[crestlinefarm]

I have a set of Cervelo-branded Tektro R20 brakes that came standard on my Cervelo Soloist. I was checking the bike over last night and noticed the right (non-drive side) brake pad on the front brake was actually touching the tire sidewall! A lightbulb went off in my head -- I remember thinking on my last ride that it was odd that the the front brake was marginal, but the back brake was fairly powerful.
I tried lowering the pad only to find that it was already at the bottom of the arm. I looked at the left side (drive side) and the pad was perfectly aligned with the rim's braking surface and there was still about 3mm of adjustment left.

Am I missing some key to adjusting dual-pivot brakes or should I just contact the shop?

I really want to avoid becoming a total pain to this shop as they've already had to warranty replace the left/front shifter and then their mechanic spent about 3 hours trying about 6 different crankset / front deraillers combinations in order to get good shifting performance.

 

[winstonc]

I have a set of Cervelo-branded Tektro R20 brakes that came standard on my Cervelo Soloist. I was checking the bike over last night and noticed the right (non-drive side) brake pad on the front brake was actually touching the tire sidewall! A lightbulb went off in my head -- I remember thinking on my last ride that it was odd that the the front brake was marginal, but the back brake was fairly powerful.
I tried lowering the pad only to find that it was already at the bottom of the arm. I looked at the left side (drive side) and the pad was perfectly aligned with the rim's braking surface and there was still about 3mm of adjustment left.

Am I missing some key to adjusting dual-pivot brakes or should I just contact the shop?

I really want to avoid becoming a total pain to this shop as they've already had to warranty replace the left/front shifter and then their mechanic spent about 3 hours trying about 6 different crankset / front deraillers combinations in order to get good shifting performance.

If memory serves, there are two ways to adjust the left-right alignment of dual-pivot brakes. The first is to turn the little set screw, and the second is to loosen the brake bolt (from the rear of the fork), rotate the whole brake, and then tighten the bolt again.

The thing about turning the set screw is that it doesn't rotate the brake arms symmetrically about the axis of the central brake bolt -- it moves one of them (non-drive side) around the pivot that's off to the side. The result is that when you use the set screw, the arms can change their relative height (and distance to the central bolt).

I think the way out of your problem is to loosen the set screw, and also loosen the brake bolt and rotate the whole brake to compensate.

 

[FatTireFred]

prob don't even need to loosen the bolt, just pull the arm over to move the brakes and center

 

[ericm979]

I know it is obvious, but make sure your wheel is centred in the dropouts.