I had this Tarmac SL7 built up from the frame with a Rival groupset this Summer by my LBS. It sounded like they had some trouble getting the rear brakes aligned and when I took it out the brakes started screaming on the first big descent I went on. I took it back and they sanded the pads and rotor claiming contamination. Next ride, it does the same thing. Then I tried cleaning the rotor and replacing the pads. No luck. Now I’ve spent all afternoon aligning and inspecting the calipers and it seems they just don’t sit quite square with the rotor. I finally shimmed one side with some paper and its rub free. Is there a proper way to deal with this? Is the frame defective?
by TheDoughyRider
4 Comments
Have a bike shop ‘face’ the mounting holes. There is special facing tool that Park (possibly others) make to shave the holes ever so slightly to make them square and even with each other. Sounds like that’s what you need done.
Bevel washers between caliper and mounting post.
take it to a shop and have them face the mount
I’m serious
I bought these rival calipers as an upgrade from my cable disc brakes (0 alignment issues with the old calipers) and spent hours trying to get them to align. Constant rubbing. Always seemed crooked when I torqued the bolts down no matter what I tried.
I tried a set of Force calipers and I had them installed in no time and 0 rubbing, aligned perfectly. I used the exact same install method from beginning to end.
Check the caliper itself. These rival ones seem to have some quality control issues with the mounting surface not being correct and making the caliper sit crooked
Just my experience