Hi All,
I have an offbeat drum (roller?) brake question.
My wife and I are due to have our second child next month. This means going from a "single" jogging
stroller to a double. This combined with the fact that my daughter does not seem to be getting any
lighter and we just moved to an area with lots of hills presents a problem running downhill. Going
uphill is just more work. No problem, I can even walk if my heart rate shoots up too much, but
downhill is problematic. Keeping balance while pulling back on the stroller is a back killer.
Even jogging strollers equipped with hand brakes tend to have those hand brakes attached to (low
quality) brakes on the front wheel. When going down a steep hill, my natural tendency is to pull
back on the handlebar. This is not a solution. Ideally, I would brake at the back wheels and use
decent quality brakes.
I have mulled over a couple of options for braking at the back wheel:
1) Braze on bosses for cantilever (or V) brakes at the rear wheel. I would treat this as a frame
with lots of clearance and use a single brake lever for each wheel. I see the advantage of being
able to use the hubs that come with the stroller. No wheel rebuilds. I see a disadvantage in that
the rim is being pressed outward at a single point, pushing the rim and cup out of the same plane
as the cone. This sounds like asking for trouble.
2) Rebuild the wheelset using a hub with a drum brake. The "bracing bracket" (?) that is normally
attached to the chainstay can be given an offset attachment to the frame body and should work
fine. I think this is the preferred option.
3) Ditto with discs. Too expensive even using Avid mechs, but a jogger with Gustavs would look just
too cool...
The big issue I see is the mounting of the hub. Tricycle jogging strollers present some of the same
challenges as recumbent trikes. Namely the fact there is a single load bearing point (for lack of a
better term) on each of the back wheels. The stroller I have now has a proprietary hub where the
cone is itself bolted to the stroller frame. The attachment bolt is just a bit bigger than a QR
skewer. What I could do is drill out the hub to the size of the attachment bolt from the between the
standard hub and frame. Then use a longer version of the same bolt and run it through like a QR
skewer. A three year old, baby and stroller make for a 60lb package, which is not that heavy.
I would like comments on this approach. I would also like pointers to inexpensive front drum brake
hubs as seen on cheap city bikes. I am not building a bent or tandem and $100 bucks a wheel for
Arais seems a bit excessive for a stroller.
If anyone has a Baby Jogger and can comment on the hub and frame mount that they use, that would
also be appreciated. They seem to have decent quality overall and I would like to to to 20"ers.
Thanks, Dave