Originally Posted by Thor29
There are some really big hills here in San Francisco. On one of them I found that at a speed of about 35mph I could squeeze until my cables were in danger of breaking and the bike wouldn't slow down quickly enough. I swapped the cantilevers for V-brakes and the braking power was dramatically improved. Now you could say this was due to new brake pads on the V-brakes, bad adjustment on the cantis, etc, but since then I have worked on several touring and cyclocross bikes with new cantilevers and they were not as strong as my V-brakes. That's just my experience, your mileage may differ.
Well, Thor, since I was born and raised in Oakland and live in San Leandro and have ridden all over the bay area I do have a little knowledge of "hills" in San Francisco. I've ridden up and down most of them.
Properly adjusted cantilevers will lock the wheels. It takes more lever pressure to do so because the leverage is less than a V-brake.
If you prefer a light lever pressure that's fine but that is a preference and not a technical analysis.