Touring - V-Brakes on a Touring Frame?

Are there V-Brakes made to fit on a road frame? I have a mid 80's Fuji Touring Series III and I have swapped out my drop bars for a riser bar but I have kept the road bike brake levers and just put them on the new bars. They work alright but it's quite obvious to me that they were not designed to be used on mtb style bars.
So I want to get new brake levers, BMX or MTB brake levers would work but it has been suggested to me that I put V-brakes on the bike and get the appropriate brake levers.
I haven't heard of V-brakes for touring/road frames - anyone have any information on this subject?

thanks

Short Answer:

V-brakes will work on any frame that takes Cantilever brakes. If your Fuji can take cantilever brakes, go ahead and switch to V-brakes, if that'll make it easier on you.

Short Answer:

V-brakes will work on any frame that takes Cantilever brakes. If your Fuji can take cantilever brakes, go ahead and switch to V-brakes, if that'll make it easier on you.

Long Answer: This is usually but not always true. With any bike built in the last 15 years, this is indeed the case. When you're talking about an 80's bike, however, things get trickier. The fact is, it may work and it may not. Many old canti-equipped bikes were equipped with posts that are both shorter and set closer together than the standard posts seen today - these posts worked fine with the very common Dia-Compe cantis of the day, work in a mono-buttocked-but-good-enough kind of way with most smooth-post cantilevers, might work with modern cantis that use threaded hardware and might not, and most definitely do NOT work with v-brakes.

I would start by looking at the post. If they have a single hole for the spring, be sure to test before buying brakes that might not fit. Those with three possible holes for the spring are almost guaranteed to be workable.

By the way, I have v-brakes on my 2006 touring bike. They work fine, but if I had to do it again, I would probably have gone with cantilevers like Shimano's BR-550. The reason is that the Dia-Compe 287-V, which is the only road lever that works with v-brakes, has high cable friction and can be a hassle to get set up properly. Everything is jake now, but it took a while to get things working right. That was aggravating! Cantis are good brakes, they just don't have the fingertip response of v's, which I do admit to appreciating. Being able to do a stoppie from the hoods is pretty cool!

You can add little things called travel agents which will allow most road levers to work with V-brakes.


Problem Solvers P/S Travel Agent Silverw/Silver roller (http://www.qbike.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?s=10&t=1&st=travel+agent&id=12491)

http://store.airbomb.com/mmAIRBOMB/Images/small/q/BR0300.jpg (http://www.qbike.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?s=10&t=1&st=travel+agent&id=12491)

If you add TAs you loose mechanical advantage and might as well try something different again. This past year several long reach sidepulls have come out. Don't look as strong as the other options. So I would look into how much weight they are rated to stop. A lot of bike gear seems to be designed for 150 pound men, which is average weight for women these days, let alone a galoot with a pile of gear. Still if it was rated i'd use them.

We should be advocating for Paul to give up Crossovers back, or for someone to make Strange brakes. Pauls has brought out the Mafac style centerpulls with a single center mount on it Could be reasonably economical if your fork doesn't have bosses ,or you need to buy Vs and 287s or travel agents. You really only need a great brake up front.