it’s my first fixie so will be a bit of fun to learn the ‘trade’. I also have another roadbike frame (“roadmaster”) which was going to be built up… but will put that to the side for the moment.
anyway, I want to run a front brake ('cos i have a few cross streets on my commute to work and don’t really want to bonnet surf). the current fork is a track fork which isn’t drilled. so i could just change the fork from the roadmaster (drilled 27") and fit a brake… except the wheels are 700c…
so, any advice on how hard is it to find ‘long reach’ brakes that’ll work and how ugly is the gap between fork and tyre going to be between 27" fork and 700c wheel…?
I’m running similar, 700 rims on old frame.
Abbottsford Cycles stock new shimano long reach for just this purpose.
58mm drop rings a bell. About $40. They also had cheaper ones as well i think.
Depends on the fork you use. If it’s a huge clearance 27" fork then you’ll struggle unless you use a BMX caliper with reach >75mm. I had a 1974 Raleigh that just worked with a 55-75mm reach centre-pull with pads at the very bottom.
The increased axle->crown distance will change the geometry slightly, and a 27" fork is likely to have more rake so you won’t have a toe-overlap problem, but it’ll steer slower.
I got a promax long reach brake from them a while ago. The return spring came out while riding (my own fault). I went in there to get another and they only had short reach. The long reach shimano ones weren’t long enough. Might just be my forks in particular though.
I’ve got 700c on 27" and my brakes just barely reach…in fact a tiny smidge of the pad is not over the rim…I need to fix this but have a roaring case of CBF’ed-ness.