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When it comes to my personal stable of bikes, I can be pretty picky about what I want to ride. A couple of months ago I put together a Milwaukee Bruiser, primarily for hardcourt bike polo but also as a do everything around town and into the woods fixed bicycle. One of my requirements for such a bike was to be able to barspin with a front brake and a 700c wheel with big tires, not the easiest thing in the world to achieve while keeping the bike from handling like a big rig. This isn’t so I can barspin over a stair gap, but more so that when I crash early and often playing polo I no longer have to worry about bending my fork or breaking my front caliper, both of which have happened to me in the recent past. As my Bruiser came together the kind folks at Milwaukee Bikes floated a prototype compression plug my way that allows the front brake cable to pass through the steerer tube. Now available for all of $12, it seemed appropriate to finally write up this simple piece of hardware.
Routing the front cable through the steerer is informally known as the “Potts Mod” after one of WTB’s founders and mountain bike legend Steve Potts who first introduced a hollow wedge bolt for freestyle BMX bikes back in the late 80′s. The Milwaukee Bicycle approach is to use an easily removable compression plug set inside the steerer and tightened down with a 6mm hex key, with a threaded top cap providing the needed bearing pre-load adjustment for the threadless headset. Using full-length housing is simple enough, though it would be a lie to say that front brake performance doesn’t suffer with the extra bends required to make the cable reach from lever to caliper using this method. And honestly, the 990 style BMX brakes leave me wishing for more power and possibly a front disc brake for my offroading adventures but that is more for the upcoming Bruiser review than this compression plug. As it stands, the compression plug holds my headset together without slipping and does just what it claims. A solid product for the people out there looking for such a solution.
Quick thought to help the cable line straighten a bit. I was thinking of using a hollow compression bolt, same sort of thing with fatty tires and a 990 style caliper. Looking at your picture here, the angle of your brake lever could be less drastic, and the bend wont be as tight if the bars had a it more rise to them. BMX bars have so much rise that the cable is already facing towards the ground by the time it gets to the steerer, so there is minimal bending force up top. Great looking product. I’m sure as people try it on different builds there will be some that really get a crisp brake. Ur idea of running it to a disk break seams like it could go places.
aheadset and others have been making these for BMX bikes for years now. i think sinz makes one, too. i’ve never seen em for 1″ headsets, if only because 1″ threadless is pretty uncommon (in fact damn near non-existent in BMX), but since most modern track-based frame/fork systems are 1-1/8″ anyway, it’s not really an issue.
Here is my fixed gear, I think you will find it interesting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirmaxster/3850563181/sizes/l/
My setup from summer of 2008:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/u_lockjustice/IMG_0625.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/u_lockjustice/IMG_0629.jpg
My crank arm length was 135mm at the time. So much money for a joke.
ad you still have overlap with the cages…….
so you mean so much money and you still cant really do barspins
Hey guys,
Should really check your facts a little better. Steve Potts from WTB had nothing to do with the potts-mod the potts levers or the dia compe brakes. Steve Potts from So. CAl. and the bicycle soure did them all and I still live in So. Cal. and still actaviely design daily.
peace