jignall

I have a trek 520 that is currently setup with bar end shifters (for a 9 speed triple setup) and Tektro RL340 levers for the V-brakes (Avid SD-5 brakes).

Is it possible to use STI shifters with an integrated brake lever (i.e. brifter) with these brakes?

Jeff

Steev

The only way I know of the run brifters and V-brakes is to use "travel agents" to adjust the cable pull.
If you really want brifters, you could swap your brakes out to cantilevers. If your frame has the mounts, you could go the road specific disks like the BB7 roads.

jignall

Thanks, I actually tried to work in reverse and get long reach caliper brakes but they are recessed and the mounts on the trek 520 are not recessed. The front looks like it would be pretty easy to drill out to make the hole wider but the rear looks kind of tricky because it's like an integrated nut inside of the bridge. Any suggestions?

reptilezs

you can use mini v brakes, they have shorter arms or use canti brakes but they suck

badamsjr

If you do not mind the added 'complexity' of using Travel Agents, V-brakes work very well with brifters. I had them on my touring bike, and decided to go with a disc brake for the front, and ended up going all the way to 203mm rotor to match the stopping power of the v-brake with Brake Booster.

My frame is not set up for disc, so I still have the v-brake/booster/travel agent on the rear.

LarDasse74

Cantis are a good option - better braking than Vs is possible but requires know-how.
I have travel agents and they work awesome, but are ugly.

pacificaslim

The Tektro Mini-V (RX-5) are available for like $30 a pair online and can be used with sti levers no problem. (I'm using them with campagnolo 10 speed shifter/brake levers).

fietsbob

Trekking bars are another option figure 8 bend, and they accommodate mountain bike controls..

I get cantilevers to work fine, as do many cyclocross racers, they use brifters ..

I never adopted index shifting , but use aero brake levers, and short arm standard cantilevers.

tatfiend 

Check Harris Cyclery and some other vendors. Tektro makes medium and long reach brake calipers with long mounting shafts for external nut mounts on older frames. IIRC Harris carries them as do some other vendors.

edu.mats

you could have some issues with the front derailleurs. Mountain bike front derailleurs have different cable pull ration than road counterparts. There's a pulley used in cyclocross that you could use: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-D...Pull-10815.htm

bluenote157

travel agents, mini Vs, or cantis.

dabac

But that pulley only addresses the issue of direction/cable routing: top-pull vs bottom-pull. It doesn't do anything to change the actuation ratio.

cs1

Other than price, why did you choose Tektro instead of Veloce Mini-V brakes? Campy seems to have invested a lot of R&D into making them work with their shifters.

bikejunkie

The new Ultegra 6700 shifters (as well as new Dura Ace) will work with v-brakes without travel agents. They pull more cable. Santana tandems now use them even with their Winzip disc brake.

pacificaslim

I just chose the Tektro because of recommendations from others that this set up has worked best for cyclocross racers (particularly popular in germany apparently). Couldn't find enough info on campy's v brakes. But I'm not against trying them!

Retro Grouch 

It's been a while since I've worked with them but I don't think that the Mini-V's work quite so well with Shimano STI's.

The problem is releasing the brake for wheel changes. You have to adjust the pads pretty close to the rim or you run out of lever travel. When you do that, you can't remove the noodle from the stirrup to release the brake in order to remove the wheel. Campy has a quick release on the lever that assists in this process.

fietsbob

Campag has a straight bar control set "fitness bikes" all the 700c go fast stuff,
but for the average Guido or Sophia out to work up a good sweat
I believe the Mini V brake calipers are part of that Gruppo.

LarDasse74

I call BS on this. Perhaps they pull a little more cable, but if they do they will be much less powerful actuating caliper brakes... I will look this up and eat my words if I am wrong.

bikejunkie

Ultegra 6700 and Dura Ace 7900 shifter/brake levers are recommended to be used only with 6700 or7900 caliper brakes. They won't work as well with older Ultegra or Dura Ace or even new 105. We had a new bike (Raleigh Revenio 4.0) come in equipped with 6700 shifters and 105 brakes. We had to loosen the cables considerably to make it work. It was kind of like setting up v-brake levers with cantis. Again as I said before, Santana Tandems are using 6700 shifter/brake levers with their v and disc brakes with no travel agents and they work just fine.

LarDasse74

I take it back... I looked at the SHimano tech docs and those shifters are indeed not reccomended for use with other brakes and the brakes are said to be 'too powerful' when used with other sti levers... sounds like you were right! Cool.

edit: I just re-read and it actually does not say to not use the 6700 STI levers with other brakes... but if you use a 'V brake compatible' lever with standard road brakes you generally get dangerously weak braking. I suppose the amount of cable pull is either somewhere in the middle or progressive/assym. cam actuated.

Chris_W

I spent time looking around at this at the bikes at Eurobike. I saw the new 7900/6700 levers used with just about every kind of brake imaginable. As mentioned, Santana are using them with V-brakes without travel adaptors, as is at least one other tandem manufacturer. I also saw them used with mini-Vs, cantis, and the road version of Avid's cable disc brakes, the only thing I didn't seem them used with was a MTB cable disc brake, although that should need the same cable pull as the standard V-brakes. Every time I asked one of the rep's about a certain combination, they simply told me that the brakes work very well (i.e., they had no idea about anything mechanical, they only work in sales).

I've since switched the rear brake on my cyclocross bike from being a 6600 lever with standard V-brake and travel agent to a 6700 lever with no travel agent and the standard V. After a few hundred kms of riding, the power and feel seems about the same as before, and I'm very pleased with the setup.

On my road/racing bike, I have a 6700 lever operating a standard road caliper (non-Shimano). When I first set it up, it had a very firm feel but not much power (I could see why Shimano say not to use other caliper brakes with it). I then released a bit of cable so that the bite point (when the pad first touches the rim) was when the lever was a bit closer to the bar. This made the feel much softer but the power much greater, and so it now works very well - I'm completely happy with it.

The new levers actually seem to pull a different amount of cable in different parts of the lever swing. I think Shimano call this Servo Wave, or something similar. The levers seem to start by pulling cable at a similar rate to MTB levers, and finish by pulling something more similar to road levers. This may be why manufacturers are pairing them with all different types of brakes. It certainly depends a lot on where you set the bite point of the brake.

EDIT: I just read about this Lynskey cyclocross bike that is using SRAM Apex levers with Avid BB7 mountain cable discs. Are the Apex levers different from the rest of SRAM's road levers? I would not have expected that combo' to work well.

dabac

That's certainly doable. Instead of having the cable attach straight in front of the lever pivot point, have it attach further "down/back". That'll give v-brake travel to start with and then travel will decrease and leverage increase the further the lever gets squeezed.

HillRider

Not all of them do. I just installed a set of Shimano BR-R550 cantis on a Surly Cross Check and they work very well. Initial set up was easy and the power and modulation are very good. At about $35/set from Jenson they are a bargain too.