Coker with brake

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Hear me I gloat.

I got my Coker back from the mechanic today and it now has a lovey black brake
fitted… Cant wait to try it out properly. Unfortunatly I live at the top of a
hill so it’ll have to wait till tomorrow when I go DOWN the hill to work.
Progress reports will follow as I learn to ride with assisted braking and as I
mangle my fingers in the tyre.

sarah

2

Re: Coker with brake

Sarah:

I would be very interested to see a picture of exactly how this works. Is there
a chance that maybe we could have a digital image along with url posted to the
newsgroup? I would love to have a look at this for future consideration.

Derrick

3

Re: Coker with brake

Sarah,

    I'm in the process of putting a disc brake on my muni. Can you provide
    some details on how the brake level is setup. Also, what type of brake
    did you select?
4

Re: Coker with brake

Sarah,

    Thanks for the information. I'm planning to mount my lever under the
    seat as well. The master cylinder will attach to the seat post. A new
    control lever will need to be made so my palm can rest on the saddle
    and 1 or more fingers can squeeze the brake. It's all new to me so I'm
    sure there will be glitches in the installation that will need to be
    worked out. Some of the down hills are rough and you bounce around
    alot. I hope the seat will provide a mechanical reference for constant
    pressure during this type of descent. More than likely there will be
    many face plants.
5

Re: Coker with brake

Scott Bridgman (scott@enduco.com) wrote:
: I’m in the process of putting a disc brake on my muni. Can you provide
: some details on how the brake level is setup. Also, what type of brake
: did you select?

My selection of parts was all down to what I couls get cheap, when the guy who
sold me two bar end shifters for a tenner offered to chuck in a caliper brake
set up I said yes please. Chatting to Richard who did the brake fitting for me,
he recons a duel pivot brake would be better than the single pivot I have. As
for the lever … I have a bar end ( for MTBS) mounted on the seat post
sticking uder the front of my saddle. This bar end curves down at the end and in
the end I have a bar end gear shifter set to friction mode ( rather than
indexed). These shifters were popular for touring bikes a few years back, now
unfortunatly they are not so common and take a bit of tracking down unless you
want to pay a lot for a new Shimano set. The shifter has a plug mounting that
fits snug inside a bar end, the brake cable goes from the shifter lever, into an
outer cable that is zip tied to thse side of the bar end, loops off the back
under tha saddle and curves down to the brake calliper which is behind the fork.
I’ve discovered that the lever is a little to close to the tyre for comfort and
will try to correct this by shortening the bar end and thus reducing the
downward reach. I’ve deliberatly kept all cable fixings temporay and off the
seat post so that I can swap saddles around easily. The bar end has to stay with
that uni now but this isn’t a problem.

Hope this helps, I expect a disc brake will be a rather different kettle of
fish, good luck.

sarah

6

Re: Coker with brake

Scott Bridgman (scott@enduco.com) wrote:
: Sarah,

: Thanks for the information. I’m planning to mount my lever under the
: seat as well. The master cylinder will attach to the seat post. A new
: control lever will need to be made so my palm can rest on the saddle and
: 1 or more fingers can squeeze the brake. It’s all new to me so I’m sure
: there will be glitches in the installation that will need to be worked
: out. Some of the down hills are rough and you bounce around alot. I hope
: the seat will provide a mechanical reference for constant pressure
: during this type of descent. More than likely there will be many face
: plants.

WOW, sounds high tech…does it need to be or do you like over engineering? I
find the friction gear shifter provides even presure with out having to hold it
in position, just set it and let go till I want to take it off. sarah

7

Re: Coker with brake

Sarah,

I may have missed the beginning of this thread. I understand how you mounted the
shift lever to operate your brake. I use a similar setup for a drum brake on my
tandem bike. But how did you mount the brake calipers themselves?

Did you drill through the frame of the Coker? It seems a pretty wimpy frame for
that. Did you weld on brake bosses?

How is it working?

Thanks,

David Maxfield Bainbridge Island, WA

8

Re: Coker with brake

In article <19991210173920.01176.00000355@ng-fz1.aol.com>, maxfieldd@aol.com
(Maxfield D) writes:

>But how did you mount the brake calipers themselves?
>
>Did you drill through the frame of the Coker? It seems a pretty wimpy frame for
>that. Did you weld on brake bosses?

I have just fitted a brake to my coker using an old centre pull brake from a
junk bike. I drilled a hole through the seat post stub which protrudes beneath
where the fork arms are welded on and just inserted the bolt and fixed it as on
a normal bike. It is fortunate that there is so little clearance between the
tyre and the seat post stub because the fit is perfect and that part of the
frame is pretty redundant. I sawed through the brake blocks (lengthways) to make
them thinner and give a bit more clearance from the rim.

I am using an old friction thumbshifter, from another junk bike, attached
halfway up the seatpost as a brake lever.

Whilst the old cheap centre pull brakes are not very efficient I think that is a
definite benefit for a unicycle where ultimate stopping power sounds painful!
This way you can apply graduated braking for long downhills with less risk of
overdoing it.

In all it took me about 20 minutes and no cost, and I have a couple more brakes
lying around if anyone wants one, and you’re welcome to all the other scrap here
as well :slight_smile:

Jerry Cooper