on 11/30/10 8:58 AM, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery wrote: > V-brakes: A lot of people seem to be saying that cantilevers have > stopping power that's comparable to that of v-brakes, provided that > the set-up is correct. This has never been my observation, as v-brakes > have always seemed much more powerful to me. I concede that I may not > know the secrets to canti set-up, though I have done it many, many > times, usually for money. For my own bikes, I was a canti-fan up until > the last year or so, and I used them all. Now I'm all about v-brakes.
The specific benefit for the linear-pull brake design was that it liberated cable routing. For suspension mtb's, this was critical. The cable stop became part of the brake, so you could run the cabling in all manner of methods. And although Sheldon stated it better than I, the other major difference was that it took the leverage and "moved" it from the brake to the brake lever. This simplified setup tremendously, which is arguably what Shimano had attempted to do by changing to a fixed straddle yoke method of attachment. Ease of setup is a good thing. You want brakes to stop you. When canti's are set up wrong, the braking can be horrible. Use the brakes you can set up reliably and understand when things go wrong. My main beef with linear pull has never changed - aside from the issues of fender mounting with a lp brake - they lack the range of useful response which properly set up canti's have. To me, linear pulls changed the response from "pressure-based" to "time-based". On my lp bikes, you would brake with a little "dit" of pressure to the lever - usually with one or two fingers, which would nearly lock the wheel. So the braking would tend to be be on/off, on/off, on/off until you had decellerated. With canti's, I've found there to be much more middle ground. You can scrub a little speed to start, and if you aren't quite right, apply more pressure. In the real world, where panic starts to set in, as you ramp up your adrenalin, you apply more brake. With linear pulls, where you quickly get to skidding levels, you need an "anti-lock" circuit in your brain which tells your paws to lighten up. Obviously, this is what works for me, and it also gets reinforced biomechanically everytime I use canti's, on and off-road. If I'd just ridden lp brakes, I'd have a better developed sense of pressure sensitivity with the narrower range inherent to the design. - Jim "off to work on a canti-braked Quickbeam..." -- Jim Edgar cyclofi...@earthlink.net Cyclofiend Bicycle Photo Galleries - http://www.cyclofiend.com Current Classics - Cross Bikes Singlespeed - Working Bikes Gallery updates now appear here - http://cyclofiend.blogspot.com "I had to ride slow because I was taking my guerrilla route, the one I follow when I assume that everyone in a car is out to get me." -- Neal Stephenson, "Zodiac" -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
