The Street > The Bike Shop
Do chrome rims stop gripping?
montymitch:
--- Quote from: badlight on July 10, 2015, 10:17:18 PM ---
--- Quote from: montymitch on July 10, 2015, 06:39:02 PM ---Simple Green is an excellent cleaner that will make your brakes rock.
--- End quote ---
For like 20 minutes.
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Very true, but they still work great. I like to have some modulation in my brakes.
LowKey:
I go over the rims with steel wool (0000) which is the least abrasive made, this brings the sidewall back to a brand new condition. I just put the bike upside down and spin the wheel while holding the wool to the sidewall, then clean the walls with isopropyl alcohol, doing both will remove any embedded dirt or brake pad material from the chrome. Last thing to do is wipe the pads down with the alcohol on a rag until they look fresh again, if they are in bad shape you can use sandpaper first to make them fresh then wipe down with alcohol to remove contamination.
WoBBLE:
Thanks guys, I found some form of alcohol gel to use and played around with the brake pads, now the rim squeaks a lot (which is a good sign), just waiting for a session to properly see if it's made any difference at all!
I'm reluctant to buy a new rim, so if this doesn't work, looks like fizzy pop treatment for like. Ever.
meathead:
what about rechroming? might be expensive tho?
cmc4130:
--- Quote from: Tall Opinion on July 09, 2015, 12:33:04 PM --- . . . and either try getting a new cable or squirt some tri-flow down your existing cable to minimize friction.
. . .
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Most people fail to do this. New housing without any kinks in it and FILLED with Tri-Flow is key (i actually use a light layer of white lithium grease on inner cable in addition to Tri-Flow). Kinks in the housing or the inner wire create friction in the pull and reduce braking power.
When you add a good lever to this, your brakes should work really well regardless of the cleanliness of the rims and pads. I'm not saying cleaning them doesn't help, I'm saying it's not the primary issue.
Short levers are not as good as long ones (basic physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever ). http://www.empirebmx.com/catalog/brake-stuff Those bent-out ones, like the DiaTech Gold Finger are a stupid work-around. It's better to get handlebars with a narrower bend-to-bend distance, then have a long grip and plenty of finger room. You can still do index finger braking by moving your hand to the outside of the long grip. Like this:
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