Thankyou Steven for risking a crappy day to sift through tables of rusty bits and pieces to haul in a veritable treasure trove of parts for us – and to the Abbottsford Cycles Vintage Bike Swap Meet for coming up with the goods at just the right moment. I completely expected that Steven would come up empty handed, scant reward for getting a wet backside on the ride to and from the city. But no, eight callipers, including two intended for fork mounting, plus a lever, plus another AW hub ! Christmas has certainly come early.
I was frankly pretty excited to open up an email on the ‘phone on Saturday afternoon, having spent the morning swinging Callum on local playground equipment. I had completely forgotten that I had alerted Steven to the swap meet date with a sheepish request to try to locate the brake parts required to complete our bikes in road format.
‘Mission Accomplished’ his note said, and there, pictured on the concrete floor of his shed was proof positive of a motley collection of ‘Philco’ brake callipers. A bit of cleaning up and lubrication, some cobbling together of springs and cable adjusters should see the two fronts and two rears brought back to useable condition. This will see the Whatley frame and Malvern Star equipped for use with a freewheel. I just hope that the brakes can be adjusted to work a little better than their reputation would suggest…
Forum threads can be a fantastic source of information and also opinion. Without having ever ridden with this type of brake, I am curious to find out at first hand just what they are like. They do have a very 20’s cable-stop-lever-arm-and-set-screw appearance - completely un-aerodynamic and overly mechanically complicated. In other words, quite theatrical and fantastic. Opinion on the threads seems to run along the lines of particularly poor-to-non-existent stopping power, or even more alarming, either off or definitely on in modulation. Fiddling with the calliper that came with the Aero tends to confirm these proffered opinions, as the hinged lever-arms operated by the brake cable seem to have a compromised rate of actuation – little movement at the brake pad to start with, as the lever begins it arc, followed by what would appear to be a little more movement toward the centre-of-swing, before petering out to a locked position as the levers reach the end of their travel. The trick may be to find the sweet spot in the lever arm stroke that allows the most pad movement – by balancing pad position and cable tension. Luckily, both are adjustable with a long and fine cable adjusting thread and moveable brake shoe retainers.
I have to admit that most exciting was the discovery of Philco’s intended for fork mounting – via clamps attached to the main brake-arm pivot points. I had no idea that these existed. The Aero came with a single pivot side-pull that uses clamps strapped around each fork leg to hold the assembly in place at the correct height, mount the return springs and ( hopefully ) reduce flex in the thin steel plates. Similarly the discovered Philco’s use a system of fork blade clamps which should also reduce the amount of calliper flex when compared to the single mounting bolt of a rear set. Wishful thinking I know, but at least the possibility is there.
This chance find and astute pick-up by Steven has resolved something of a dilemma. Having turned attention to the solution for braking, I had noticed that none of the bikes have a drilled fork crown to accept the mounting bolt for a brake calliper. In each case there is a threaded hole in the rear of the crown – presumably for mounting either a full or truncated mudguard with a set screw. I had been considering the historical implication of needing to drill the fork crown to accept a brake calliper, or whether Craig and I could live with the reduced braking performance of just a single rear calliper. Drilling the fork crown of a path racer or track bike just doesn’t feel right, particularly as the intention is to run them in either road or track configuration, and my brain had been tossing around some ideas that involved contorted plate steel to replicate the backing clamps as found on the Aero.
Given the dubious performance reputation of the Philco, this may all prove to be a moot point, but two pathetic brakes have to be a little better than just one. In my case, for added excitement, and due to a lack of identical pieces for all three bikes, I will need to use a Westwood front rim. As I am the lightest of the group, and I highly value Gav and Craig’s wellbeing ( don’t want to be totally responsible for killing them ) they will each be set up using a pair of Endrick rims for maximum braking surface potential, while I will use a hybrid according to spoke hole drilling with Westwood front and Endrick rear.
So, a few hours of cleaning and adjustment, followed by some careful shaping of Koolstop pad inserts should see some stopping power, and kilo’s worth of steel, attached to the bikes so that they can be run with a freewheel. Thanks again Steven – much appreciated.
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