Alright, so we're going to talk about adjusting brakes. These are V-brakes. These are pretty
common on hybrid bikes, city bikes or mountain bikes. The concept of adjusting them is pretty
much the same as all the other brakes, just some minor changes. A lot of people have a
lot of problems with their brakes squeaking and that's a very easy adjustment to fix.
Basically what it means is your brakes are pretty worn, so you want to replace the pads.
You can see on the actual pads that there's a wear line on most of them. So if it's past
the wear line, or if it's wearing incorrectly you want to replace them. This is a quick
You're going to push these two levers together, push down on this piece here and it opens
them up. So you can see the pads and see how they're worn, and you may just need to replace
them. They're pretty inexpensive. They go anywhere from four to fifteen dollars a pair,
so it's definitely worth replacing them. It's a big safety issue. So to correct the squeaking,
if they are new brakes, you'll need to toe in the brakes. Brakes aren't meant to hit
completely flat on a bicycle rim and that's what creates the squealing. So the squeaking
noise comes from when the brakes hit completely flat, so toeing in, just imagine your toes
So basically, this is very dramatic, but when the brakes hits, the one side hits and goes
down, and eventually hits the whole thing, they flex. You can kind of hear the squeaking
on this, because the brake pads are completely flat. So what you're going to do is take your
five mm Allen and unscrew the brake. You can see how it kind of shifts all over the place,
it goes up and down, side to side, it basically pivots on these washers. So you're going to
toe in the brake. It doesn't have to be really drastic, it doesn't have to be like that,
but just enough to get rid of the squeaking and so that it brakes properly. Make sure
it's hitting the rim really nice, so it's nice and level to the rim.
Also make sure it's not too low or too high. If it's too high, it's going to hit the tire
and could potentially blow up a tire from all the friction and heat. If it's too low,
it's just not going to brake on the surface properly and you're not going to be able to
So let me just bolt these pads, and then we'll see if it makes any noise. So now it's nice
and quiet, no more squeaking. It's also going to brake a little better. But you can see
how, if I spin the wheel slowly, it stops. The reason for that is it could be either