I’ve noticed a lot of people have improvised reinforcements to the upper portion of their D’Brake adaptors. How necessary do you feel this is? I’m a heavier rider and this is on a 36er with a 180mm rotor. I’m also a beginner so there won’t be any extreme muni or extra long descents happening any time soon.
I’ve got a bit of experience fabricating aluminum parts and sometime in the next month or so I aim to make a reinforcement for it.
Many reinforcements were made due to vibration problems. I’ve also seen people ride harder muni with unsupported d’brakes. On the other hand, a 36er with 180mm and a heavy rider will also put a lot of force on this thing. If it’s no problem for you fabricationg such a reinforcement, then go for it and you do not do not need to havy any doubts that your brake will not fail. UDC sells the d’brake now with some L-shaped bracket. Maybe they even sell this one separately.
The L shaped bracket it comes with really isn’t much. Were I to use it I’d still have to come up with some way to attach it to the frame, which it doesn’t quite reach. A coaster brake clamp would probably work, but it wouldn’t be very strong and likely wouldn’t do much to stop vibration. I’m thinking a piece of aluminum tubing surrounding a threaded bar to match the threads on the brake adaptor on one side and screwing into an aluminum clamp on the other. Eventually I’ll build something, but if I can reasonably expect to ride it without problems I might just take my time doing so.
If you don’t experience vibrations, I don’t think it is strictly “necessary”. I have a simple brace on mine, but I doubt it does much in terms of adding actual strength - it did however remove some (pretty extreme) vibrations I got when braking.
Does your frame have rim brake mounts? It’s easy to attach a tube to it.
You can find lots of pictures in this thread: Nimbus D-brake -vs- Mountain Uni UCM brake mounts
No rim brake mounts. Its a Nightfox, so one of the few where rim brakes would be very difficult on.