Bicycle Brakes

Since I just really started senior project and haven’t been blogging enough lately, I thought I’d do another one today. One thing that I worked on extensively last week was examining different kinds of bicycle brakes. I learned about the different kinds of brakes and the evolution of brakes in regards to the bicycle industry. The first popular brake that I learned about in the evolution of common bicycle brakes was the side-pull brake. The side-pull brake operates by pulling on the cable that is located on the side of the device (thus the name…). Pulling the cable pulls the brake pads together, thus causing the bike to break. The next popular kind of brake was the center-pull. The center-pull provided even torque to the brake pads and was easier to adjust and operate than the side-pull brake. It looks exactly like a side-pull brake, except that the “pull” is located at the center. The next brake to become extremely popular was the cantilever brake. The cantilever brake was more effective and eliminated the unnecessary hardware that the center-pull and the side-pull brakes used. The latest evolution in bicycle braking was the invention of V-brakes. V-brakes look similar to cantilever brakes, but due to their design are significantly easier to adjust and operate. V-brakes first emerged in 1998 and have dominated the industry since. So, that’s all for bicycle brakes. Enjoy the pictures.

Side-pull:

Center-Pull:

Cantilever Brakes:

V-Brakes:


Putting images on blogger is a pain... ~Joe.