Hey everyone my name is Bram Moore, and this is my break check
So for the past couple years
I've been making a lot of tips and tricks videos relating to BMX breaks how to make them better how to make them more
Efficient how to make things last longer and I realized that I've done all of these videos
But I don't have one
Singular place where I talk about all of them and go through everything that I have on my bike so that's what I'm gonna do
In this video I'm gonna run from the top all the way to the back through my brake setup telling you everything that I use
and
Talking about all of the different tricks that I've done to make my cables last longer and make my brakes work better so with that
Being said as I go through my breaks set up and talk about the different tricks that I've done in things that I use in
My setup I will link
corresponding videos in info cards on whichever
corner of the screen that they're in so that you can watch those videos and learn how to do these things for yourself and without
Any further delay, let's get right into the brake check the first thing that I'm going to talk about is my brake lever
I've got the Odyssey mono lever in medium
And then when it comes to my cables themselves I've got my own
Custom cable design where I have a dual upper cable that uses the snafu Astroglide
cable piece that goes on to the barrel adjuster
Of the odyssey model ever I've got a video on how to do that with snafu Astroglide cables or other cables with similar
Connecting pieces for the two dual upper cables and like I said
I've got my own design that I use on the upper cables where it has one single cable inner that goes up through one side
Cable starting at the gyro goes up through the cable piece that comes from a snafu Astroglide
Cable the brake cable comes through there and it loops through
the brake cable where the cable end would normally go and it has a little piece that I made that it loops through which I'll
Probably showing right now
And then it goes down the cable on the other side and into the other side of the gyro with no cable ends
necessary and the way that this works is that I have a gyro with set screws in it so that you don't need cable and
Technically it's still better to have them sometimes to be safe
But I don't use them and the reason that I do
This is because I got tired of breaking cables in the middle of a session at the skate park or wherever and not having
Extras and I realized that if I came up with a single cable inner design
I could replace my upper cables without having to buy cables
I could just have a cable inner
cut it in half and get two uses out of one cable inner and
Speaking of the cable enters for all of my cables that I'm gonna be talking about my cable enters our
1.6. Millimeter normal brake cable inners so it's a thicker version of what you'd normally find
And I find that these hold up longer so my upper cables have one singular inner cable in them
That's connected by a gyro in Odyssey GTX gyro with the screws in it that they don't make anymore
They make a version without
Screws either way though the two ends of the single cable are connected to the gyro by the set screws
And this is what allows you to have a single inner dual upper gyro cable
Setup one quick thing that I wanted to throw in here about my gyro and upper cable setup is that this single inner design
Using the set screws allows you to position your gyro anywhere between your gyro plate
And your gyro tabs that you want to which is ideal because ideally you do want your gyro
Floating between this point so that the bottom isn't touching the gyro tab and the top when pulled all the way tight
Doesn't touch the gyro plate if it touches the gyro plate when it's all the way tight that means that it's probably not
Pulling as hard as it could because something is stopping it before it gets to that point
So with this single inner cable design
You don't have to worry about any of that because you can position the gyro anywhere that you need to without having to worry about
slack in the top cables
Which sometimes you do have to worry about with stock upper gyro cables that are a set length
And you have to adjust out or put in spacers or figure
Something out to get the gyro in the right place which can be a huge pain
Figure out when with this setup you put it where it needs to go
And you don't have to worry about anything else because it's in the right place from the start with no
Adjustment to make that happen and with that being said we can move down
Past the gyro into the lower cable setup that I have and the first thing that you might notice here
Is that I have these silver metal pieces on my brake cables?
And then my cables are connected
Down lower on the downtube of the frame these silver pieces if you didn't already know are called a/v break noodles and their purpose is
To give you a more rigid place for your cable in ER to go through on the bend to get up into the bottom of
The gyro without the V break noodles normal cables have to bend at a 90 degree angle
Which can put strain on your inner cable and make for friction and with breaks?
Friction means not as smooth of a pull and that's just annoying to me so I have these V break noodles
Which are made of metal which is rigid so the cable goes through them?
And there's no friction being put on the inner cable itself whenever it's being pulled another purpose of these is to
Require less cable housing to make your outer cable for the lower gyro cable setup
So you can buy one cable cut it in half potentially and have both sides covered rather than having to buy
Dedicated dual lower gyro cables or using more than one cable if you're going to make them yourself
so it goes without saying that I use stand-alone cable enters the
1.6
millimeter variety that I talked about earlier
For the lower cable setup after I've gone ahead and made up the housing and the V brake noodle setup for my lower
Cables one other thing that's important to mention here is that this old Odyssey?
GTX gyro has a flat plate on the bottom where the lower inner cable goes
So I don't have to have the smaller end piece on it
And I can get away with using
Cables that have a normal end on them if you're going to use the same cable setup
I have here you're going to want a gyro that allows you to have the set screws in it for the single inner
dual upper gyro cable setup
and you're going to want something that allows you to use normal cable enters on the bottom rather than needing the smaller or
Spherical ended cables like some gyros require you to have and if this is a problem for you
You can use derailleur cables for your cable enters on the bottom
But you need to keep in mind that they are thinner and they will break faster for you
That's why I ended up going with the thicker cables on the bottom
I used to use derailleur cables
but they broke so
Often that I got sick of it and just went with these thick cables and now they last just about forever especially
With the setup that we're going to be talking about when we move a little further back now this brings us to the London mod
Portion of my bike a London mod is odyssey's version of this setup
it's what allows you to use a
single cable guide on your frame with dual lower gyro cables
This isn't the odyssey London mod on here. This is actually I think a primo one from like ten years ago
It came on an old bike that. I had just one of those sentimental things either way though
I've got the longer barrel adjusters here to give more adjustment for my cables
And I think that that just about does it when it comes to the London mod portion of my brakes we can now move back
To where the cables connect to the brake arms themselves?
Okay, so before we talk about how the brake cables connect to the arms
Let's talk about the brakes that I'm using these are the shadow sano brakes
And I use these because both sides have a place for an ARP
rather than one side having a bolt through it which pinches the cable and
to talk about where the cables connect to the brake arms let's take this knife out of the brake arm and give you a
closer look
Okay, so we're focused in here, and you can see that have a NAR
p-- and then I have a straddle cable bolt setup
and if you're not familiar with this the straddle cable bolt setup that I have here is the bolt that has a hole through the
bolt itself then two washers and a little nut and this is pinching down on the cable and
The way that I have this run is that the cable comes through here goes
Through the bolt then loops through this NAR
P-- comes back through the bowl again
And then is pinched down with the nut in these two washers, and if you look at this NAR
P-- we don't have a screw in it and it moves freely
this is so that the point of contact with the brake arm is just a loop and
The point of friction and force that's keeping the brake cable in place
Isn't a pinch point on the cable?
It's actually being
Compressed and pushed together with the washers and the bolt head and as you can see here the cable is in great condition
And this cable is actually pretty old as you can tell by the fact that it's bent several times because I've had to readjust
Where it sits in this loop for my brakes after the cable stretched these cables last
So much
Longer with this setup that you really don't have to replace them very often or worry about them breaking at all for that matter
Because the point of contact is no longer a pinch point. It's a loop and that just makes them last longer
They're more reliable that way and you never have to be scared about dying on a brake trick because of your lower
cables if you have one of these bolts
Chances are you'll probably have to drill it out thicker if you're using the thicker cable inners
It's very easy to do very easy to set up and once you're done
You just put the NART back in your brakes and everything works great
I have the exact same setup on both sides this cables a little bit frayed because I like to leave a lot of extra cable
Here for whatever reason just don't like the idea of it pulling through even though
It's never happened this setup might not look as good as a traditional setup
But I can promise you after using it for over a year now this setup lasts way longer than anything else I've ever
Used before and I even think that the cable on the other side here is the original
Cable that I talked about in the video that I made when I first talked about this setup and with that being said we can
move further back and past all of the tricks that I've done to make my brakes better and talk about the brake pads and
The rym so like I said before I have the shadow Sano break arms and four pads
I'm using Odyssey clear pads and for my rim
I have a prototype alienation vandal rim which has an anodized coating of some sort on it
Which makes my brakes?
Absolutely amazing I never have to clean the rim the pads always work and the brakes always stick
100% the way that they need to and if they aren't all I have to do is ride around for a little bit pulling the
Brakes and the rim cleans the pads off and makes the brakes work
Just as good as they would if I had a chrome rim and put some simple green or pop or something sticky on the rim
So I absolutely recommend this rim with the Odyssey
Clear brake pads and so with that being said I think that's everything to do with my brake setup aside from
Spring tension and brake pad distance from the rim both of which are subjective and up to personal preference
Some people like their brakes easy to pull some people like them harder to pull
Some people like a short break pull and some people like a long break pool
Personally, I keep my spring tension somewhere right in the middle so that the brakes are still pretty easy to pull
But they come back
Pretty fast in with a little bit of force and when it comes to brake pad distance from the rim
I keep that pretty close to the rim so that it's a
Relatively short brake pull and when it comes to the pads, and how they're orientated in relation to the rim
I keep them parallel to the rim so that the entire pad hits the rim at one time with
Seemingly one point of contact this makes for a very
Solid brake pole that just feels like everything's hitting and stopping at one time
And you don't have to keep pulling
Once the brake pads hit the rim and another thing worth mentioning when it comes to brake pads is that I run the bigger brake
pad spacers
Between the brake arm in the brake pad itself so that the thinner ones are on the outside
This makes a greater distance between the rim and the brake arm, and I forget the logic behind that right now
But I know that there was something there and something that would make for an improvement over
The thinner brake pad spacers being on the inside, so I'll make a video about that in the future
It's just something that I remembered and I wanted to include so I think that's everything to do with my brake setup
I hope you find it useful
I've included all of the info cards and links in the description below for the videos that
Correspond with the different tips and tricks that I've done talking about brakes
Hopefully those helped, too if so leave some comments below
I'd like to hear your brake setups, and how you set things up
And I'd like to know if any of these setups work for you, or if you've tried them in general with that being said
Thank you for watching. I hope to hear about your brake setups in the comments below
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