# Tektro R556 long-reach calipers on a cross bike



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

Hi all -

I mentioned in another thread that I had put a Tektro R556 caliper on the fork of my Surly Cross Check. gios3 asked for pictures, and I figured it deserved its own thread. 

Here's the short story: it works, but it's a hack, at least with this fork. The hole at the back of the fork crown is designed only for fender bolts and such, not brake nuts, so the diameter is a little too small. A couple minutes with the drill (and some water for cooling/lubrication) and it was good to go.

When I put the brake on, the pads had to go in the absolute lowest position in order to line up with the rim, and it actually turned out that one arm was slightly too high. Fortunately, I was able to remedy that by turning the left-right adjustment set screw on the caliper -- since the arms on dual pivot calipers have different pivot points, this ends up changing the relative height of the arms as well. After setting the height, the left-right alignment was off, but I was able to fix that by just grabbing and rotating the brake. 

Now that it's on there, it works great -- good stopping power with the stock pads, and no squeal or fork shudder. I also like that the cable routing is cleaner. There's no need for cable hangers, or for making a tight little bend of the housing right under the stem. Weight on my scale is 182 grams, barely more than cantilevers (and possibly less once you factor in the cable hanger).

As you can see in the photos, the CC fork has tons of room for fat tires and fenders, and the brake should work fine with both. In the photos I have a 700x23 tire on a rim that measures 19mm wide. With the quick release closed, the brake pads are 22mm apart, and with it open, they're 34mm apart. I could run it wider than 22mm if I needed more space to get in fat tires -- I'm not close bottoming out the brake levers with the current setup.


This fork was on a complete Cross Check, and the brake just barely reached -- if it were just 1mm higher, I think the brake pads would touch the tire. BUT, I have another bike with a Cross Check fork that I bought separately, and the brake was maybe 2mm too short. So there is variance in the production and I would not just expect this to work.

I tried the R556 on another cyclocross fork, made by Vicious cycles, and the brake arms were too long. I couldn't move the pads high enough to touch the rim. Possibly a shorter brake like the R538 would work since it has 47-57mm reach, as opposed to 55-73mm reach.

As for the rear brake of the Cross Check, this would require even more work than the front. The reach looks like it's slightly less, so that's good. But you would need to do more drilling. The rear side of the hole on the seatstay bridge (where the brake bolt would go) is threaded M5, but brake bolts are M6, so you would have to drill that out and destroy the threads. And then you would have to drill out the other side because the hole there, while not threaded, isn't big enough for the recessed nut -- although you could instead put a front brake on there (with a longer bolt that goes all the way through the bridge) and put a regular nut on it. And even then, forward surface of the bridge doesn't have a flat part on it, so the nut would be pressing up on the side of a round tube, which isn't great.


I've been experimenting with mini-V brakes, and they may turn out to be a better solution, especially for the rear. Anything's better than dealing with cantis! The biggest problem that I've run into is that it can be very hard to get the quick-release open with them. I'll probably post my experiences with that, so stay tuned!

Also - I know that one of the brake pads is backwards in the photo. One of my friends pointed it out to me and I've since fixed it!


----------



## Rouleur (Mar 5, 2004)

*It would be nice to see the brakes with a set of cross tires*

thanks for the pics. if you mount some cross tires, could you post those pics too? thanks


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

*Really now.*



winstonc said:


> Anything's better than dealing with cantis!


_Really?_ Well, whatever works for you. :skep:

BTW, if it comes down to the reach being a couple mm off one way or another, you can use a rat-tail file or Dremel to extend the brake-pad slot.


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

PeanutButterBreath said:


> _Really?_ Well, whatever works for you. :skep:


Yeah, I've had a long history of fighting with cantis. On some bikes they just work, but on others they cause endless headaches. Switching to a fork-crown mounted cable stop helped solve chattering and squealing on some forks, but not others. Sometimes power is fine, sometimes it's too weak. I know that they usually _can_ be made to work, but it would be nice if they were as easy to work with as calipers.


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

Here it is with a Michelin Jet 700x30 (I measured the actual width to be 33mm). This rim (Open Pro) seems slightly wider than my other set, at 20mm; I can squeeze the brake lever travels maybe 1/2 of the way if I squeeze hard. When I put in the wheel, the tire did touch the pads, but it wasn't a lot of resistance. When I undid the wheel and brake quick releases, the brakes didn't hold up the weight of the wheel -- it just fell through.


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

winstonc said:


> I know that they usually _can_ be made to work, but it would be nice if they were as easy to work with as calipers.


And brakes that require power tools to modify the frame fork and and possibly the brake itself are easy to work with?


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

PeanutButterBreath said:


> And brakes that require power tools to modify the frame fork and and possibly the brake itself are easy to work with?


In my case, yes -- at least for the fork. Probably not for the frame.

Let me regale you with a tale of my first cross bike. I started out with Avid Shorty 4's. They squealed and made my fork shudder. "Try Kool-Stop pads." I did, and it was no better. "Try the new Shimanos," I was told. So I plunked down $50 bucks and tried them. Slightly better, but they still were dangerous to use on fast descents because braking hard could make my bike shake so much that my hands would come off the levers. Then I tried Tektros, at $20. Slightly better still. "Try Pauls." But I had a hard time spending $80 for a front brake -- just so it wouldn't be dangerous. And I've heard of problems with them too, so I didn't go that route.... 

"Your carbon fork is the source of the problem." I switched to steel, but had the same issues, but at a slightly different frequency. "Switch to a carbon fork -- they're so stiff that they don't squeal or shudder." Um, right.

Finally, I heard about fork crown mounted cable stops, and they solved my problem. But by then the bug had bitten me, and I got another cross bike for a commuter. This time, the fork crown cable stop didn't work and the move that worked was switching to the Avids and swapping the spherical brake washers so that the pads were were closer to the arms.

Oh, and the rear cantis on my bike have always sucked, probably because the brake bosses are pretty low -- that makes the distance to the rim greater, reducing the mechanical advantage of the brake.

Basically, I've discovered that making cantis work well is a black art, and there's no panacea when there are problems. Different things work for different bikes, but you can't know until you've tried them. I've been to a bunch of cross races, and if you stand at the bottom of a hill, what you'll hear is, "squeak, squeak, squeeeeaak!", even in the elite races. Not everyone has problems, but for those that do, the problem can be very, very hard to fix. I think all the discussion on these and other forums are a testament to that.

So in my case, drilling the back of the fork is easier.  But my preliminary tests with Mini-V's indicates that they might be a better solution...


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

winstonc said:


> Basically, I've discovered that making cantis work well is a black art, and there's no panacea when there are problems.


In my experience, toeing the pads works in every case. That is with Pauls, Shimanos, Avids, TRP and Cane Creek brakes and Surly, Soma, Tange, Kinesis (Al) , Cannondale (Al/CF), Easton (CF) and whatever the heck carbon thing is on my new Scattante (Al/CF). No violent shudder and no more noise than V or disc brakes make in the same conditions.


----------



## jaansk (Aug 27, 2007)

+1 on that.
I have Avid Shorty 4s on my Spesh Tricross Comp. 
There was shudder initially in some situations but after toeing the brakes it's gone. Some rare occasional squeaking still there though. 
The Avids are not what I would call powerful, so I might get Shimanos or Pauls sometime.

J.


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

PeanutButterBreath said:


> In my experience, toeing the pads works in every case. That is with Pauls, Shimanos, Avids, TRP and Cane Creek brakes and Surly, Soma, Tange, Kinesis (Al) , Cannondale (Al/CF), Easton (CF) and whatever the heck carbon thing is on my new Scattante (Al/CF). No violent shudder and no more noise than V or disc brakes make in the same conditions.


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that -- that was the very first thing I did. It helped somewhat if I did some severe angling in of the pads, but then my braking power was greatly reduced because the contact area of the pads was much smaller. So I reduced the toe angle to get decent braking, but then I had more squeal and shudder. And then once the pads wore down so they were flat, I got more braking power, but also more of the problems...

In my experience, toeing in the pads has worked on a couple of friends' bikes, but not for mine.


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

The contact area of a toed pad increases as you apply more pull to the lever. I have heard this reseravation about reduced braking power many times, but I can lock up Pauls and have ridden them (on an MTB) in places like Downieville where weak brakes would not have cut it.

Those road calipers have much smaller brake pads right off the bat. . .


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

PeanutButterBreath said:


> The contact area of a toed pad increases as you apply more pull to the lever. I have heard this reseravation about reduced braking power many times, but I can lock up Pauls and have ridden them (on an MTB) in places like Downieville where weak brakes would not have cut it.
> 
> Those road calipers have much smaller brake pads right off the bat. . .


I do realize that contact area increases when you squeeze hard, but at least in the beginning, I had to toe it in so far that even when I squeezed as hard as I could, the back of the pad didn't touch. I'm not kidding when I say they were weak. Your experience may well be different.

These road calipers have smaller contact area, but it all touches the rim. The braking so far seems as good as my final no-problematic canti setup, which made use of the fork-crown cable stop. The cantis had the advantage of Kool-stops, though, so I'm planning on trying some Kool-stops in these road calipers as well. If they help these brakes as much as they did other brakes, then these brakes will end up more powerful than my old canti setup.


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

Well anyway, those Tektros look pretty classy. Mud could collecting on the arches seems like a potential issue. Now you just need to do something about the canti-studs.


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

PeanutButterBreath said:


> Well anyway, those Tektros look pretty classy. Mud could collecting on the arches seems like a potential issue. Now you just need to do something about the canti-studs.


Good point about the mud... I guess time will tell on that front. This bike isn't a racer though, so it probably will be a while before that becomes an issue.

As for the studs, I agree that they're ugly sitting out there like that, but I don't know if I can bring myself to chop them off. Drilling a slightly larger hole was one thing, but that's another entirely -- there's no going back after that!


----------



## PeanutButterBreath (Dec 4, 2005)

winstonc said:


> As for the studs, I agree that they're ugly sitting out there like that, but I don't know if I can bring myself to chop them off. Drilling a slightly larger hole was one thing, but that's another entirely -- there's no going back after that!


Sure there is: http://www.novacycles.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=61_137_141


----------



## aabbas (Oct 16, 2004)

I agree with PBB, really classy. I wish there were cross frames designed to use long-reach calipers.


----------



## Mike T. (Feb 3, 2004)

winstonc said:


> As for the studs, I agree that they're ugly sitting out there like that.


Why not try the Tektro mini-v? They're cheap enough to buy just for a test (like $14 per end).

I had a frame built about three months ago and I was concerned about carbon fork shudder and brake squeal, which seems to have a history with carbon forks. My builder guaranteed that a front mini-v would be 99% shudder and squeal free. So far he was wrong - it's been a 100% success.


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

Mike T. said:


> Why not try the Tektro mini-v? They're cheap enough to buy just for a test (like $14 per end).
> 
> I had a frame built about three months ago and I was concerned about carbon fork shudder and brake squeal, which seems to have a history with carbon forks. My builder guaranteed that a front mini-v would be 99% shudder and squeal free. So far he was wrong - it's been a 100% success.



As I mentioned, they're definitely on the agenda...

I actually tried a mini-V on one of my bikes -- the other one with the cross-check fork -- but that one has a fender mounted and because the clearance is so large, the fender actually won't go low enough for the mini-V. It was a pretty long mini-V, too, with 95mm arms, while most have 85mm arms. I was hoping to use the R556 on that bike, but unfortunatly, that's the one where the brake arms a just a tiny bit too short...


----------



## collinroughton (Jun 3, 2009)

Thread resurrected! 

I just tried doing this same thing to my cross check fork but hit a wall - the recessed brake nut that came with my R556's isn't long enough to thread into the brake bolt. Is it possible that your Cross Check has a 1" threadless head tube? Did they make those at some point? Ideas?


----------



## winstonc (Nov 18, 2002)

collinroughton said:


> I just tried doing this same thing to my cross check fork but hit a wall - the recessed brake nut that came with my R556's isn't long enough to thread into the brake bolt. Is it possible that your Cross Check has a 1" threadless head tube? Did they make those at some point? Ideas?


I'm pretty sure it's a 1 1/8" fork. Are you sure you're using a front brake on the front? They have longer bolts than rear brakes. You can also get longer brake nuts at your LBS. Good luck with it, and let us know how it goes!


----------



## TrekJeff (Mar 14, 2007)

They are 1/8" It's a shame people can't get thier canti's to work well for them. I've never had a problem once i toed them in. Plus you can put cool wooden fenders on.


----------

