Norco Beach cruiser or bmx??? Now its a Strandie

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An old friend gave me a bunch of parts. Among them was this Norco frameset with the weirdest front brake Ive ever seen. I cant find any info on it but the brake leans to think its from the 26 inch bmx era. Does anyone know anything about these? Are they worth anything?
 
Only other bike I've seen a brake like that on was an early 80s cannondale mountain bike with a 24 rear, and 26 front. Wish I could remember the model. That thing is begging for the strandie treatment!
 
Strandie??? What is that? I was thinking Klunker if I could find an old donor mountain bike with Bullmoose bars
 
I have a set of those brakes, somewhere. I got them in a bunch of parts I bought one year ago. Not idea where are they coming from.
 
I have several versions of such cam brakes. The worst are made of stamped sheet metal. The best were the Shimano AX brakes from the first aero period (1984 or so). The Shimano AX are the only ones worth any thing. Even today, they are the smallest most compact brake caliper ever made and racers want them for their time trial bikes. The version you have has 1 grace, they are easier to work on than just about any cantilever brake from the same era.

PS, nice job on the bike. It looks great without the brakes and with the big tires.
 
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The shims in the stem dont hold the bar well enough. I was being a kid and jumping all the old curbs in the neighborhood I grew up in and the bars started to go back and forth. I had a threadless stem in my stash so I did spend $12 on this bike for a quill to threadless adapter.

Tomorrow Im taking my unwanted stash to a friend for a few things he has I want. Hoping to make a deal and will have 3 more builds lined up
 
The brake is a lee copy of an old suntour. I wont use it on anything I can forsee so it is hanging on a nail in the garage with other interesting parts
 
That style of brake is called a "Roller Cam." They were a Charlie Cunningham invention; the originals were sold as a WTB product. The Suntour Roller Cams were made under license, and used the same design. Shimano AX brakes were a road part of similar design but totally different application. They clear skinny tires only, and were more designed to compete with Campy's ultra-aero Delta brakes. The ones worth the most money are original WTBs in good shape. All of the MTB-spec roller cam brakes, as far as I know, are designed to be run on u-brake posts, like a bmx bike might have. The Norco in the OP was running a bolt-on u-brake boss on the fork, and someone mounted the roller cam brakes up to that.

Those brakes have a bit of a cult following; some 80s mtbs ran these front and rear, whereas others had a high-pro canti up front and a roller cam (or just a U-brake) out back. I personally like these brakes, but they're not very practical on a bike that sees a ton of mileage.
 
that stem scares me! try something like this......

post-2904-0-68306200-1384656044.jpg
 

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