in to the adjuster barrel, lining the whole lot.  That takes out a surprising amount of friction.

[oldschool rider]

  PMSL  It was your thread i read dude !!!!!!!!!!!

nice mod works really well, just thought i'd share with photos not taking your credit m8.

[jedi]

i have the smallest loop of cable to mine.lokks and works betterer

[JT71]

let's see a close up of the front noodle mod please.

[SaMAlex]

If you cut your cable down then you dont need a noodle. The brake will work better cos there will be less friction, and I also find those noodles always make noise were they "ting" against the frame or forks.

[JT71]

got a front view of your set up Alex?

[jedi]

i have done the same as alex 

[SaMAlex]

got a front view of your set up Alex?

I will get some more pics. That photo was when I was using a linear cable and they dont bend that well. I now have a normal cable and its even neeter. I will get some pics over the weekend.

[lodge]

I have never tried the noodle so cant comment, but i run mine like Alex's set up and it works a treat even with anno rim, i did try a linear but was too stiff to get a neat bend and was rubbing the tyre so now running a wilko 99p cable

[subversion]

Been running noodles on me gyro's for years & no problems at all (except the 'tings' that Al mentioned )

[Stodgy]

What a great idea Subversion - I bet that works a treat doesn't it?

Nice work.

 

[motomagII]

on the blue bike at the top is the noodle just slotted intot he cable holder bit on the caliper ?

[SaMAlex]

got a front view of your set up Alex?

I will get some more pics. That photo was when I was using a linear cable and they dont bend that well. I now have a normal cable and its even neeter. I will get some pics over the weekend.

Joe, here are some pics of my front brake and cable.

I have actually got 2 types of outer cable. The upper part of the cable is a liner cable. From the lever down to just below the forks. Then Ive got a short length of normal coiled cable for the bend. I have got a outer cable joining ferrel that also doubles as a good place for a cable tie cos it wont crush it.

Hope the pics help. Feel free to comment on my hand painted fork decals

[JT71]

cheers Alex, mines not as techy as to have two types of outer, but it works.

 

can you do me some "decals" 

ps: when you wanna get this tool off of me?

[SaMAlex]

Talking of noodles and stuff .....

I once tried to make outer cables totally out of metal tubes (thin, cable sized ally tube that I got from B&Q). I replaced both upper and lower gyro cables with tube. It was good but there were two problems. It was hard to get a natrual curve to the top cables, normal outer cable does this itself. The second probelm was that a couple of times I crashed and bent the upper cables, which stopped the brake working at all. I put the whole thing down to a nice idea but left it.

[subversion]

What a great idea Subversion - I bet that works a treat doesn't it?

Nice work.

 

Yes mate, using cut to length linear cables makes it nice & solid. I've been doing some experimentation on cutting linear cables lately as not everyone has access to a decent pair of cable cutters & a junior hacksaw, a vice & a file to finish seems to work well for me

Alex that side view of your brake shows how 'super low profile' older style Suelos were - awesome dude

Here's the 'rivet mod' I did on my GTX too:





People ought to know better than get Alex & me started on brake modding 

[lodge]

I am looking at Alex's and Subversions's pics and suspect there both fly brakes but there different , am I right in thinking Alex's is front specific?
Subversion what do you have on the end of your outer cable where it enters the brake arm?

[subversion]

They're both the Suelo front brake but Al's is the old style which they changed due to clearance issues with the forks...

The cable end was included with the brake to seat the cable into nicely

[oldschool rider]

on the blue bike at the top is the noodle just slotted intot he cable holder bit on the caliper ?

Yes it is.

[subversion]

oldschool rider you could do something similar to your front brake noodle mod using one of these, they are good for tight cable bends although they're too short to route from the front brake around the fork blade into the steerer.

Diatech Flexie.


I tried them before using noodles but they didn't work out so well on the rear dual lowers...

Anyone else got any interesting brake mods??

[TwoBobRob]

Not at the mo,  but I do fancy fitting a spoke instead of a straddle cable. Saw it on someones bike a while ago and thought it looked cool.  He claimed it worked better....

What's the aim of the GTX/rivet mod?  Just a more secure fixing?

[subversion]

When you cut the top gyro cables & use the knarps, the cables fray & stick out all over the shop. It just keeps the inner nice & tidy

[TwoBobRob]

Gotcha   

[JT71]

what I've also done on my front is put a bit of the liner out of a slic kable inside the adjuster, seems to slip through more easily.