Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review

Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review - Intro

I while back I purchased a small folding bike with very poor brakes ( giant conway ), I am not overly fussy about stopping power but the front calliper brake on the bike is terrible.

Probelm is the bike has 1.75" tires and as such a calliper brake with very long reach is required. Idealy I wanted a dual pivot calliper as I belive these create a greater braking force, but depsite looking I could not find a dual pivot with the required amount of reach.

So after trawl of ebays finest offering I decided on the Tektro 984 which has a reach of 70 - 80mm.

Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review - Build Quality

I purchased this brake as new but taken off a BMX, complete with lever.

Tektro 984 - Left Side

Tektro 984 - Right Side

Tektro 984 - Front

The finsih is good, and the bolts and nuts are of good quality. When attached to the bike the brake arms do flex under load, but with arms this long I supose that is unavoidable.

Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review - Performance

The Tektro 984 provides more stopping power than my old calliper but I think this is mainly due to the change of lever. The lever supplied is a short pull lever for use with cantilevers or callipers, whilst the old lver was a long pull.

I suppose that the maths of the brake has not changed, still a single pivots, still the same length of drop, so really can I expect any improvement . .. not really.

Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review - Specifications 

• Long reach: 70-80mm
• Post length: 51mm
• Cable length: 700mm
• Weight, caliper: 205g
• Weight, lever: 83

Tektro 984 Calliper Brake Review - Alternatives

For a long reach application I think a single pivot calliper will always give limited stopping power. But unless you have braze ons for v brakes what are you to do?

Option 1 - A hub brake is always a good option, but this require a re-build of the wheel, most hub brake are 1000m wide which whilst OK for some BMX are unlikely to fit a folding bike.

Option 2 - Another option might be to replace the front forks, perhaps some off of a childrens bike that do have v brake mounts.

Option 3  - some sort of adaptor. You can get u-brake plates and some times v brake ones which might enable the fitting of a better brake type v or u to increase braking power.

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