Feedback on brazed on centerpulls vs cantis

[Greg Walton]

I'm considering a custom and looking for feedback from those who have gone the centerpull route - specifically looking for those who are using Mafac Raids or the Compass brakes.

Interested in your impressions and how they compare -- pros and cons.  

Greg Walton

Seattle

[Steve Frey]

Over the years I've had several bikes with cantilever brakes and three with brazed-on centerpulls. Maybe I'm just an idiot when it comes to adjusting cantis, but on every canti equipped bike I've owned I spent a lot of time messing with the adjustment trying to get them to work right. The problems I struggled with most were squealing and judder, especially on the front. Often I would get the toe-in right and then a few weeks later after the pads had worn a bit the judder or squealing would start again. This was especially a problem during the winter when I'm riding in the rain a lot and pads wear quickly. As for performance, cantilever brakes are great when they're working properly. The problem for me is that most of the time they aren't working properly.

More recently I've had a couple bikes equipped with brazed on Mafac RAIDs and one equipped with brazed on Dia Compe 750s. I've had some squeal from both the front and rear of the RAIDs, but it's generally with new pads and it goes away once the pads have had a chance to wear in a bit. The RAIDs have more power than the Dia Compes, but with upgraded pads and pad holders, I thought the Dia Compes weren't too bad. Overall, I find RAIDs to be about the best brakes I've ever used. Modulation is great and they provide all the braking power I'll ever want.

Steve

[Eric Nichols]

I've used Mafac tandem cantis, Paul cantis (both styles), Paul Racer centerpulls (center-mount and brazed-on), and Compass brakes. All have worked well for me, though each does take more effort to set up and dial-in compared to a typical modern sidepull or v-brake. The greater range of adjustability ("degrees of freedom") afforded by cantis and centerpulls means that there are more details to pay attention to, and more ways to screw them up. But get all the details right, and the performance is hard to beat.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite. Overall the brazed-on centerpulls may have a slight edge in performance, but the difference is small, and within the variation imparted by differences in setup.

The Compass brake scores highest in quality and beauty. They also took the most work to eliminate squeal. Get the toed-in washers, or use a round file to make your own. Once correctly toed in, with bedded pads, they perform superbly.

Cantis get the nod when tire widths exceed 42 mm.

Thick grease on pivot posts fills a small gap, helping to dampen resonant vibration (a.k.a. squeal).

One feature I really like about the Paul brakes is the adjustable left/right spring tension. Not only can you use it to tune the centering action, but you can also use it to adjust the pull resistance of the brake lever. I like to dial down the spring tension to the minimum, it gives a really lovely light lever feel. Less effort means less fatigue on long rides.

All of these brakes will allow adequate pad/rim clearance, which is something v-brakes often cannot. Running clearance is more important with more flexible frames and wheels.

None of these brakes are simple bolt-and-go parts. Take the time to set them up, and expect an iteration or two, and let the pads bed-in. Experiment and observe, listen and feel. It's not rocket science, but it does require some mechanical sympathy and a measure of patience. Multiple adjustment modes are a good thing.

Eric Nichols
Newfields NH

[Jeff Bertolet]

If you are going with a lightweight fork which may be prone to flex-induced canti-shudder, you may consider going centerpull.

I would have no problem going centerpull in front, and canti in rear to keep costs down.

[Mark Bulgier]

Jeff Bertolet wrote:

> I would have no problem going centerpull in front, and canti in rear to keep costs down.

Or canti front, centerpull rear to maintain heel/ankle clearance on small frames and mixtes

Mark  Bulgier
Seattle

[Matthew J]

I found Mafac Raids easy to set up, maintain with excellent stopping power and modulation.

Have almost no experience with center-pulls.

[John Clay]

I'd echo what Eric said. An additional data point for consideration is at the following link; you may have heard of Peter....he seems to think cantis are OK:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/49353569@N00/29883354264/in/dateposted/

John Clay
Tallahassee, FL

[Matthew J]

To be fair, Peter has made bikes with centerpulls as well.  

[Chris Cullum]

On Dec 8, 2016 11:09, "Matthew J" <matth...@gmail.com> wrote:

To be fair, Peter has made bikes with centerpulls as well.  

He does for sure but he generally seems to have a preference for cantis. Or at least the majority of his bike come equipped with cantilevers.

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[John Clay]

Yes, Peter has used centerpulls, and I made my usual mistake of conflating Mafac with canti.

if the cost doesn't matter at all I'd get the Compass as they're a refined rendition of the RAID brakes; nicer finish, forged arms, bronze or brass bushings and some other nice details. All the parts will be present, sometimes an issue with eBay stuff, and the cables will be new and unaffected by age and the elements. If you're a wee bit cheap, like me, then a set of RAIDs at the right price (I paid about $70/set) would be a satisfying choice. Or....if you have a set of Mafac Cantis gathering dust you could use them and be perfectly happy in the braking department.

The most powerful brakes I have, which also modulate well, are a set of cantis on a beater bike. Doubtless I simply lucked into a good cable configuration, as I often don't pay much attention to that detail, and good pads but they can send me over the bars if I want. Ignoring higher order analyses, all three of those choices are excellent.

It reminds me of the old hot rod saying: Speed costs; how fast do you want to go? To me the desired bling coefficient would be the greater driving force, not the intrinsic performance of the different brake sets.

John Clay
Tallahassee

[Evan Estern]

I find that cantis can be frustrating to set up properly, but once I get them dialed in (with Koolstop pads) they work great.  You will probably spend hundreds more on centerpull brakes and braze-ons over cantis, so it comes down to how much you are willing to spend for what may be a small improvement in looks and performance.  That said, I have a set of NOS RAIDs waiting to go on the next bike I set up...

[Paul Sherman]

In my limited experience with brazed on Raids I've found them to have slightly less ultimate stopping power than the best cantis I've used (holding the rim/brake lever/housing/pad type constant), but this is made up for by far greater modulation and lack of fork judder.

Paul
Pasadena, CA

[Steve Palincsar]

On 12/08/2016 09:25 PM, Paul Sherman wrote:
> In my limited experience with brazed on Raids I've found them to have slightly less ultimate stopping power than the best cantis I've used (holding the rim/brake lever/housing/pad type constant), but this is made up for by far greater modulation and lack of fork judder.
>
>

In other words, the cantilevers will lock the wheel while the RAIDs will
not?

[Hahn Rossman]

It's probably time to talk about locking up wheels again. I attached a picture of me using the front brake of my racing bike as hard as I could. It's got 25mm tires and you couldn't lock the wheel, but you could totally unweight the rear wheel. We were testing some different rim brakes and brake shoe compounds.

To lock the wheel you either have to unweight it (like the rear in the photo) or have very little traction. It happens some times on loose dirt, gravel, mud etc. Often when you lock the front wheel you crash, which is why good modulation is your friend! 

Cantilevers, v brakes, and some dual pivot brakes can feel more powerful than centerpulls, but I think that Raids ( and the compass copy) have the best blend of power and modulation. They also don't change much as the pads wear, which is a nice feature in it's self. 

Hahn "Stoppies are fun"Rossman

[Paul Sherman]

Both would let me pull a stoppie. The best way I can explain the difference is that the cantis I'm using (CX-70) reach their max stopping power with less lever travel, which means that that power is easier to access but there's less modulation to be had on the way there. Just my experience with these two particular sets of brakes though.

Paul

[satanas]

FWIW, I've used numerous different cants, quite a few bolt-on centrepulls, one set of braze-on centrepulls (Mafac GT), an XT U brake, Suntour rollercams, assorted V-brakes, sidepulls, dual-pivots, etc. Pretty much all of them are capable of doing the job, but by far the easiest to live with IMHO are V-brakes and dual-pivots, both of which are powerful and easy to set up. Everything else is more trouble in one way or another, and older sidepulls have less power than dual-pivots, no question.

If you're going to have any sort of brakes with brazed-on pivots it's crucial that the fork blades or stays are an appropriate distance apart and that posts with the appropriate amount of offset are used. If this doesn't happen it can be almost impossible to find any brakes that can be made to work properly(!). Some brakes are much more tolerant of varying post widths than others.

Another thing worth considering is that the brakes have to match the levers in cable pull and mechanical advantage or the brakes may end up being either horribly spongy or having no power. And the levers need to fit your hands, both for size and strength; for instance, I cannot use Mafac levers or old Universals as my hands are too small and I don't have gorilla forearms.

There's a lot of personal preference in all this and the required reach has a big impact too. If I was building a bike that only needed <50mm reach I wouldn't consider anything except dual pivots, and as someone said, once you get past 42mm + fenders centrepulls are most likely going to be too short.

BTW Paul et al, I strongly recommend fitting Kool Stop pads to your CX70 brakes - I almost missed a few corners in the UK due to brake fade on steep descents with the stock pads; I'd never had that happen with anything else before.

Later,

Stephen

[Steve Palincsar]

On 12/09/2016 12:11 AM, Paul Sherman wrote:
> Both would let me pull a stoppie. The best way I can explain the difference is that the cantis I'm using (CX-70) reach their max stopping power with less lever travel, which means that that power is easier to access but there's less modulation to be had on the way there. Just my experience with these two particular sets of brakes though.
>

Wouldn't that be more accurately described as a difference in mechanical
advantage than maximum stopping power?

[Paul Sherman]

I might have muddled things by discussing lever feel. My point is that the cantis stop the bike quicker.

Paul

[Nicholas Jensen]

I've been using RAIDs on posts on a bike I built. The brake performance has been great. 

However it was a bear to get the pads to sit right without terrible squealing. I swapped the stock brake shoes for some Velo Orange adjustable shoes, which I don't think are available anymore, in order to adjust toe-in. I also don't like using two 9mm wrenches to lock in the cable hanger. The bolt head is very thin and prone to stripping. And then one needs a 10mm wrench to adjust the brake shoe alignment. On top of that there's no way to accommodate for uneven spring tension except to move the cable hanger along the straddle cable, which means every time you reinstall a wheel you have to play with the cable hanger to center the brakes.

I think the Paul Racers solve all of the above problems. My wife's bike will use the Racers on posts.

[Igor Belopolsky]

The latter can be fixed by the [pricey] Compass hangers, but you are correct on all the other accounts. I am going to try to sell my [m] Racers to buy some Paul or maybe just the Gran Compe from VO - or the GB brakes but I think they're a pain to center the pads as well..

[Igor Belopolsky]

these? http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/components/brakes/pads-shoes/vo-canti-style-brake-shoes-threaded-post.html

On Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 8:32:43 PM UTC-5, Nicholas Jensen wrote:

[Sean Bham]

Brian Chapman, http://www.chapmancycles.com/, has an ingenious and very slick Mafac Raid hack he's employed on several of his incredible builds....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chapmancycles/15856758618/

He modifies the Mafac arms to accommodate the springs/adjusters from Dia-Compe 990s, ubiquitous BMX brakes, similar to the way Paul Price designed the Paul 'Racers'.

[Nhat Vu]

I believe the Chapman mod also allows for the use of standard canti studs, with the spring hole tabs removed (basically Paul racer studs) 

. Because the tension spring sits on the outside instead of between frame and caliper, the regular centerpull studs will be too short to accommodate all the bits.

Nhat in Menlo Park 

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[Chris Cullum]

On Dec 15, 2016 11:34, "Sean Bham" <wheeler...@gmail.com> wrote:

Brian Chapman, http://www.chapmancycles.com/, has an ingenious and very slick Mafac Raid hack he's employed on several of his incredible builds....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chapmancycles/15856758618/

He modifies the Mafac arms to accommodate the springs/adjusters from Dia-Compe 990s, ubiquitous BMX brakes, similar to the way Paul Price designed the Paul 'Racers'.

While that deals with uneven spring tension (which in reality isn't really much of an issue IME) it really complicates front rack installation if the rack uses the brake bosses for mounting.

On Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 4:51:56 AM UTC-8, Igor Belopolsky wrote:

these? http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/components/brakes/pads-shoes/vo-canti-style-brake-shoes-threaded-post.html

On Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 8:32:43 PM UTC-5, Nicholas Jensen wrote:

I've been using RAIDs on posts on a bike I built. The brake performance has been great. 

However it was a bear to get the pads to sit right without terrible squealing. I swapped the stock brake shoes for some Velo Orange adjustable shoes, which I don't think are available anymore, in order to adjust toe-in. I also don't like using two 9mm wrenches to lock in the cable hanger. The bolt head is very thin and prone to stripping. And then one needs a 10mm wrench to adjust the brake shoe alignment. On top of that there's no way to accommodate for uneven spring tension except to move the cable hanger along the straddle cable, which means every time you reinstall a wheel you have to play with the cable hanger to center the brakes.

I think the Paul Racers solve all of the above problems. My wife's bike will use the Racers on posts.

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[Eric Keller]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:34 PM, Sean Bham <wheeler...@gmail.com> wrote:
> He modifies the Mafac arms to accommodate the springs/adjusters from
> Dia-Compe 990s, ubiquitous BMX brakes, similar to the way Paul Price
> designed the Paul 'Racers'.

That's pretty cool, but it makes for a really expensive set of brakes.
I didn't see the DC990s with silver parts either, wonder if they are
vintage.

[Nicholas Jensen]

@Igor

Those are for standard cantilever brakes. They won't work on the RAIDs. Here's a photo of what I have: http://www.veloduo.co.uk/products/velo-orange-adjustable-cantilever-shoes-pads-black

The post angle can be adjusted and locked in place with an allen bolt at the tip of the post. They work really well. It's too bad VO doesn't sell them anymore.

On Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 4:51:56 AM UTC-8, Igor Belopolsky wrote:

[Mark Guglielmana]

Igor,

I've used the VO adjustable cantilever posts on a few bikes and like them, but they don't sell them anymore. Interestingly enough, they have something almost the same on their Grand Cru Zeste cantilevers

I contacted VO about getting some of the old ones, but they said when they stocked them the only time they moved was when they put them on sale. The replacement pads are still available. 

On Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 4:51:56 AM UTC-8, Igor Belopolsky wrote:

[Justin Hughes]

MAFAC is an acronym. If Raid is an acronym someone please tell me what the letters represent.

[Mark Guglielmana]

Good question. It's capitalized on every brake, but so is RACER

[Eric Nichols]

In this context "Raid" probably meant an adventurous cross-country timed challenge, such as the Raid Pyrenean, or the Raid Alpine. The type of ride that suited a brake with a long enough reach to allow a fender/mudguard and a wide supple tire.

RAID is also a commonly used acronym in France for Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion ("Search, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence"), an elite law enforcement unit of the French National Police. But that entity was created in 1985, well after the MAFAC brakes.

Eric Nichols
Newfields NH

[Mark Guglielmana]

Good knowledge! 

Eric Nichols
Newfields NH

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