Indulging my curiosity about mafac raid (or compass) brakes I now have a second fork for my AHH with compass posts on it. I did this because I was curious how mounting with the original yoke and brazed on posts would compare. I got a second fork instead of getting posts brazed on to my original fork because I wanted to keep the option of the original configuration. First observation (though not really relevant to the brake) is that the original fork seems more elegant/delicate than the new one. The original one has more tapered fork blades and I think the curve of the rake may be slightly different. The new one looks a lot like the fork on my wife's sam. Second observation, the compass posts have closer tolerances than the posts on the yoke I have. With the brake mounted there is less play at the pivots. Third these are big brakes with a lot of reach. With the yoke mounting I had to slam the pads to the top of the slot. Where the posts on my new fork are mounted the pads are slightly lower than the middle of the slot. There is now a lot of room over the tire. With the brake cable hooked up you can see straight through the fork crown hole under the brake arms. with the brake cable released there there's about 18mm clearance over the ~41mm Soma GR tire I have mounted. I think the posts could have been about 5mm lower and still leave the fork as the limiting factor for clearance. Forth, when using the yoke mount precise centering of the brake can be done by rotating the yoke slightly. With the fixed posts centering involves bending the spring on one side. Personally I find forcing plastic deformation of steel a sub optimal way of fine tuning such things but with care and patience it can work. Last, function. The brake works fine mounted either way. Unfortunately its been a while since I rode the bike with the old setup so I don't really have back to back experience but I don't think there is a particularly noticeable difference in brake performance.
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