Classic & Vintage - When did centerpulls give way to sidepulls?

I was looking at all those Merkx photos and noticed the 1966 racing bike had centerpulls. But the Coppi video link and 50's bikes with sidepulls.

Anyone have a pseudo-historical remembrance of when these sidepulls got more popular than centerpulls?

Ohhhh, title is wrong, should be centerpulls give way to sidepulls!

I think the 60s were the heyday for centerpulls in the racing world. The French continued to use them in racing well into the 70s.

Ohhhh, title is wrong, should be centerpulls give way to sidepulls!

I think the original question is valid, sidepulls were the originals which eventually gave way to centerpulls. EVeryone copied the MAFAC design, even universal introduced a centerpull in the 1960s (but maintained a sidepull model also, the universal extra).. in anycase, by the early 1970s centerpulls were a thing of the past on race bikes but continued to appear on entry level and lower end bicycles into the 1980s... one place centerpulls should ALWAYS be used is mixtes. They were made for sidepulls, anything else just looks wrong.

Good side-pulls - which used to be considered inferior to center-pulls - came back by about 1980. Campy was the rage, and many manufacturers started making them. For better, or worse. Then mtn. bikes came in, and the new rage was cantilevers.

I think the original question is valid, sidepulls were the originals which eventually gave way to centerpulls. EVeryone copied the MAFAC design, even universal introduced a centerpull in the 1960s (but maintained a sidepull model also, the universal extra).. in anycase, by the early 1970s centerpulls were a thing of the past on race bikes but continued to appear on entry level and lower end bicycles into the 1980s... one place centerpulls should ALWAYS be used is mixtes. They were made for sidepulls, anything else just looks wrong.

Ohhh, good piece of history. I always thought the geneology was Center's-->sidepulls--to whatever I remember from 1982...

I'm digging those bikes with mafacs on them. I need to start thinking of a project that will have good racing style centerpulls....

someone please explain to me the performance differences of centerpull vs. sidepull(single and dual pivot) performance wise if assuming similar levels of quality

one place centerpulls should ALWAYS be used is mixtes.

Provided that centerpull caliper is mounted on the intermediary center stays. Anything else is a disaster.

-Kurt

I'd guess center and sidepulls ran concurrent in the 50s; centerpulls popular in the 60s until about 1970, when Campagnolo brought out their sidepulls. From what I saw in the 70s, the racing crowd preferred sidepulls, the Weinmann 500s were pretty good if your frame was tight enough to run them, and if you couldn't afford Campagnolo you'd go with Universal. Though with many of the frames of the day, you were stuck with centerpulls due to the generous clearances.

People say centerpulls have a greater mechanical advantage; I've always preferred sidepulls myself, but it may just be looks and simplicity. Any brake will more or less stop you: some take more planning that others!

the move to centerpulls had been made before my time. By the time I started paying attention to brakes in the early '70s, you had cheap bikes with sidepulls, middle to high end with centerpulls, and Campy Record.

My first decent bike came with racks and it had cantilevers. Cantilevers were mostly used on cyclocross and tandems, with the occasional touring bike thrown in.

I prefer the look of centerpulls, and they seem to offer more clearance than anything save for cantilevers. how do centerpulls compare to modern dual pivot sidepulls?

As cyclotoine posts, Mafac introduced their centerpull brake at a time everyone else had sidepulls. The Mafacs were very popular - so much so, that everyone else (which at the time was primarily Universal and GB) scrambled to catch up, leading to the Universal 61 and GB Coureur, and centerpulls dominated the 60's. You can pretty much document the swing back to sidepulls, which was fairly sudden in the pro ranks, by looking at pictures of Eddy Merckx in 1968. At the Tour of Flanders, his bike had Universal sidepulls. At the Giro, his bike had sidepulls. By 1969 at the latest, virtually everyone using Campagnolo components had the new sidepulls, and again, other manufacturers scrambled to catch up. The exception was of course the teams riding French components, primarily Peugeot, which retained the Mafac sidepulls (often with braze-on mountings).

My guess - and it's a guess - is that the swings back and forth were due to basic R&D. Various companies made brakes, and each tried to make them better than the other guy's.

The good old fashioned Mafac Racer was pretty much state-of-the-art by the end of the 1950's. It stopped better than other brakes. It also did not hurt that, because it was French, it was on the French bikes ridden by Frenchmen Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil, who won 8 Tours de France between them in the mid-50's to mid-60's.

By the end of the 60's, Campy had figured out how to make sidepulls that were lighter and worked roughly as well as Mafacs. They also had a finish that Mafac, Universal, and the others, could not touch. (Of course, you paid for it, too.) Mafac countered with the Pro, which was essentially a shaved-down version of the Racer. It survioved in the pro peloton until at least 1977, when Bernard Thevenet won his second Tour using the latest and greatest version of them.

There is one other matter - the quick-release mechaism. The Mafac "quick release" was to unhook one end of the yolk cable. What happens if you forget to undo the quick release with a Mafac? It ain't pretty. Until recent iterations of Campy brakes (which require a brake kever with a built-in quick release), quality sidepulls had some sort of cam device on the calipers themselves. If you forgot to reset it, it just meant that you pulled your levers further to make the brakes work. Much safer. Weinmann and others got around this by having the quick release mechanism built into the cable housing stop above the brake, but that always looked kind of . . . . funky.

Then someone figured out the whole "double pivot" sidepull design, with increased stopping power, sidepull looks, and only a slight weight penalty over singel-pivot sidepulls.

All of this strikes me as the kind of incremental change that is pretty standard in most products. Somebody builds a mouse trap, the next guy looks to build a better one. "Better" can be matter of looks, weight, function, convenience, or combination of them. In the not-too-distant future, someone will come up with the next "latest and greatest" for brakes. Who knows, it might even be centerpulls.

Wait? You guys use sidepulls? :innocent:


I still prefer center pulls.

I think its the Mafac riders who are crashing and going off the cliff here:

http://www.classicrendezvous.com/images/Italian/Universal/Univ_68b.jpg

bikingshearer

Did you mean Mafac Competition rather than Pro?

Provided that centerpull caliper is mounted on the intermediary center stays. Anything else is a disaster.

-Kurt
Agreed. My Gitane tandem is like a mixte for the stoker, but the canti studs are on the seat-stays rather than the mid-stays, forcing an utterly ridiculous pulley system. I guess this was done for the sake of heel clearance, but it seems much more complex than it needs to be.

In the pre WWII era almost all racing bicycles used side pulls. Mafac started to popularize their various versions of center pulls in the 50's. I am an expert on this having spent far too many years of my youth studying the pictures of my cycling heroes. Sometime around 1966 ( I am no historical expert with dates) Campy introduced their sidepull brakes, which were quite nice at the time. The Campy's were so nice that Mafac had to upgrade their center pulls just to get twerps like me to buy them. VERY few of these upgraded Mafac center pulls made it to the states. Most stateside Mafac brakes were the cheesy "RACER" models. Most everybody started lusting after Campy side pulls after Gimondi and Merckx dominated the Tour De France with them. By the mid 70's even Thevenet was sporting Campy side pulls in an otherwise French gruppo.

I think the move back to side pulls probably was facilitated by the move to tighter clearances allowing for the short reach brakes so that the lack of efficiency wasn't so drastic. The the reduced weight possible did make them preferable. Plus the lack of a need for a cable stop on the headset and seat post clamp...

The dual pivot design obviously helped braking efficiency too.

The latest Campagnolo brakes have gone back to single pivot for the rear brake where efficiency isn't as critical to save a few grams.

What about dual-pivots historically?

I have an old Raleigh (early 1970s), that has a pair of Altenburger Syncro (or somesuch) brakes, and they look at first glance like sidepull, but have pivot points similar to the center pull brakes.

And MAN do they ever work well.

Agreed. My Gitane tandem is like a mixte for the stoker, but the canti studs are on the seat-stays rather than the mid-stays, forcing an utterly ridiculous pulley system. I guess this was done for the sake of heel clearance, but it seems much more complex than it needs to be.

Pulley system? You should be lucky that you have a pulley system and not a cable stop hanging off the seatpost binder.

-Kurt

Good side-pulls - which used to be considered inferior to center-pulls - came back by about 1980. Campy was the rage, and many manufacturers started making them. For better, or worse. Then mtn. bikes came in, and the new rage was cantilevers.

Side pull brakes among racers and wannabe's started taking over with the intro of the Campagnolo Record sidepull, 1968 for the pro's. Then by 1970, the masses wanted them, at about $60.+ a pair. Outrageous at the time.

In the 60's Mafac center pulls were probably the best choice.

The introduction of the Campy sidepulls changed everything. It was the first really quality brakes produced. They had much nicer levers, and the braking action was superbe. You could actually control your braking and even the pads were of superior grade. And they were very expensive at the time they were introduced.

At the first Boul. Mich. Bike Rally, one of the all time great races sponsered by Raleigh in Chicago, a set of Campy brakes was a lap prime in the Intermediate race!!!!

I have centerpulls on my '82 Team Miyata... ahead or behind of their time??

someone please explain to me the performance differences of centerpull vs. sidepull(single and dual pivot) performance wise if assuming similar levels of quality

Just got a '75 peugeot mixte (fairly low-end mix of components I think) with Mafac "Racer" centerpulls. Oh man, what a revelation! You can fit them with long canti-lever pads, and they have some stopping power. They are way better than even the 105 sidepulls on my mid-80's Trek, which I always thought were pretty good. And anything less than 105 sidepulls, like old Dia-compe, are junk and should be disgarded, imho. I even removed some weak mid-80s Campi Gran Sport sidepulls from my Italian bike.

WOW alot of interesting info here but I think some missed the mark, and most didnt even answer the question.

Q: why did centerpulls give way to sidepulls?

A: Because the tire clearances changed.

Centerpulls are a form of cantilever brake exept it is only one piece ("caliper" or whatever) the longer the reach the better they work. They have more "mechanical advantage" (what a confusing term). they just work better when they are longer.

Sidepulls work better when there is less clearance. And honestly, nowadays the clearance is so small, its hard to find a bike that you fit a freaking set of decent fenders. You have to buy some speacially desinged Mickey Moused fender-like creation to have fenders. Heck they even have those stupid "seatpost clamp-on fenders".

....OK rant over sorry.

I build up and ride a lot of bikes and will still use centre pull brakes because of their excellent stopping power and the fact they can be found very cheaply... my Peugeot fixed gear runs a Weinmann centre pull with Kool stop pads and the stopping power is nothing short of amazing.

If you are not concerned with weight and need good tire anf fender clearance then centre pull brakes can be a good choice.

People also complain about cantis and in most cases the complaints stem from an improper setup... there is a good reason why touring biikes use them as they are solid, tend to be trouble free, and provide much needed stopping power when a bike is loaded down with gear.

When I rebuilt my 1973 Raleigh Gran Sport I used a Shimano 600 group and some vintage 70's Dura Ace centre pull brakes as these offer better stopping power than the 600's side pulls and are also as old as the bike.

Off Topic: @ sixty Fiver I always tought your avatar was a toad on top of a pond. Today if finally recognized it as a butterfly. thats some good camo

WOW alot of interesting info here but I think some missed the mark, and most didnt even answer the question.

Q: why did centerpulls give way to sidepulls?

A: Because the tire clearances changed.





I agree that was probably one of the reasons. Another reason (and probably more importantly) is aerodynamics. Side-pulls offer a smaller package, more so than any other brake system on road bikes. They're also lighter and simpler to set up. The performance advantage of this is recognized more on a road racing bike than say, a touring or cruiser style bike.

Clearances have definitely gotten tighter though on modern frames and forks starting from the early 80's and on up until now. Aerodynamics was a key factor in all this, so much so that Campy introduced the aero-brakes around 1990, which concealed the brake housings from the lever body and ran them along the bars to the calipers. The aero-brake calipers themselves were also aerodynamically sculped to take advantage of this. (I have a set on my Tommasini). Of course this caliper design only lasted about three years, until campy came out with the dual-pivot brake design.

Sooo,...I think it was aerodynamics, simplicity, lightness, and compact design of side-pulls that prevailed over center-pulls.

so what say ye, my brothers of skinny wheels. :D

Pulley system? You should be lucky that you have a pulley system and not a cable stop hanging off the seatpost binder.

-Kurt

This is what I had to do with my wife's mixte. Even with the mighty Dia-Compe 750, I could not get the brake to reach as it should mounted on the midstays.

http://gallery.mac.com/bbattle/100013/100_0446/web.jpg

http://gallery.mac.com/bbattle/100013/100_0305/web.jpg
I was hesitant to grind out the center hole to get clearance; don't think it would've gotten me enough. Very frustrating.

Sooo,...I think it was aerodynamics, simplicity, lightness, and compact design of side-pulls that prevailed over center-pulls.

so what say ye, my brothers of skinny wheels. :D


Yes. Youre right all the way. its like its always been. The design and what is available is dictated by what the racers are using.

Centerpulls wont work as good if they where implemented on a tight clearance. you would have to create special forks to mount them higher to keep the brake arms long. or mount them on the blades like they do now. That way you can tighten the gap. But like you mention; The weight weenies will then complain that its too heavy. Those guys always have something wrong.

Well who needs fenders or a big gap for that matter when you're racing right?

I dont think the shape of the caliper is as important for aerodynamics as getting rid of that gap was. Oddly enough now they have the "dual pivot" brakes that try to kinda-sorta emulate a centerpull while keeping the sidepull brake. Regular sidepulls would be lighter and brake harder (but come out alignment easier). Roadie fads contradict each other so much they cant keep their priorities straight. Sometimes I wonder how much of it is marketing hype.

I am just gonna go ride and shut up now. see ya guys :)

Sidepulls returned to fashion, in the late '60s, early '70s, long before the concern for aerodynamics in the mid-'80s. In fact, the quest for aerodynamics in the '80s briefly revived centerpull technology through a mechanical linkage in the heavy, complex, and difficult-to-modulate Campagnolo delta brake.

One clear advantage of sidepulls was in removing the flexible cable stop hanger from the system. Raleigh half-solved this problem by brazing a bridge between the chainstays, but that left the front still susceptible to some very non-linear pull under hard braking. The hanger would absorb cable pull with increasing resistance like a spring.

What about dual-pivots historically?

I have an old Raleigh (early 1970s), that has a pair of Altenburger Syncro (or somesuch) brakes, and they look at first glance like sidepull, but have pivot points similar to the center pull brakes.

And MAN do they ever work well.

I got a pair of those in a box of brake parts I got from an Ebay auction in a box of parts that had a couple of things I wanted... I wondered how well they would perform, as they did look similar to modern dual pivot brakes in their configuration... I may have to give them a try.

As an aside to the main discussion, most freestyle bicycles still have centerpull brakes (http://www.tektro.com/02products/13qb.php).

tcs

What about dual-pivots historically?

I have an old Raleigh (early 1970s), that has a pair of Altenburger Syncro...

That's where Shimano got the idea (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_dr-z.html#dualpivot).

tcs

As an aside to the main discussion, most freestyle bicycles still have centerpull brakes (http://www.tektro.com/02products/13qb.php).

tcs

Those are U brakes.

Those are U brakes.

"U-Brake" is a more modern marketing term for the very old centerpull brake design.

Best,
tcs

"U-Brake" is a more modern marketing term for the very old centerpull brake design.

Best,
tcs
No, they are different types of brakes. U-brakes are cantilever brakes with the mounting studs above the rim. Centerpull brakes are caliper brakes with a single mounting bolt.

WOW alot of interesting info here but I think some missed the mark, and most didnt even answer the question.

Q: why did centerpulls give way to sidepulls?

A: Because the tire clearances changed.

Centerpulls are a form of cantilever brake exept it is only one piece ("caliper" or whatever) the longer the reach the better they work. They have more "mechanical advantage" (what a confusing term). they just work better when they are longer.

Sidepulls work better when there is less clearance. And honestly, nowadays the clearance is so small, its hard to find a bike that you fit a freaking set of decent fenders. You have to buy some speacially desinged Mickey Moused fender-like creation to have fenders. Heck they even have those stupid "seatpost clamp-on fenders".

....OK rant over sorry.

This is not quite right.

No brakes work better when reach is longer. Mechanical advantage (AKA leverage) is the ratio between the length of the arm on the cable side of the pivot and the length of the arm on the brake shoe side of the pivot. Brakes that are mounted on the brake bridge or fork crown require longer arms on the brake shoe side for greater clearance, and therefore have poorer mechanical advantage with more clearance.

The real advantage of cantilevers is that the leverage is the same no matter how much clearance there is -- the geometry of the brake does not change because it just mounted in a different place.

Regular sidepulls have poorer mechanical advantage than centerpulls. This is not a problem with tight clearance, and good sidepulls work great in this application. There have also been some very nice centerpulls made for racing bikes(Gran Compe, Zeus, others, as well as MAFAC). But with older hardware, centerpulls work better than sidepulls on bikes that have room for fenders and bigger tires.

The disadvantage with sidepulls and cantilevers is that half of the force generated when you pull on the brake lever is wasted because the cable housing just pushes against the cable stop. With sidepulls, this reaction force is used to move one of the brake arms. Leverage is still better with centerpulls over conventional sidepulls at longer reaches, but the dual-pivot sidepull design actually capures the best of both.

That said, I don't own a bike that uses dual pivot brakes, but I have cantilevers, centerpulls, and sidepulls, and they all work fine on the appropriate bikes.

I only saw one mention of the early Shimano side pulls. If memory serves correctly in the early 70's Shimano basicly copied the Campy record side pulls for less than 2/3 the Campy price. These were nice brakes and almost as attractive as the Campy's. I am still riding an old bike with these same brakes. I believe that these were the first high quality brakes that Shimano produced.

I build up and ride a lot of bikes and will still use centre pull brakes because of their excellent stopping power and the fact they can be found very cheaply... my Peugeot fixed gear runs a Weinmann centre pull with Kool stop pads and the stopping power is nothing short of amazing.

If you are not concerned with weight and need good tire anf fender clearance then centre pull brakes can be a good choice.

Same here. My Panasonic fixed gear uses a center pull (with Kool Stops, too) so that I can run full fenders and 'cross tires in the winter time. The stopping power is great - not quite like the modern Ultegra dual pivots on my Klein road bike, but still plenty of stopping for me.

I only saw one mention of the early Shimano side pulls. If memory serves correctly in the early 70's Shimano basicly copied the Campy record side pulls for less than 2/3 the Campy price. These were nice brakes and almost as attractive as the Campy's. I am still riding an old bike with these same brakes. I believe that these were the first high quality brakes that Shimano produced.

I had a bike built with each back in the 70s... the Campagnolo brakes cost $113., the DuraAce $68.

Because the tire clearances changed.

I have a pair of really short Weinmann centerpulls from a Stella. Never have seen any others so short...

shorter than 610's

I had a bike built with each back in the 70s... the Campagnolo brakes cost $113., the DuraAce $68.
I bought the first set of Dura Ace sidepulls I ever saw for $69 and I still have them. The chrome must have been inferior to Campagnolo because most every set I see is rusted like mine on the QR lever and tire guides.

I bought the first set of Dura Ace sidepulls I ever saw for $69 and I still have them. The chrome must have been inferior to Campagnolo because most every set I see is rusted like mine on the QR lever and tire guides.

You paid too much!

Actually, I thought the performance of the 2 was pretty similar, though it sure was a treat when I could finally afford the Campagnolos as a starving college student.

Sidepulls gave way to centrepulls which gave way to sidepulls, although sidepulls we're always around. The heyday of centrepulls was the 60's, as far as I remember. At that time, and well into the 70's, good bikes had centrepulls and cheap bikes had cheap, troublesome sidepulls. Then that situation reversed for a while into the 80's.

I was never a racer, but most of us at the time preferred centrepull Mafacs simply because the damned things stayed centered. Back then, sidepulls always seemed to end up dragging on one side (and you had to frequently fiddle with them to avoid it).

Assuming tire clearance is not an issue, in my opinon, nothing beats the modern dual-pivot sidepull. More stopping power for the least hardware and the least finger pressure. Centrepulls we're stronger, theoretically, but you did have that bare cable bridge to stretch in between you and the brakes, and you did have to have something to hang them on. Sidepulls look cleaner.

Just fyi, the most recent issue of Bicycle Quarterly has a nice set of articles on brake design, history, and performance: http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/currentissue.html

Here's the table of contents:
BRAKE SPECIAL
• History: from wooden blocks to disc brakes
• Popular designs and oddballs
• Why they worked or didn't
• Which brakes to choose for your bike
• How to set them up correctly
• How to use them properly
• Tests of medium-reach dual-pivot brakes from Shimano, IRD/Tektro and Cane Creek

Note: I have no relationship with BQ outside of being a subscriber.

I think bikingshearer's post captured the heart of the matter best...

So can someone post a photo of these early altenburger dual pivots?

Campy introduced the aero-brakes around 1990, which concealed the brake housings from the lever body and ran them along the bars to the calipers.

Aero campagnolo brakes (with the optional aero or traditional) were available as early as 1984 with the first C-record group. Dia-compe and shimano also used aero design prior 1990. But in anycase, I don't think aerodynamics had much to do with the swing back to sidepulls in the early 1970s.