Machine Politics vs Beaver Boys, May 2011. Photo by Bruce Carver
- Odyssey BMX M2 lever
- Prototype full length cable
- (optional) Problem Solver Travel Agent if you are running long pull brakes
I have been searching for the ultimate dual brake setup for awhile now and I really think this could be the future of dual brakes in polo. The problem solvers doubler is a pain in the ass and swapping out cables sucks, the dual mods that guys like Lucky are doing are sweet but basically all long pull levers are pretty shitty (in my opinion) unless you start dishing out a lot of cash for one, and I have even been working with Timtim on CADDing up some ideas that he had.
During all this I decided to email Odyssey because they make great products and their prices are always awesome. I've talked with them in the past about bmx components and they have always been very open to new ideas and were always helpful. Basically...I asked if they were able to produce a full length cable to fit their gyro brake lever and they said that they had already been talking with people in Austin about it. (Austin - I tried to contact several guys from your club but never heard back from you). Chris, product designer at Odyssey, even got back to me to let me know that the prototype cables were in a few weeks later and sent me one to test out.
Bottom line...I love it. It's easy to install, works great, super sturdy and should last a long time even under polo conditions. Hopefully they'll keep working with us and make a few production runs of the cables if there is enough interest.
That's a good point. I haven't actually used one of your levers or something similar yet...and actually after thinking about it, I still use a problem solver travel agent. I could actually use your short pull lever + problem solver anyway.
I'm trying to get them to send me another cable before I leave for St. Louis so I can bring one out to you guys. If I don't get it before we leave I'll send one out to you to check out if you'd like.
In the spirit of overcomplicating things, couldn't hillbilly introduce an in-line cable adjuster to get his front/rear ratio dialed?
(e.g. http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/CA290Z01-Jagwire+J2+Inline+Adjust... )
I bought one of Lucky's levers at the NA tourney. I'm putting it on tomorrow. I promptly lost the pin that the brake cable goes in but I made a new one to accept road bike brake cables. Let me know if you'd like feedback about it.
-MT
They do make inline barrel adjusters.
A modified Avid FR-5 with the Lucky hardware. Perfect. Not an Avid SD Ultimate, but it's no Tektro either. Add Paul Motolite brakes. No problems. And that's saying something after all the shit I've been through with brakes.
I've never used the Travel Agent and don't know how they perform or hold up to abuse.
A quality double long-pull lever sure would be nice.....
Not to derail a thread about the Odyssey dual cable solution, but, 2 things:
1. St Cago, St Cago, St Cago. "Lucky" is a person. The things I make are all St Cago products.
2. I think that the next round of levers will all be drilled for road cables. It seems like a more secure fit into the rod. Thanks for the feedback, Mike (and Ben, who did the same thing).
So, you want us to call you Mr. St. Cago?
Ha!
St. Cago, while clever, is not as natural or catchy as Lucky. That's why this keeps happening. Don't kill the messenger(s).
My vote is for St. Lucky. The possibility for logos is endless... Dice, chrome naked ladies (of the mudflap variety of course), shamrocks, leprechauns, rabbits feet, horseshoes, people who have beaten me in polo matches, etc finished with a saintly halo.
why only one travel agent?
i like that you're contacting bmx companies concerning polo innovations. i would like to see more of that more of that.
why only one travel agent?
i like that you're contacting bmx companies concerning polo innovations. i would like to see more of that more of that.
I actually bought a second travel agent to install on the front but decided to try without one because less parts = less parts to break. My thinking was that since you want the rear brake to grab first you need the travel agent to take up the slack in the short pull lever...but since I only wanted the front to grab later toward the end of the pull I might be able to get away with leaving the travel agent out. I didn't know if it would work at first, but it seems to be working great so far...it gives me a larger range of pull between rear braking and front braking so I can grab the lever and skid easier without the front braking but can still pull hard and get them both to brake.
That probably makes no sense...I'm terrible at explaining things.
And yeah...I'm psyched that Odyssey was willing to listen and may be interested in more input from polo. I agree...more bmx in polo could be a good thing.
I have exactly same thing on my polo bike.
This is made by me with a little help of local factory.
Been using it for half a year, so far so good. (snapped once though)
Actually we were thinking to produce this thing with stronger wire, but will wait for Odyssey's one.
I was thinking about trying out this setup, a disk rear and reverse mounted V in the front:
Are those clamp-on v-brakes?
Are those clamp-on v-brakes?
Yep, this or something similar I believe.
http://www.ison-distribution.com/ison/english/product.php?part=FKITRBA
Had had the pleasure of meeting Em and Gabes of Rotten Apples (pictured) at Euros and checking out their bikes.
The set up seems pretty good. Front v mounted on the inside and rear disc, with what i'm pretty sure is the St Cago dual lever.
I feel it makes alot of sense because it seems having more brake in the back is what everyone is after. So on top of being able to make the rear engage first, you have more physical braking power in the disc than you do in the v.
Also nice touch to have the v brake mounted on the inside, away from any stray mallets.
thanks, i was looking for those brake mounts. I wonder if the 'jump bike' geometry is useful at all?
thanks for the info, seems like a great setup for polo. hopefully u wont be offended if i totally bite your shit =P
Hey Obj - Why the 140 rotor in back? I have one, and I was thinking it might give me a different feel than a 160, but havnt bothered using it yet. Im thinking it will give me more modulation, not just lock up for a skid, plus a lower profile/less to bend. Im rocking dual disks with a home-brew 2:1 lever (dirt harry + cago-style slpitter) on bmx bars, and its fucking tits. I want to put a 140 on the front bc i seem to bend 160 rotors ...
Apples, you have the most beautiful bikes and bike setup on polo earth...
I was thinking about trying out this setup, a disk rear and reverse mounted V in the front:
what are those bolt on brake bosses called? who sells them?
I want to find those bolt of brake mounts for my track bike this winter. Those look awesome.
Is there any more news on these cables? I have an M2 lever which is sitting in a box. I tried to do it the dirty way by filing down brake cable ends for 'moderate' success, but very soon after upgraded to a St Cago style setup with V–Brakes.
I haven't heard anything new about them. Did anyone talk to Odyssey at Interbike? Try emailing them and I'll send another email out as well - Chris Cotsonas: chrisc@odysseybmx.com
On that note...I my setup is still going strong and I literally love it more everyday. I haven't had to touch anything since I dialed it in the first time. Two others here in SD have been running theirs for almost as long as I have and also love them. That said, none of us have ever tried any of the other dual brake options out there.
Hey everyone,
I have a quick question about the problem solver 2:1. Have we (polo world) moved on from this? (I get the impression we have) It's expensive and is a pain to replace cables in, but apart from that, how well does it perform?
i.e. If you could get one cheap and arent worried about snapping cables, would you go for it?
Kremin, are you still running yours?, I dont remember seeing it in Berlin, but I wasn't looking.
the problem solver worked fine but setting it up was a pain and involved a lot of locktite. The real problem was the master cable the one that ran to your lever was held by a tiny set screw that threaded into aluminum, it constantly felt like i was going to strip it. I upgraded to lucky's double lever hard ware and moded an avid lever. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for the speedy reply kremin!
do you have a picture of the modded avid lever? thanks.
What did you have to do to mod the Avid? Very interested in getting this rocking myself.
Paul had a dual brake lever on display at NAHBS. It has notches for both short and long pull. You can see it blurry in the background in this photo:
i heard about this. when? how much? i want.
Its that fuzzy silver brake in the background? Is this spy quality footage?
.
Better photo from Trevor.
See? This is why you ought not send a woodworker to do a machinist's job. Elegant. Well done, Paul.
yea the question is how much? their regular levers are $60, so i'm guessing around $75? likely worth it.
This prototype looks just like a setup I have been using with an interrupter lever.
Attached are some photos. When I made this I had a few things driving my choice:
1. I wanted to put a dual brad setup on drop bars. I use this bike to commute and then go over to the court in the week. I'm a new player so that is my excuse for wanting to use drop bars.
2. I didn't want to modify any nice parts (I bought the lever new, so I consider it a nice part)
3. I wanted to make it out of scrap parts I could find and not do a lot of custom or new parts. I chose the salsa lever because it looked like it had the most potential for mounting the extra parts compared to other interrupter levers. The scrap parts I used were from old friction shifters. One was a lever shifter and the other was a thumb shifter.
The nice thing is that I can use the levers in the drop like normal while commuting and then when I play polo I have the dual brake.
The some things that concerned me at the start were cable routing and also weather a short-pull lever would provide enough force for good braking. I was also concerned with durability, but nothing has broken so far with a dozen or so days playing on it.
With my current setup, I feel that my braking is a bit underpowered. I am using some old side-pull brakes with a pretty long reach (I am using 700 rims and the bike was made for 27"). I am going to upgrade the brakes to dual-pivot and I the more modern brakes will allow for better cable routing of the front brake too. New brake pads will also help.
Unless you are running drop bars and want to have the option of using the brakes like normal (front independent from rear), I am not sure if this is a good solution. Do other people see reasons for this setup?
Whenever I look at Paul stuff, I think "why doesnt everyone make things like this - so simple, clean, and purposeful" then I look at the price tag.
I have hacked levers on my polo bike, FYI... dont have the stomach or the ching to mod a Paul lever.
shit is already dual pull, made with polo on the mind
Hey everyone,
Here's my little how to for modding the readily available (and despised) stock dual pull levers for a little bias.
I assumed the world of bike polo discovered and abandoned these levers years ago. If these levers allowed bias then Lucky, Rik and others may have never even needed to do their own mods.
I bought a dimension lever off the shelf in 2008 and it sat in my toolbox for years till I saw a few europeans using them unmodded here this summer, I figured they couldn't be that bad, they were playing well. Alas it wasn't working for me at all... Since then I've made the mod and it's _much_ better.
To bias the back, you can also add a rubber dampener adapter thing to your front cable (whitey has done this)
BUT this is what I did. (Thanks to Jesse for the suggestion)
---
You can add a set screw into the lever to push the pivot off centre. Below are the photos for the mod, if you do this be very careful to drill straight, I misjudged it a little, half a mm further off alignment and I would have stuffed it entirely.
FYI. I use my lever on a rear cable disk and front v-brake which are of course both long pull.
What you'll need
A set screw any thicker than this M4 would require a hole too big and the lever would probably snap.
Where to Drill
Be careful to only drill through a part of the lever with sufficient material around it to retain strength.
You can see in the photo above and below that there is much less material to work with so your drilling needs to be precise and your set screw needs to be quite small.
Cutting the thread
Dont rush this or you could break the tap and it'll be stuck there.
2 finger version
Feels much nicer, next one I make will be one of these.
View the whole set in flickr here http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanbicyclist/sets/72157626108921243
(forgot to take a photo of the finished job, will get back to that in the next few days)
The result? works great, as expected.
As Dingo mentioned I (with the boys at human-powered cycles) added a "squidgenator" on the front brake so it doesn't lock up before the back. No worries.
It must be noted that I had been used to the crappiest break set-up known to humanity so the ability to stop; skid and slow effectively is pretty sweet.
ps. I spelled Brake as Break and dingo helped point that out so I could edit it.. and yes I am a teacher, pray for the children....
I was talking to Rob G in Lexington this weekend and he brought up a good point, that nobody has tried to make a lever to be dual stage, meaning that you could engage one break with one part of the lever and engage both when you pull another section of the lever. I could see how this would help with maneuverability, so i sat down with my industrial designer friend over a few beers and we came up with a design we want to build as a prototype. i'd like to see if its any good or not. he is busy with a project at the minute but we should have one done in early summer.
been done with existing parts. seattle's innovation is called the beef mod (or the julian). next level polo shit. if you don't know, now you know.
Kremin brought the sti lever setup over a year ago but nobody ever did anything with it...awesome that julian's got it working.
rob and I talked about a dual stage lever like a year ago...one lever hinged in the middle so that one half operates only the rear brake and the other half operates both...no two finger carpal tunnel problems or extra components to break. clean, simple, effective and durable.
I've had a two lever configuration, the problem solver 1:2 and now run the odyssey m2...they all have their drawbacks. TWO STAGE! TWO STAGE! TWO STAGE!
two stage is nice, but i'm looking forward to the paul dual lever. shit, i play with the cheapo pyramid lever. been playing with it for a year plus now (on my 3rd one). some people say it's crap and i do keep an extra in case it breaks, but it works for me when i need to stop.
been done with existing parts. seattle's innovation is called the beef mod (or the julian). next level polo shit. if you don't know, now you know.
I just did one of these with a dead XTR shiftpod/brake combo I got for $5 at a LBS on a whim.
JB welded the thumb lever to the pivot (bypassing/disabling the ratcheting shift function) so it now just pulls the cable and returns from the calipers spring tension, and the built in spring..
It fucking rocks with dual disk brakes, not so much with 990s (so you know).
I am still getting used to it, but in one day I am already using both levers barely thinking about it. I can stop on a dime with both, skid, and go over the bars...
Nokon housing is sitting on my table, reasdy to instal, now that I know I want this on my rig.
uh, that picture is not what i am talking about. looks like you got a brake hooked up to a shifter with a travel agent. something i'm missing? the lever i'm talking about would be one unit with a split lever.
you get a gold star. there's also a version that uses sti mountain levers; the normal pulling of the brake engages the rear, but when you push the lever down (as if to shift gears) the front brake engages. are you talking about a brake where the lever arm is hinged in the middle? can you draw a picture if this doesn't exist?
i'll do you one better, i'll try and get it modeled in solid works or something. but yah there basically would be two levers in one, our design uses one hinge and a couple of machined parts hidden inside the lever to make it work. like if you pulled the outside of the lever it would engage one brake which you could choose which brake it would engage, and if you pulled the inside half of the lever it would engage both brakes. we are still working on the design, and we will do a one off prototype machined out of a decent aluminum, like a 6000 or 7000 series. it will be awhile before it is done though.
sweet. look forward to it.
so do I.
It might be difficult to operate the inner brake lever with the Lacrosse gloves a big amount of players wear during polo.
if they're going off of my idea/design...it's not an inner/outer lever...its one lever but at the halfway point along the length of the lever there is a hinge so that you can pull the half past the hinge by itself and operare just the back brake or pull before the hinge and activate both brakes...at least this is the way I originally imagined it but could never get anyone interested in building. you use one hand but have complete modulation and seperation.
First attempt at a double lever. Drilled out a narrow, extra channel and fitted a derailer cable in. Works, kinda, but could be improved. The cable pull in the secondary lever is a bit too small. It'll work a little better once I drill a proper cable hanger into my stem.
I have the Paul Duplex lever, and like all the other Paul Components I own , its clean, elegant, and well made, my time is well worth the price paid and the function is flawless.
The only thing, or two things, I don't like about the design is that it uses the road style brake cable, and in order to remove it I guess you'd have to take take the entire length of cable out of both housings. Not a big deal, but taking a bike apart and handle bars off for traveling might be more annoying. It could have been resolved with a hinged attachment, but most levers don't have that either. And either modification could affect its durability, so fuck it I guess.
But whatever, I might get one anyways.
Agreed, I want to be able to disengage the cables at the lever for travel, and a hinge would also help. There are other paul levers with a hinge, I expect they may add this in the next model. When they do this, I would upgrade.
The only other thing I don't like about the lever is the fiddly C-clip at the base of the pivot pin (I broke mine), and the squareness of where your fingers wrap around the lever. I have wrapped mine with hockey tape.
If you're finger is pulling on the edge of the flat blade then you have the lever at the wrong angle on your bars.
Rotate it until your finger is pulling on the flat part of the lever blade. I find my Paul lever extremely comfortable, because of the wide flat blade.
Lever angle on the bars is a dynamic position based on the size of the rider and the relationship between handlebar height and body position and distance and length of arms.. There is no "right" or "wrong" in this area, at least in terms of polo bikes.
I for one thought that shit sucked. HEY PAUL, ITS CALLED A BEVEL. USE IT.
>If you're finger is pulling on the edge of the flat blade then you have the lever at the wrong angle on your bars.
Thanks but no, the lever is setup properly, it's just got a squareish edge, moreso than any of my other levers. (and I don't have very fatty fingers either ;)
Aye, ye have the fair and gentle hands of a maiden m'lad.
Right, but the only way to adjust your brakes so the rear hits before the front is with the pinch bolt on the brake itself. Otherwise they both tension simultaneously from the lever. Not a lot of finesse in that.
Otherwise, I agree, Odyssey makes good stuff cheap.
Wanna buy some polo stuff?
http://www.fixcraft.net/stcago