Brake-up grading on the Ice Trikes

 Update:-

Since writing this article we have upgraded the brakes due to issues. 

Read the follow up blog @ Puttin the Brakes On

While the Sturmey Archer drum brakes, that came standard on the Ice Adventure and Adventure HD, are capable of stopping an average person, we are far from average people. So something needed to be changed, to improve the braking performance. You see, Jayne has arthritis in her fingers, a result of her former profession as a climbing, mountaineering and mountain biking instructor and it is getting worse, making her fingers weak and stiff to move. The obvious step is to swap to hydraulics, to improve the brakes, given the mechanical advantage that they offer compared to cable operated drums. But options for this are limited, even with the bizarre and even esoteric systems that Jayne could find on line, some of which included running master cylinders from one company, paired to callipers from another, but with no fluid reservoir!

One option which did come up was Hope, who have been making disk brakes for mountain bikes since the1990s. Jayne wrote to Hope and a few days later was sent a shopping list of parts, but was warned that the difficult bits would be the actual callipers, which were discontinued items, but some shops might well have spares. Having looked at the Hope dealership list, we took a drive over to Clevedon and visited a back street, but fairly well established bike shop there. Frankly it was a waste of time and the salesman was clearly not interested in helping a middle aged woman with disabilities, get back into cycling. Growing increasingly frustrated, Jayne finally had enough and left the guy with a list of parts and he assured her that he would email her later that week. He never did, which was a shame for him, because Jayne being a former bike mechanic, knows what she wants and will buy it all from a good shop. He missed out on a sale, maybe because of misogyny, or possibly because he just couldn't be bothered.

Thankfully, our new friend Nik, of Thorn Cycles or possibly better known as St Johns Street Cycles in Bridgewater, was more than happy to help and Jayne kicked herself for failing to notice that SJS are Hope dealers. He took the list of parts and promised to make enquiries. As expected, the majority of parts were easy to source, until it came to the callipers. None of the suppliers had any old stock callipers just laying about and so it was time to make some difficult decisions. Could a set of Shimano post mount be mounted back to front? The forums that Jayne trawled through suggested that it was difficult, but possible. However, the Shimano master cylinder is quite small and with the best will in the world, driving two callipers was going to be problematic. Nik was also concerned about actual brake alignment, given that the brakes are shaped to allow the rotor to pass through slightly to one end of the calliper. It would be a difficult job to mount the calliper so that it would make full contact with the rotor.

On the verge of giving up, Jayne did yet more research and found the systems that ICE use, including the company that make the disk hub they use. The hub company was Chinese, but came through a dealer network based in Germany. The callipers though were cable operated and fairly cheap, meaning that they would not offer the advantage of hydraulics. That was when the internet found a page from a company that Jayne had not seen since her days of working in AVC in Bath, Apse Enterprise Ltd, in Taiwan, not only make brakes for almost every kind of bicycle you can imagine, they also make a specific trike set up, with mirrored callipers that run from a single master cylinder. The only problem being that they are mainly a direct to manufacturer producer. A lot of the brakes they make are sold to the companies who build complete bikes and APSE brakes are OEM kit used by many companies. With nothing to lose and without finding a dealer network for them, Jayne sent them an email, hoping that someone could direct her to a dealer who could sell her the brake system.

What happened next left Jayne sat at her desk, rather stunned. The reply from senior engineer Alice Lee, was succinct and straight to the point. "We don't have a dealer network that you can buy from. But what if we build you a custom set just for your trike and we can post them to you? We would ask that you cover the cost of the postage though." This was unprecedented. Neither of us expected such a generous offer and to be honest, we did not really believe it was true. One the day we made the payment to cover the shipping costs, our bank certainly did not believe it and they tried several times to tell Jayne that she was being scammed. "Large Asian companies do not just send out hundreds of dollars worth of free parts to middle aged women in England!"

Alice was more than happy to help and said that this would a sample set that we could test, if we liked it, we could keep it. The website shows some very nice products and if you are in the market for parts for your bikes, APSE Artek brakes are worth looking at.

So, we went back to Nik at SJS and explained our good fortune. Nik as any good mechanic would, knew of APSE brakes and was impressed that they had agreed to be so helpful. Jayne instantly started listing the parts she wanted. Lightweight Hope Pro 5 hubs, extremely lightweight rims and double butted spokes. Nik using all of his profession restraint tried to bring Jayne back down to reality. As good as the super lightweight rims were, they were not suitable for someone who rides like a maniac. He pointed to the scars and scabs on Jayne's right arm as evidence and Jayne had to concede his point. However, the hubs were fine and he pulled out a set of Halo T2 rims for her to inspect. He also stated that with the extra rim width, the tyres would have a rounder shape and would give a better riding experience. Jayne was sceptical, but the rims were pretty. The polished aluminium, lightweight, Sunn rims though would have struggled with the job and being very narrow, would not have worked quite so well with the tyres Jayne wanted to run. The spokes were 15 gauge and very stiff and Jayne reluctantly agreed to the T5 rims and red Hope hubs and set off home to start building the wheels.  

Nik did point out one small flaw in the plan. The Hope hubs are 100mm wide, while the Sturmey Archer hubs are only 70mm. This puts the disk rotor too far out from the king pin, to fit through the calliper. He suggested trying to find someone with a lathe who could turn the spacers down for us. My dear old friend at R.E Page Engineering did the required work and all for the cost of a box of Danish pastries, which was really very good of him. Weston Fasteners provided us with a couple of high tensile bolts, and attachments. All that was left was the hydraulics; callipers and master cylinder. 

On the day that the brakes arrived from Alice, Jayne excitedly watched them on the tracker as they came from the other side of the world, to land in Stanstead and then take off again to land in Türkiye. Jayne was confused by this, but the FedEx website showed every step of the journey. When they made it into Jayne's hands she excitedly opened the box and was once again astounded by the generosity of Alice and her team at APSE Artek. Jayne was expecting the callipers and a master cylinder. What came with was the disk rotors, the adapters and a complete second set for my HD! Jayne was stunned and it took her a little while to settle down and start fitting the new brakes. 

Having never worked on such a system before, Jayne was concerned that the lever action was so soft. APSE Artek technical manager Paul, who had already explained a lot of the technicalities of combining the system with the Bafang e-assist kit, was quick to explain the very light action and included the mathematics of piston size and force applied. Jayne was not sure and it was only when she was riding and was forced to perform an emergency stop that nearly flung her out of the seat and locked the front wheels that she realised just how powerful these brakes were.

The callipers and master cylinder are all well made. 

What do you need to know about APSE Artek brakes? Well, you will need to find a very good bike shop to import them for you. If you look hard enough, you can find small supplies of Artek brakes on line, but they are not widely available as after market products. I would say that if enough people ask for them, perhaps a dealer here in the UK could start an account with them and import complete sets? As for us, Jayne has just built a set of wheels for my Rebel Rogue 3 Adventure HD, with blue Hope hubs this time, but with the Halo T2 rims again. Having ridden them, Jayne reports that once again, Nik of SJS was right and the ride qualities of the wheels more than make up for the slight weight gain over the Sunn rims. Did we really need to build up matching rear wheels? Probably not, but the Hope e-Bike compatible hub is just so pretty and the T2 rim also comes in 26 inch. 

Over all cost was a little startling. The wheels alone are just over £600, which is not bad for three custom wheels with such high quality hubs. If you can't build them yourself, you can add a further £150 to that cost, for a quality build by a respectable builder. Nik and Jayne will both warn you though, building a twenty inch wheel is a biscuit more difficult than building a larger size. A tiny difference in spoke tension on such a small wheel will result in a bigger variation in overall roundness at the rim. So if you are unsure, do not build them yourself, given the forces that the wheels will be subjected too. The cost of the brakes is an unknown to us. Jayne suggests that the system is probably anywhere between £150 to £250, given the quality of the callipers and the adaptability of the master cylinder. Do not expect the rigid lever feel of a single matched calliper. The forces involved will make it feel like a soft lever, it goes against what I expect as a motorcycle mechanic, but in use you will quickly find that it stops the wheels long before the lever reaches the bar. We are still to test Rogue's new brakes, but with a thunder storm outside today, we are not keen to get wet, just for a test ride. 

Rebellions are built on hope.

Old pic before my conversion, just fitted on Jayne's adventure, for comparison.

Further reading - Jayne's Blog - Jayne Brakes Her Trike