Hey all - if you are awaiting your V20C and/or are adjusting it, I wanted to put out this note that I went over briefly in the assembly video but wanted to reiterate it here in a bit more detail.
On some of the builds the levers were put too far down the curve of the bars. The result is a difficult to adjust brake where the lever will hit the bar before there is good brake contact making adjustment difficult. This can happen no matter what levers are used if they are too far down the bar.
Back when I did the builds I always had to position the levers far enough back in the curve to allow proper lever travel. For these builds in Taiwan they had a few different people doing the factory builds and it seems some have mispositioned the levers. You will have to unwrap and then rewrap the main section of the grip tape to do this most likely for a clean move - so sorry about that.
The key is to loosen and move the hoods further back on the bars. This will open up the space between the levers and the bar. On mine at the end of adjustment (after moving the levers) I cannot pull the lever to the bar (see pic). There is an ideal position in the curve that will allow of the most lever travel. I typically set up the bars and levers with the bar and hood in a near straight alignment (see pic). This is similar to how a regular road bike would be set up (see pic) where the levers are much further back on the bars than initially seems realistic on a Cruzbike.
On the calipers, the starting position for the pads should be with the side adjusters all the way OUT. Then adjust cable tension at the pinch bolt - on mine I have around 34-35mm of exposed cable coming out of the cable stop on the caliper to the pinch bolt (see pic). This should pre-load the caliper lever properly.
The tolerances are tight, but the V20C I have - it brakes pretty well. I can lock up my rear wheel into a skid... These aren't the best brakes in the universe but they are pretty much the only calipers and shifters that were readily available OEM to us for a year or more coming still and I had to call in some favors to even get these ones.
Ride on!
On some of the builds the levers were put too far down the curve of the bars. The result is a difficult to adjust brake where the lever will hit the bar before there is good brake contact making adjustment difficult. This can happen no matter what levers are used if they are too far down the bar.
Back when I did the builds I always had to position the levers far enough back in the curve to allow proper lever travel. For these builds in Taiwan they had a few different people doing the factory builds and it seems some have mispositioned the levers. You will have to unwrap and then rewrap the main section of the grip tape to do this most likely for a clean move - so sorry about that.
The key is to loosen and move the hoods further back on the bars. This will open up the space between the levers and the bar. On mine at the end of adjustment (after moving the levers) I cannot pull the lever to the bar (see pic). There is an ideal position in the curve that will allow of the most lever travel. I typically set up the bars and levers with the bar and hood in a near straight alignment (see pic). This is similar to how a regular road bike would be set up (see pic) where the levers are much further back on the bars than initially seems realistic on a Cruzbike.
On the calipers, the starting position for the pads should be with the side adjusters all the way OUT. Then adjust cable tension at the pinch bolt - on mine I have around 34-35mm of exposed cable coming out of the cable stop on the caliper to the pinch bolt (see pic). This should pre-load the caliper lever properly.
The tolerances are tight, but the V20C I have - it brakes pretty well. I can lock up my rear wheel into a skid... These aren't the best brakes in the universe but they are pretty much the only calipers and shifters that were readily available OEM to us for a year or more coming still and I had to call in some favors to even get these ones.
Ride on!
