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As winter descends, I think of riding slower, gaining weight, and using fenders and big tires. The first two make me think of good beer, the last two make me think about brake reach.
Brake reach is the distance from a rim-brake caliper’s mounting bolt to the high and low limits of the brake pad mounting slot. Since those are two separate measurements, a brake's reach is written with a number range. A short reach brake is (all numbers approximate) 39 to 49mm, standard (also called medium), reach is 47 to 57mm, and long reach is morethan 57mm.
The most common styles of rim-brake road bike in shops today, and the bikes most often reviewed by Bicycling, use short-reach brake calipers. Short-reach calipers are smaller, so they can be lighter and stiffer, and they look minimalist and sleek.
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But short-reach calipers limit tire clearance to about 28mm without fenders; with full-coverage fenders, you've got about 23mm—and that's if you can squeeze those fenders in. Even mainstream Classics/endurance-style bikes like the Cannondale Synapse, Trek Domane, and Specialized Roubaix are designed for short-reach brakes.
Longer-reach brakes provide more room for bigger tires, fenders, and bigger tires with fenders. But you can’t just slap a longer-reach brake on your Tarmac for more clearance: The frame's mounting bolt (and therefore the rear brake bridge) needs to be built higher so the brake pads can touch the rim, a feature that has to be designed into the frame. And mainstream options are scarce.
This is where small and speciality builders step in. Search the Internet and you will find a number of frames designed for longer-reach calipers, and any custom builder can turn one out. The Cielo Sportif, Rivendell Roadeo, and an Ira Ryan Dream Bike built for our test editor Mike Yozell are a few we’ve had come through our office.
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The bikes are rare, and so are the brakes. Here are most of the options that exist. In approximately 47 to 57mm reach: Shimano’s BR-650 ($140/pair) and BR-451 ($70/pair), the beautiful Velo-Orange Grand Cru Long Reach Brakeset ($180/pair), TRP’s RG957 ($180/pair), Tektro’s R539($70/pair) and R737($80/pair), and IRD’s B57 ($100/pair).
In 57-plus millimeter reach, there is the IRD B67 ($80/pair), and Tektro R559 ($80/pair). The old school Dia Compe DC810 (61 to 79mm) is around, too, but does not provide the performance of a more modern design. Crazy as it seems, Nashbar has a 40 to 60mm-reach caliper for $40 per set.
There are also longer-reach center-pull brakes like Paul’s Racer, though they require different cable and housing accommodations than a side-pull caliper does.
Unfortunately, SRAM and Campagnolo don’t make longer-reach brakes.
Disc brakes are making this conversation about brake reach less relevant as they remove the rim brake caliper as a clearance limiter. And I believe disc brakes are, overall, a better way to control a bicycle. But I love the elegance and simplicity of a rim brake bike. They look so graceful and tug at my heart; no disc brake bike has done that yet.
While randonneuring and cyclocross bikes with cantilever brakes also offer plenty of clearance, they're just not the same as road bikes with long-reach brakes. The geometry, frame tubing, and features are different from a standard road bike.
Honestly, I feel that we’ve done a poor job of highlighting bikes with longer-reach brakes. They're very practical, versatile, and completely in step with the trend towards comfort and exploration that's shown in the recent proliferation of endurance bikes and gravel bikes. A bike with long-reach brakes is simple, light, easy to maintain; it handles and feels like a “normal” road bike. Modern rim brake performance is very good, so I’m not ready to sweep longer reach brakes into the dustbin of history just yet.
