If you’ve looked at the Bicycle Victoria site, or gotten the BV newsletter you could be under the impression that the brakes on Long Haul Truckers and Crosschecks sold in Australia are faulty. The way the issue was reported is, unfortunately, both misleading and alarming, and this is not the case.
The issue is that some bikes were shipped from the Australian distributor without a straddle cable catcher. This is a little hook that sits under the straddle cable. It is there so that in the unlikely event that the main brake cable snaps, it can catch the straddle so that it cannot fall onto the tyre. In the worst case scenario without the catcher, the tyre (if it had nobs on it) can grab the straddle and apply the brakes, which could cause an accident.
This is a far cry from BV’s coverage, which, from the way it was phrased, claimed that the brakes supplied with the bikes were faulty. Firstly, the problem applies to only some of the bikes, not all of the bikes. Secondly, the brakes are not faulty, but rather a secondary safety device was not supplied with all bikes – a safety device that does its job if another part of the braking system has already failed.
The majority of the Surlies we have sold cannot be affected by this problem, because mud guards, reflector mounts and fork crown mounted lights all do the job of a straddle catcher. Both stand between the tyre and the straddle and make it impossible for a broken brake cable to cause any harm.
The Australian distributor has announced a voluntary recall (see image). If you have bought a Surly (either from us, or from somewhere else) and you are not sure whether the missing part applies to you, then please drop in. We’ll take a look and if there is a problem we will remedy it.
September 3rd, 2010 at 12:18 am
The way this was reported in the BV news was utterly bizarre!
I’d noticed that some LHT’s didn’t come (out of the box) with a canti specific reflector, but still, it’s not a faulty brake by any stretch.
September 3rd, 2010 at 1:27 am
I did a little research on what the recall is about. There are no faulty brakes, just a lesson in what is wrong with the product recall system and Australian standards.
As I understand it, there is concern that a bike fitted with cantilever brakes and knobby tyres, a snapped front brake cable could mean the suddenly free straddle cable drops and catches a knob and flings the rider over the bars. It has apparently happened once to someone riding a cheap bike with plastic brakes in the United States. The inevitable resulting lawsuit is here: http://www.ppl-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1370014.html
Such an incident can only happen on bikes without mudguards and with knobby tyres, and only on brakes set up with cantilever brakes which had straddle cables incorrectly set so short they could contact the tyre. Neither of these bikes was sold with knobby tyres.
In the real world, if this problem existed, it would apply to all bikes fitted with cantilever brakes. Somebody, somewhere, has decided a “brake cable catch hook” (never heard of it) is the solution for these two bikes alone rather than correctly setting up and maintaining the bicycle.
The level of risk is so close to zero that nobody has seen fit to issue a general warning to the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who may use cantilever brakes, despite the fact it’s an easy problem to detect and remedy. As far as I know such a hook is not required in any other country, although the waning popularity of cantilever brakes may explain why it’s not more of an issue.
I’m told the Australian standard now requires the hook for be fitted to all new bikes. It’s part of the ACCC crackdown to make sure every bike sold has reflectors, a bell and two working brakes, regardless of whether the owner removes them on the way out of the shop.