Roller-Cam brakes

[James]

This isn't a Rivendell related question, and for that I apologize, but ya'll are the most bike-savvy people I "know".  I see a lot of value in a cheap, knock-around, lock-up-anywhere bike, so I have my eyes on a local Schwinn High Sierra.  It has roller-cam brakes and I have know experience with those.  What is yawls experience with roller-cam breaks and due to the placement of the mounts on the frame, what other brakes may be compatible?  The mounts seem higher on the frame than cantilever mounts.  Would center or side-pull brakes work?  What other options do I have?  Thank you

Picture: https://imgur.com/0IqjRl1

[iamkeith]

Those can be great brakes.  You're fortunate that the posts are located on the seat stays. Most often they are on the bottom of the chainstays and are difficult to work on just because of lack of space.  There are two slightly different versions of those sun tour brakes, with one generally being considered superior.  I don't know enough to identify which yours is  but there's info out there.  There are also U-brakes that look like giant frame-mount center-pull caliper brakes, which use the same mounting standard, but I don't know that they're an improvement at all.  They're bulky and have limited clearance.  There are also super sought-after roller cams made by WTB/Charlie Cunningham/DKG machine, but they'd be a couple thousand dollars each  IF you could even find them.  The sun tours are a licensed version of those, and are pretty neat for a runabout hobby bike.

[Greg J]

James, if the picture you attached is the actual bike you're looking at, those are the nice ones.  You should have no issues with those brakes.  They work great, they take normal brake shoes, and there are plenty enough of them for spare parts (although they're pretty well built).  Good luck!

Greg

[James]

This is encouraging information!  Thanks for sharing the knowledge.  Hoping to see the bike this week

[WilletM]

I don't get a chance to share pics of my Ritchey Annapurna all that often, but this is a good illustration of the pricey WTB rollercams front and rear, with the rear being chainstay mounted.  This frame was originally built up with a Campy Euclid gruppo, but the original owner (who must've been flush with cash, is all I can think) decided to bling it up with WTB and other top-of-the-top-shelf items, which necessitated also ordering a second Annapurna fork with rollercam mounts in the correct positions.

Back in the early 1990's, I was in the right place at the right time and traded a nice-but-nothing-too-special Bridgestone RB-1 and $600 for this Annapurna and a mint Cinelli Supercorsa with Campy NR/SR.  Those were the days.

Willet M.

[iamkeith]

Winner winner, chicken dinner.  That's one of the nicest bikes I've ever seen.  Good trade!

[Ryan]

I know this is a Rivendell forum...but show us more pictures of this lovely bike , please

Hope everyone is safe and warm and managing to enjoy family time in the holidays  in this challenging weather

[Scott Luly]

+1 for Ryan's request for more pics

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/be398ae5-7474-46e1-812e-79b62addc64an%40googlegroups.com

.

[WilletM]

With apologies to James for pursuing a tangent within his thread about Suntour rollercams, I offer the following, well, follow up about the Ritchey Annapurna--

*****************************

First off, I will say with much admiration that I LOVE the stories in this forum nearly as much as I do the bicycles.  Hearing and seeing concrete details about bikes and builds and rides and historical info about RBW and other related topics are intensely of interest to me.  Some, on topics that are off the beaten path of my particular bicycle journey, I mostly ignore or just glance through quickly, while others capture my attention as I savor them word for word and pic by pic.  Our friend Jason F., a prolific purveyor of sumptuous Bombadilian bike porn up there in the PNW, fits squarely in my "to be savored" file.

In light of the above, I will offer up below some additional pics of the Ritchey Annapurna, and then below that, for those folks who might enjoy the stories as much as I do, some additional details on how the Annapurna made its way to me.

And now, the story.

Back in the early 90's, in Lincoln, Nebraska, I did business at Deluxe Bicycles with Tom and Pat and Greg, all of whom could very fairly be called retro-grouches.  They idolized (and promoted and sold his products) Albert Eisentraut and were big fans of vintage Campy and steel road frames, etc.  One customer of theirs, Michael S. (whose brother, coincidentally, was sort of an indie rocker during the earlier days of MTV and whose music videos were in heavy rotation at times), had previously had custom ordered/built by the Deluxe guys both the Annapurna and the Cinelli Supercorsa.  He let the guys know that he was looking more of an every-day casual rider and wanted to sell/trade the Ritchey and Cinelli to make that happen.  One of the Deluxe guys fixed me up and I did end up buying/trading for the two bikes.  Michael did let me know that he had some spare parts in a box at home, and I eventually (and oh so fortuitously) ended up with both the spare Annapurna fork and also the fillet-by-Tom stem that you see in the pics.

And I've owned both bikes for the 25-30 years since then.  Back in the early 2000's, I sent both the Annapurna and the Cinelli to the MOMBAT (MTB) museum on sort of a casual/handshake/indefinite loan, since the Annapurna is quite rare and has a particularly desirable build kit on it.  Jeff Archer, the proprietor of MOMBAT, was great to work with and I would check in with him by email every few years just to make sure he had my current contact info in case he decided to discontinue the museum enterprise.  Everything about that arrangement worked out great-- until Jeff was tragically hit by a car and killed in 2016.  I found out about that by dumb luck when I clicked on a link at mombat.org six months after the accident and was just trying to look at some pics of vintage bikes.  Imagine my surprise/horror when either the link didn't work or there was some other glitch (I forget which), and I only found out about what happened to Jeff after doing some additional research online.  Long-story-not-so-short, I eventually was able to get both bikes back, but only after scrambling to find ten-year old pics and emails to prove the handshake agreement that I had had with Jeff.  

I (admittedly) included more details above than anyone on the forum probably cared to read.  I did so in the hope that the "provenance" and pics of the Annapurna will continue to exist in the aether in case a bike nerd in 2050 googles "Ritchey Annapurna" in the hopes of tracing a rusty frame he found in his grandfather's attic.  Good luck to you, kid.  Be careful with those WTB rollercams as they may be worth something someday.

Willet M.

[Luke Hendrickson]

Here for the Ritchey content, Willet!! Gorgeous bike and what a story…

[Steven Sweedler]

Willet, even greater story and beautiful bike. I traded my Fat Chance with Jefff Archer and lost track of its place in the museum before Jeff’ s tragic death. I had it painted by Fat Chance when they were in Saratoga, in a color my daughter chose, she got a thrill when she saw it in the museum. Steve

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/e454ac0a-a198-403d-bb5e-5c3b9ef13297n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Steven Sweedler
Plymouth, New Hampshire

[Bill Lindsay]

With apologies, I've got a comment on roller cam brakes relevant to the OP.  I worked at a Schwinn shop those days and assembled many many new bikes.  I think roller cam brakes are really cool and work well if the posts are lined up with one another.  Unlike pretty much any other post mount brake, roller cams are less forgiving when the posts are not parallel and level with one another.  If they actuate smoothly, then great.  If they don't actuate smoothly, and that's because the posts aren't lined up with one another, there may be no fixing it, short of getting new posts installed.  It's pretty rare that they are really bad, but I've seen lemons out of Schwinn in those days.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Jim Bronson]

Wow.  Lesson of the story here, never loan your bike to a museum without a formal written contract. 

I could easily see ending up in court over something like this, and I for one would definitely sue to get my rare bike back.  I keep legal insurance for this and other reasons, costs $35 a month for a family plan, and worth it. 

Jim

austin suburbs

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/e454ac0a-a198-403d-bb5e-5c3b9ef13297n%40googlegroups.com.

--

------------------------------------------------------------------

signature goes here

[Danny]

Willet, thanks for sharing those pics and that story. What a bike!

-Danny

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CA%2BypmEY_uvY5Qa8yTc0iqj4KA_G1sUYTRKQKHHJozJmODK%2BgvA%40mail.gmail.com.

[velomann]

I've owned two Schwinn High Sierras with rollercam brakes, both were the two-tone brown models, 1985 (I'm pretty sure), different sizes. When I was restoring them I kind of nerded out on the brakes, and raided our local bike co-op and bought their whole box of rollercam brakes/parts for I think $10?  Experimented with 3 different cam profiles, replaced the plastic/nylon rollers with shiny brass ones, and even scored (from a list member I believe) the bent metal tool that fits inside the two roller bolts to hold the arms at the optimal spacing when tensioning the brake cable. They're a little fussy to set up, but have a great combo of power and modulation. My favorite feature is the ability to fine-tune the spring tension in each arm with the bolt/nut combo, similar to all Paul rim brakes and some earlier Diacompe and Suntour cantilever brakes.

Have Fun!

On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 9:39:26 AM UTC-8 James wrote:

[R. Alexis]

Hey James,

 Looks like you got one of those smoke chrome Schwinns. I have one. Got it from a friend in trade for some bike work. Was her fathers. Don't know if he was the original owner or just acquired it. I haven't gotten to work on it with work and the many other bike projects. I do have some SunTour Rollercam brakes mounted on the back of my 1994 Bridgestone MB-1 retro ride with the use of an Odyssey U4 Brake Stiffener/Adapter plate. It allowed the use of Rollercam/U-Brakes on cantilever equipped bikes. I used this set up on my Bridgestone MB-0(Zip) when I initially built it from a frameset before switching to WTB cantis. I always liked Rollercams and was thrilled about the Odyssey plate. I had two sets of Rollercams, sold them for some reason, then repurchased at least one set. Mine stop well. I had to add a stiffener on the brake to help. Works better since I did that. I have a second Odessey U4 plate. No plans as of yet to use it. Too many canti brake options in my stash currently.

Thanks,

Reginald Alexis

[R. Alexis]

Willet,

Nice bike. Pretty sure we have chatted before regarding Deluxe Bikes in Lincoln, NE. That is where I got my MB-0(Zip). Got word of that frameset from a shop manager I worked under. Was deciding on either a Trek something or another, probably 930 complete or the Zip. The discount price offered me on the Trek didn't pull me to get it. Decided to go for the Bridgestone. Shop manager, who knew the guys at Deluxe was not happy. He had thoughts or plans to get it and build up a dirt drop bar bike of some kind, I think. He already had a Breezer Lightning he had nit pick built in an experiment to get it as light as possible and had other nice bikes. Regarding the Odessey U4 brake plate, Got one from Blues Bikes in Lincoln, Nebraska back in the day when they were on 13th street, I think. 

Looks like the cam on the front needs to go back in the rollers. Glad you got your bike back.

Thanks,

Reginald Alexis

Fremont, Nebraska

[WilletM]

Those certainly were the days, back in Lincoln and probably pretty much everywhere else.  I remember the first appearance of index shifting and front suspension and cassette freehubs and disc brakes and 1-800 catalogs packed to the gills with unobtainium widgets (like WTB rollercams, for instance) and all the rest.  I took the bait pretty hard, as I recall, at least to the extent that my small paycheck-to-paycheck fortune allowed me to dial Colorado Cyclist and some of the others from my home phone once or twice a month.

Our friends at Deluxe Bicycles sold similar-such widgets but never really drank the kool-aid and put them on their own trusty retro rides.  Tom S. even went so far as to re-decal his Bontrager(?) MTB with Huffy stickers, and I don't recall ever seeing him ride a Diamondback or a Breezer or even a Bridgestone.  He rode what he rode and then kept on riding it, without regard to spending $50 on a replacement set of titanium bolts for his cantilever brakes.

I sometimes wish I was that smart, but then I remember that I got the Ritchey Annapurna (pictured in one of the posts above) and the Cinelli Supercorsa (below) for a pretty good price and then never changed a single thing on them.  The Cinelli is a complete NR/SR build but is pictured below just as it came out of a shipping box in 2006 for a photograph (or probably to ship it to MOMBAT).  I believe it still has Pura Seta sewups and original bar tape and all the other goodies that it was originally built up with back 30+ years ago.

Mainly, I just wanted to post of pic of the Cinelli and tossed around a few thoughts above to try to reel it back in sufficiently to in some way relate to the thread topic at hand.

Willet M.