Mongoose Brakes for the Dummy Cyclist

Mongoose rear brake

Our staffers who specialize in ferreting out bullshit auto-repair posts say that once of the dead giveaways that you're dealing with a clueless freelancer is that the writer thinks that you push the "break petal" to stop a car. No kidding, they see this one fairly regularly. The bike guy thought of them not long ago when he ran across a similar homophone foul-up. Without further ado, let's see what eHow.com's Steve Smith (formerly S. Baselice) has to say in "How to Fix a Mongoose Bike Back Brakes,"¹ now residing at SportsRec.com.

As were many eHow topics, this one is pretty ambiguous. Mongoose makes a wide variety of bicycles, ranging from the BMX bikes they've sold for decades to "adventure bikes," which is apparently their way of saying "gravel bike." So much for a simple answer. but Baslice/Smith was probably right when he assumed that the OQ was asking about the 100-dollar "mountain bike" someone bought at WalMart. What we found funny was this bold statement he made right up front:

"A Mongoose bike has back brakes that are similar to those on a ten-speed. A front handle pulls a cable attached to a bolt inside a yolk-style [sic] harness. "

Wait, what? a "yolk-style harness"? Who asked Steve about eggs (he said "yolk" five times)? And what planet does this putz live on if he's differentiating this bicycle from a "ten-speed"?

While we're at it,  how about this "instruction":

"Loosen the back bold [sic] on the yolk harness right over the center of the back brakes using a ratchet or Phillips head screwdriver..."

...or this one:

"Reposition the brake yolk so both arms are positioned equidistant from the tire rims...."

We hate to mention it, Steve, but those aren't "tire rims," they're wheels. Finally, Smith tells people to,

"...try to loosen the cable wire bolt using a small ratchet head wrench. Clamp the wire in place with a small hand clamp, and then put the wire through the locking screw eyelet. Hold it in place by applying another clamp on the wire right below the locking screw. Then tighten the locking screw."

The difficulty of interpreting that rubbish notwithstanding, that style of brakes went out in the 1980s. It's highly unlikely that Mongoose still uses them. We aren't sure, but we think most of them use V-pull cantilever brakes if not disc brakes... not that our Dumbass of the Day would have the slightest idea what "cantilever" means.
After all, this is the guy whose tip says,

"The cable tension must be correct for the brakes to work properly, and advanced bike brake tools are needed to do the job correctly."

To which the only thing we have to say is, "Bullshit!"

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_5070078_fix-mongoose-bike-back-brakes.html

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