V-brake vs canti question

[dougP]

Does anyone know if the effort required is the same for V-brakes and
cantis? Or is one easier to pull than the other? The rider in
question has small hands and cannot grip very hard. The bike is an
Atlantis, currently set-up with cantis (salmon pads) & Riv's standard
issue Shimano road levers. In the frenzy of the sale, I picked up a
set of V-brakes and Travel Agents "just in case". Before I tear into
everything, I'm curious if anyone has made the change & noticed a
decrease in required effort. I've heard they can be more powerful but
wonder about the effort.

dougP

[rcnute]

V-brakes are easier to pull.

Ryan

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

+1 on v-brakes being easier to pull. We almost always suggest an upgrade to v-brakes on bikes that come stock with cantilevers, especially when the rider has less than a Kung-Fu grip. Lots of women have trouble with cantilevers and drop bar type levers, but even strong manly men like me benefit by the increased stopping power of v-brakes.

[Scott G.]

There are cantilevers, then there are cantilevers, ye olde high profile
Mafac/Paul Neo retro need strong hands, low profile like Avid Shorty 6
or Paul Touring setup with the shortest practical straddle cable will
equal or exceed V brakes. 

Cyclocross magazine did the test, hanging a fixed weight from a straddle cable
and measuring the clamping force of the brakes using a scale, simple repeatable.
The varied the straddle cable length, shorter = more ummphh on low profile brakes,
high profile brakes power varied little with different straddle cable lengths.
Bravo to the magazine for doing quantifiable testing.

[dougP]

Thanks Jim, that's what I needed to know. Now I've got job security
at least thru tomorrow. The Travel Agent looks to be a well thought
out device.

dougP

On Jan 15, 1:45 pm, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery <thill....@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

If the bike in question is equipped with STI levers, then the travel agent is the way to go. Otherwise, the Tektro RL520 levers are a cheaper, better way to go.

[dougP]

Jim:

I'll keep that in mind. The bike is my wife's Atlantis & has the
Shimano levers Riv uses. I hate to start tearing into the handlebar
set up (bar end shifters, etc) & I have the brakes & Travel Agents so
I'll just install them & see how that works. I read the Travel Agent
instructions & have been fiddling with one with some brake cable.
Getting them set up correctly may be an exercise in patience, getting
the cable hole on the pulley in the correct location.

dougP

On Jan 15, 6:17 pm, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery <thill....@gmail.com>
wrote:

[fug...@gmail.com]

Travel Agents feel funny and the cable is much more susceptible to
breaking.V-brakes are better in the wet.

[benzzoy]

+1.

For those inclined to learn about the hows and whys, and fiddle about
with different types of (virtual) cantilever brakes, there's always:

http://www.circleacycles.com/cantilevers/

[PATRICK MOORE]

The old Shimano wide profile cantis on the trike, and the modern wide IRCs (I think that's the brand) on the Sam Hill are both very powerful and set up with little hassle. I didn't even bother putting salmon pads on the Shimanos. I could never get low profiles to work well with drop bar levers. The Mafacs stink. My experience, anyway.

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[Michael Hechmer]

I have never been able to get Shimano levers to work well with cantis.  Cane Creek / Tektro levers work very well with both my Neo Retros and Racers.  I have arthritis so no longer have the grip I did 20 years ago, so am probably a good test subject for this discussion.

Personally a travel agent sounds like one more moving part to fiddle with and I don't think I would like that.

good luck,

michael

[Steve Palincsar]

On Tue, 2012-01-17 at 05:49 -0800, Michael Hechmer wrote:
> I have never been able to get Shimano levers to work well with cantis.

Not my experience at all. I have Shimano aero levers on bikes with
Shimano Deore XT II and Avid Shorty 4 cantis, and they work as well as
those same levers on bikes with Paul Racer and Mafac Raid centerpulls,
even feel extremely similar.

[James Warren]

Dia Compe 986's and Shimano Tiagra levers work very well on my bike.

Shimano Tiagra levers are reported to work well with cantis in general.

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

Even the cheapie Tektro v-brakes, which are under $30 for a bike's worth, are amazingly powerful and all but foolproof to set up.

I stopped using cantilevers on my own bikes several years ago. Canti fans often claim that cantilevers are a simple matter of set-up, that theoretically they should be as powerful as v-brakes, provided that several variables are properly adjusted. If that's true, then I never figured out the right way to do it. My most powerful cantilevers were nowhere near as powerful as any of the v-brakes I use, certainly not without a trade off in required grip power.

[carne...@bellsouth.net]

+1 on travel agents feel funny. Have been the full circle on my Sam: V-
brakes with travel agents, Tektro CR720 cantis, back to V-brakes with
Tektro RL520 levers. Was painful to cut off my less than 2 yr. old
harlequin wrap, but am glad I did.
David

[Andrew]

I'm really enjoying the braking with my cheap Shimano medium-profile cantis, arms out as wide as possible (posts still adequately captured by the brake bolt), straddle wire as low as possible... the feel is soft but the brakes are quick to stop.

Another good analysis of cantilever brake geometry, in addition to Sheldon's, is here:

http://www.circleacycles.com/cantilevers/canti-geometry.pdf

with a fun calculator at

http://www.circleacycles.com/cantilevers/

- Andrew, Berkeley

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[John Blish]

Hi James,

Do you have any current source for the Dia Compe 986 brakes?  I need them to remain period correct on my Bridgestone MB-1.

Thanks

John

--
John Blish
Minneapolis MN USA

[dougP]

Thanks for all the good comments, especially the Tektro pn for the V-
brake specific lever. Funny that with all the V-brakes out there,
there aren't more road levers for them. The more I look at these &
how they work, ease of set-up (Travel Agent issues aside) and staying
out of the way of baggage & rackage, the better I like them.

I changed out the rear brake just to get some feedback. The Travel
Agent is a bit fiddly to work out correctly. She reports quite a bit
more power but also quite a bit of lever travel. I have the shoes
within 1 mm of rim contact each side. To me, the lever seems mushy
but the brakes are effective. Neither of us have ever ridden V-brakes
so we're not sure what they're supposed to feel like. The comment
about one more thing in the braking system is valid. I need to re-
check everything to see if there's something slack that I missed, but
the brake arms start moving as soon as you actuate the brake lever.

dougP

On Jan 17, 8:17 am, John Blish <jbl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> Do you have any current source for the Dia Compe 986 brakes?  I need them
> to remain period correct on my Bridgestone MB-1.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>

> Minneapolis MN USA- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Jeremy Till]

Actually, I've found that maximizing braking power with cantilevers or v brakes often results in levers that feel "mushy" compared to say, caliper brakes.  In fact, what you are doing is maximizing the mechanical advantage of the system; if the levers are moving a relatively large amount (say, most of the way to the bar) for a relatively short distance traveled by the brake pads, that means you are exerting the maximum possible leverage on the brake pads and the maximum possible pressure on the rims. 

Think about what you would do to exert a large force on a heavy weight with a long lever: you would set it up with the fulcrum nearest the weight, so you could move the lever a long ways with relatively little force in order to move the weight a short distance with a large amount of force.

The limit case, at least with low-profile cantis, is setting the straddle cable as low as possible and the brake pads as close to the rim as possible without brake rub.  That way, the brake pads don't need to travel far; thus lever travel is used less to move the pads and more to exert a greater force on the rim once contact is made.  Of course, the practical limits on this setup are clearance below the straddle cable, sufficient pad clearance (esp. in muddy conditions), and sufficiently limited lever travel such that the lever is not bottoming out on the bar. 

I once set up the front low-profile cantilever on a fixed gear of mine with the pads close in and the straddle cable as low as possible.  The lever felt mushy in the stand but I went for a test ride, got to the end of the block, and almost threw myself over the handle bars; I was totally surprised by how much power i was getting out of the brake for how little pressure I was putting on the lever. 

Cantilever geometry can be confusing and counter-intuitive, but they can produce quite a lot of braking power with a relatively weak grip.  It took me a few reads to get it, but Sheldon's article on cantilever geometry and set-up really is the best explanation of it all:

http://sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-geometry.html

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

One common cause of mushiness is excessive toe-in of the pads. I generally start with the pads flat against the rim, and toe-in only if there's shuddering or squealing.

I've only dealt with travel agents on tandems, where they are a stock item when STI and v-brakes are the spec. Interestingly, some newer Santana tandems seem to have STI levers with v-brakes (or long pull discs), but no travel agent. I assume this means that Shimano increased the cable pull on the latest generation of STI levers. My mechanic Mongo tried it and says it works great.

[Michael Hechmer]

Jim, you point to the problem I have had with Shimano levers, since my experience is limited to Ultegra levers with Shimano and DiCompe cantis.  They just required so much pull that the pads had to be set all but touching the rims, which was, of course, impossible to keep adjusted.

The first time I set up my Neo Retros, I spent a lot of time fussing with it.  Now that I understand how it's done I can do it in a couple of minutes. Neither the Shimano BR550(??) or classic DiCompe offered very much power but The Paul's can pull my rear wheel off the ground if I slam on them, so I don't think I would want anything more powerful.  They have saved my life in a right hook situation, so I'm naturally biased.

The one thing I do not like about cantis is how dirty they get.  My Ram has Racer Ms and the tandems Racers, and because these brakes sit above the fender they stay a whole lot cleaner.  I would think that V brakes would also stay cleaner.  I live 2 miles down a dirt road, in a town where all the town roads are dirt, so it may be a bigger deal for me than for most riders, but if you're riding fat tire you are probably riding off the pavement a good bit, so maybe not.

michael

Westford, Vt

[dougP]

Jeremy:

Thanks for the explanation. I've read Sheldon's article & have the BQ
brake issue, but your explanation is a bit more in layman's terms.
Good stuff.

Jim:

My first cut is also to just set the pads flat to the rim & leave 'em
if nothing makes noise. Makes sense to have the maximum area at
work. So I did set these up without toe-in; nice & quiet. This set
came with some cool spherical washers that make pad angle adjustment a
non-event.

Checked everything out & all seems to be installed properly. Maybe
it's just "travel agents feel funny". My wife says "...the bike stops
OK; don't you have another project?" so maybe I'm over-thinking
this.

dougP

[ascpgh]

Travel Agents were OEM on our tandem to convert the 105 STI lever pull
to operate the Linear pull brakes. I found them only just more
tolerable than the STI levers, especially the day the left one failed,
I scrapped the STI levers and the Travel Agents, switching to bar-end
shifters and Dia Compe 287-V levers now known as Cane Creek Drop V
(http://www.canecreek.com/component-other?product=drop-v). They are
calibrated to pull the cable at the standard linear-pull rate, opening
up a wider range of brake options from the drops without the converter
doohickies.

ANDY
Pittsburgh

[dougP]

There seems to be a strong endorsement for dedicated brake levers
designed for the longer cable pull. When I first got this bright
idea, Riv had the levers to go with the brakes. Time I quit mulling &
got to ordering, the levers were gone but the Travel Agents were still
there. No worries, thinks I, saves the hassle of messing with bar
tape, shifters, etc. There may well be a pair of levers in my
future. I'll never be able to do as nice a job of taping the bars as
Riv did when they built the bike.

dougP

> > cantis?  Or is one easier to pull than the other?- Hide quoted text -

[Jan RBW]

I’m planning my new country bike with drop bars and bar end shifters and I’m considering which brakes I should choose.

The alternatives I’m thinking at the moment are:

- Tektro CR720 cantilevers & Shimano BL-R400 levers

- Avid Single Digit 7 V-brakes & Tektro RL 520 levers

From reading this thread I guess I should go with the V-brakes because of the better stopping power?

I’m open to other alternatives too if you want to recommend something. 

Jan

[Seth Vidal]

Go with the V-brakes b/c they can be less of an ass pain to setup. 

The tektro 520 levers also feel pretty good in my hands. Having said that - so do the shimano levers.

However, if you really want cantis, spring for the paul cantis - they are just a nicer brake and less fidgety to setup than the cr720s.

-sv

--

[clyde canter]

"Better" stopping power might depend on the observer.  I find that Vs do stop better, maybe too better.  If you only have one bike however, or you have the same type of actuation on all you bikes, ie...long pull or short pull then you'd probably get used to the extra power.  I personally find V brakes too grabby, but that's a personal opinion.  Some tips for both I've found:

For cantis I strongly recommend shortening the length of un-housed cable, ie , use a brake bolt hole cable stop.  These things greatly reduce squeal and shudder. they can be used front and rear.

 

For Vs with drop bars I would suggest buying the noodles with the adjuster built in as you will have no adjustment on the levers for drops.

 

Good luck,

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:05 AM, Jan RBW <jan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Jan

--

[dougP]

Jan:

After all the fiddling I talked about above on my wife's bike, I
converted my Atlantis to V-brakes & the long cable pull Tektro
levers. The previous brakes were Tekro 720 with Tekro's standard pull
levers. The braking effort is considerably less with the V-brakes,
and my arms don't wear out on long steep downhills. A side benefit is
better pannier clearance. As cool & stylish as the 720s look, they
get in the way. BTW, if you go with V-brakes, get noodles that have a
threaded adjuster built-in. Makes fine tuning the set-up much easier,
and Vs do require the pads to be quite close to the rim.

dougP

[PATRICK MOORE]

FWIW: I've fretted about brakes for over 40 years, and I've used just about every kind there is, and my conclusion is that the best brakes bar none that I ever used -- equal to Vs and mech disks in power, better than single pivots in modulation -- were the Riv set up IRD wide profile cantils on the floor Sam Hill I bought from Riv circa 2010. Salmon pads. Powerful but absolutely non-grabby.

WORST brakes I ever used: Mafac cantis on the Herse, both with Mafac levers and Tektros. Even the wider tandem model made absolutely no improvement. POS. 

On Nov 13, 11:06 pm, Jan RBW <jan....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I’m planning my new country bike with drop bars and bar end shifters and
> I’m considering which brakes I should choose.
>
> The alternatives I’m thinking at the moment are:
> - Tektro CR720 cantilevers & Shimano BL-R400 levers
> - Avid Single Digit 7 V-brakes & Tektro RL 520 levers
>
> From reading this thread I guess I should go with the V-brakes because of
> the better stopping power?
>
> I’m open to other alternatives too if you want to recommend something.
>
> Jan

-------------------------
Patrick Moore, Albuquerque, NM, USA

For professional resumes, contact Patrick Moore, ACRW
http://resumespecialties.com/index.html

-------------------------