Originally Posted by
dirtyphotons
i've personally had two exceptionally bad experiences with nycbikes. but they involved the attitude of their owner, not the quality of their products. the fork is probably fine, just understand that if something goes wrong with the order you may be in for more than twenty bucks worth of hassle.
canti brakes are generally chosen by the cross crowd because they allow you to run wider tires and don't get clogged with mud as easily. they're also more powerful than caliper brakes because they have a greater
mechanical advantage.
it's (more or less) agreed upon that caliper brakes will give better modulation of braking, meaning the brakes are less "grabby" and you can easily scrub one or two miles an hour off your speed, whereas cantis might not give you that fine tuning ability as much. still, lots of people, myself included, ride their cross bikes as road bikes and find modern cantilever brakes more than suitable for the application.
I've likewise had a bad experience with nycbikes on ebay wherein they didn't honor the auction won and never sent me the fork I won. After I reported them to Ebay, they gave me negative feedback.