G B Brakes
Authors: Peter Paine with additions by Peter Underwood
An early, 1948? GB Hiduminium side pull brake. There is no quick-release on this model but the adjuster slots into the lever hood (these are easily lost so hard to find). The hood is often slightly darker than the lever.
GB Gran Tour. This was GB's touring brake set from 1948. It has a quick release lever and is shown with the brake lever for flat handlebars. Compare the lever shape with the one above. Each is designed to follow the shape of the bars with whick they are used.
The GB Coureur from 1950, known as GB's racing brake. Note early (1952) type hooded lever now with built-in adjuster. The caliper has a Q/R lever. The main change was for 1955 with a nylon bearing bush and a different type spring.
GB Sports appeared in about 1953 and appeared as two versions
The Sport MK2 had the same changes as the Coureur in 1955
The MK3 (1958) is shown with the Arret lever with blue logo
The second version was not for retail and was different in that the inner cable had nipples at both ends and no pinch bolt on ther stirrup
When
GB introduced the Sport they also introduced a model listed in the
trade catalogue as for trade, i.e. cycle manufacturers only.
Here is an example of the Sport 'trade'. The
differences to
note are:The inner cable has nipples both ends and the cable set includes the adjustor which drops in the top of the hood.
The stirrup arm does not have a cable-retaining bolt, the nipple locates in a slot on the arm. My guess is that this would speed up mass-production assembly as anyone who has set up brakes with a cable bolt will understand.
GB Coureur Plus from 1957. Similar to the Coureur but with red centre logo.
The lever is now the newer type Superhood Plus lever with pressed rather than cast body.
This is the Sprite caliper from the early 1960's.
It was supplied with a plain Arret lever with no logo or finger grips
A blue anodized Coureur Plus from 1959 (thanks to Mark Stevens for image).
There was also a Coureur Plus lever
The GB Coureur 66
from 1961. There seem to be three different versions
including two
spring types.
Some have a small '66' on the side of the pivot housing and some with blue 'GB' instead of the red seen here
Some have a small '66' on the side of the pivot housing and some with blue 'GB' instead of the red seen here
The GB 88 from 1969/70
The GB 77 from around 1970s. A badge engineered import