Spongy V Brakes

[twizzle]

Mini-V's on the bike strongly suggest that the bike has flat bar road levers, not MTB levers. From memory, the bar will be a different diameter as well, so you cant just swap levers to get it to work.

I use mini-V's on my 'cross bike. The canti's were a disaster with a carbon fork, the flex causes the brakes to grab all the time, so the Q&D solution is mini-v's or full V's with the travel agent. I can't get the wheel off without deflating the tyre and under heavy braking the dump lever is touching the bars... but it works and it only cost $37 to solve the issue of 'unrideable bike'. I'll be buying the TRP 80mm's some time in the future and using the Jagwire noodle with built in adjuster.

[SmellyTofu]

But where does it say it's MTB levers as opposed to flatty levers? Should I be looking at Shimano brake levers that have model no. starting with M (I presume for MTB) rather than T for Treking bikes?

[eeksll]

you could just buy a new noodle e.g like this avid one, note that I bought the avid noodles and I did not like them because the cable exit end broke off really easily (still works perfect fine, the glue just wasn't strong enough). Handy cause I managed to use that end on my nokon system (without the noodle) just make sure you get the right angle.

Not sure if you want to stick with shimano or something but these are the levers I use with my 85mm tektro mini v-brakes, you turn the dial to change the amount of cable pull. I have it set at max pull, but there is room to move depending on how close you want the lever at full braking force. Just make sure they fit your bars.

if you doing a order, I'd probably get cables as well, at the very least some inner cables.

EDIT: you could see if ozdavo have any more .... viewtopic.php?f=9&t=53879
EDIT2: cancel that ... you want brake cables not gear cables.

[SmellyTofu]

Thanks. I'll wait for the brakes to come in first and then go from there. Wiggle's free shipping offer ends 6th Aug so hopefully I can get it by then and see if it solves it. If not, I'll order the Avid levers.

[twizzle]

But where does it say it's MTB levers as opposed to flatty levers? Should I be looking at Shimano brake levers that have model no. starting with M (I presume for MTB) rather than T for Treking bikes?

Shimano tech docs, Road -> Flat Handle Bar Components. Brake levers for flat bar road are all BL-*, and are for a 23.8mm (Road) bar with the exception of BL-R440 which is for a 22.2mm (MTB) bar.

[adaml]

But where does it say it's MTB levers as opposed to flatty levers?

In the model number BL-Mxxx is MTB, BL-Txxx is trekking and BL-Rxxx is road.

I would expect the trekking levers to have the same cable pull as MTB, given that Shimano's trekking groupsets are either a trekking version of a MTB groupset (Deore, XT) or an offshoot of what used to be an MTB group (LX)

[SmellyTofu]

Just as a follow up, the Avid levers alone solved the problem. Only thing is the lever shape itself isn't as finger friendly as the shimano.