Time change, brake change & tyre change

Well the clocks went back an hour last night and yes I forgot all about it, so it was a very early start for me, bloody dark at four oclock in the morning ! time to get on with some jobs.
I bought some TRP CX 9  brakes last year for a Cannondale Caddx bike that i had bought. The standard canti that it came with were crap to say the least. The CX9's have so much power they are unreal. There are three problems though, you have got to have the pads set close to the rim or the brake lever comes back to the bars so if you your wheels are more than a mm out of true they will rub. Problem no2 if you grab a handful of lever then they are too powerful. Problem no3 if you race your cx bike and the course is very muddy they clog up very easy. I swaped them over onto Angus's new Scott Addict CX frameset when we built that and have had no problems at all but with the recent wet weather all the cx courses now are knee deep in the brown stuff so it was time for good old fashioned cantis. On One had some TRP Euro X on special offer so we bought the basic model as they were the best value for money compaired to the more expensive Magnesium model. Fitting was easy but there is no toe in adjustment on the pads so might be noisy until they wear in alittle. Plenty braking power for general cx racing and alot more mud clearance.
Then i had my own CX9 brakes back now so stripped off my very old Avid Shorty 6 cantis from my Litespeed Winter bike and fitted the CX9's. Finally i have stopping power now, the old Avids were ok at scrubbing off some speed but could not bring me to a stop quickly if i needed to. Below are some pics of the various brake swaps

CX9 on the Scott Addict

New Euro X fitted to Scott Addict CX

CX9 fitted to Litespeed, had to adjust the mudguard down slightly for the noodle to clear

Avid Shorty 6 cantis on the Litespeed

CX9 first fitted to the Caad X

Rear brake on the Caad X with Reynolds carbon pads fitted



It is also the time of year to put the Winter Wheels/tyres on the van. Last year i bought a pair of cheapo's from mytyres.co.uk Sunny SN290's to go along with the other pair of Maxxis winter tyres which i have had for a few years and are wearing well. I had a spare pair of steel rims so got the Sunny's fitted and now have a full set of winter tyres for the van. They did not get a proper good testing last winter as we have very little snow, ice or freezing temperatures compaired to the previous couple of winters. They are a little more noisy than the standard road tyres doing motorway driving and didnt notice a drop in mpg's. The snow we did have was no problems and they had alot more grip than the standard tyres. We will just have to wait and see what winter brings us this year.