Salubrious

^^Yup!

You must not be talking about me... of all the bikes I have right now only three don't have sidepulls. Most of the bikes I have had since the late 60s have had sidepulls (mostly Weinmanns, which I used because they were lighter than centerpulls and I was a bit of a weight weenie back then). But I used to set them up with the least amount of clearance I could get, and they just don't work as well that way. The only set I have had that seemed really marginal was a set of Universal 55s (with Modello levers). My old GB Sport sidepulls from the 1950s had more braking power...

Dave Mayer

Lesee.. following are a list of the road brakes I have had on bikes - within memory:

Single Pivot:

• Campagnolo Record (circa 1975)
• Campy Record (1985)
• Campy Veloce
• Campy Triomphe
• Suntour Superbe and Superbe Pro
• Dia-Compe A-5000
• Gran Compe
• Dura-Ace 7400
• Dura-Ace 7402
• Shimano 600 (3 versions)

Here are the my inventory of dual-pivot brakes:

• Campy Record (first gen and differential)
• Chorus (2 versions)
• Athena
• Daytona
• Veloce (several)
• Dura-Ace (7403, 7700, 7800)
• Ultegra (several)
• Tektro (several)
• Cane Creek
• Cervelo (Tektro?)
• Shimano RX100
• Shimano RSX

I have ridden them all. My single pivots were set up with the best pads available (Scott).

Bottom line: there is no overlap between the performance of the single pivots and the dual pivots. The very worst of the duals (cheap Tektros) are better than the very best of the singles (Dura-Ace 7402).

I don't want to elaborate on really bad old-school rubbish such as Dia-Compe and Modolo.

This is why I have a 10 pound bin of single pivots that will be chucked when I get tired of looking at them.

Best of all of the brakes: Dura-Ace 7403.

Dfrost 

I used a set of nice Dura-Ace 7400 single pivots with new Kool Stop salmon pads for the first few rides on my freshly rebuilt Marinoni. My hands were starting to cramp from the brake effort during a ride through Seattle to pick up Ultegra dual pivots from a CL seller. Put on the Ultegra DP (same KS pads) for the ride home. Braking on the return trip was soooo much nicer.

My history with brakes is not as broad as Dave Mayer's, but includes Campagnolo Record, Suntour Superbe, Dia-Compe and Unversal SP's back in the 70's and 80's. I remember being astonished with the available braking when I first tried DP's in the early 90's.

dddd

I descended a couple of roads to local rivers on Monday, and all I can say is that the bone-stock single-pivot 600 brakeset on my '88 Centurion Carbon left nothing, nothing to be desired. Felt like my hand was pushing directly against the pads themselves, only with far less force required.

Maybe because I'm only 145 lbs and also because my hands are conditioned to riding using a quite-wide variety of levers, calipers and pads, but I just couldn't see any brake being the key to my going any faster or feeling noticeably greater hand comfort.

I should mention the 600 brakes appear to have stock, original pads.

In an emergency, say if someone had clamped their brakes suddenly in front of me, I could see how a more advanced brakeset would deliver maximum braking quicker, with better full-range response. And in wet conditions, likely a D-P caliper would overcome the wet rim's loss of braking better as well, but for modulating my speed down into the canyons, the brakes I had just didn't seem to leave any room for improvement.

rekmeyata

Again it's baloney, what you're feeling is the smoothness of the pull that dual pivots have over most single pivots, but that's not true in regards to my Suntour Superbe single pivot brakes that feel just as smooth as Dura Ace dual pivots. Stopping power wise it's all the same because AGAIN if all things are equal it's tire adhesion that does the stopping.

Salubrious

^^I agree that tire adhesion is a big deal- to that end I used to put centerpull brake pads on my sidepulls to get more braking.

But that is not the whole story by any means, because braking pressure of course has an effect too. If this were not the case brakes would not need levers, they would be either 'on' or 'off'.

Dave Mayer

Listen up. Bicycle brakes are very simple machines. Dual pivots are more powerful because the caliper arms are longer. They have a higher mechancial advantage which means more braking for less hand effort. The tradeoff of this is that you have to run the brake pads closer to the rims, resulting in less tolerance for wavy rims or mis-aligned calipers.
You could make single pivot brakes with longer arms, but they are not self-aligning. Dual pivots are. With dual pivots, due to the mechanical linkages built into the calipers, each pad is forced to act in tandem with its mate on the other side.
Single pivots are substantially at more risk of alignment problems and rubbing the rims. This limits the practical amount of mechanical advantage that can be built into them. Hence they are inherently less powerful.

KonAaron Snake 

Use whatever you like

I'll stick to my dual pivots which make what you're using totally obsolete from a functional perspective.

Personally I like the dual pivot front and single rear for a combination of power and modulation.

Italuminium

I ride single pivots for looks, but if I had to gamble my teeth on anything, the odds are nowhere near the same.

Even with late-gen Shimano SLR brakes with all the nice doodads, such as sprung levers, they can't hold a candle to the dual pivots that succeeded them.

gomango

So do I.

In fact, I think I have changed my mind and decided to use Record differentials on my Della Santa.

I want to a/b those against some Chorus skeletons I have here.

Both should work well and it's fun to have the choice.

KonAaron Snake 

I just got my first pair of the Suntour spring single pivots...they're beautiful brakes. That whole superbe pro group is pretty boss.

crank_addict

More on brakes-
There's no perfect solution between everyone. If your on a tandem hauling buttski descents, you need modulation with no heat buildup. Todays disc *NOT yesterdays disc, is supposed to be the best. However our old tandem uses an Arai rear vented drum brake ONLY used as a drag.... not fully a brake for stopping! Major difference in its function. The front and rear are cantilever Mafac Criterium operated by a SINGLE lever.

Believe me, this beast stops and yet have excellent modulation. I can stop just as well as disc setup, but the handicap is the much added weight, special Phil hub, etc.. The drum works fine in the wet too but its long outdated. Also it wouldn't matter regardless of what type of caliper or cantilever brake is used, amount of leverage, etc. because its still going to boil the rims. Going with a quality disc clearly makes logic on today tandem or any road bike used on long, higher speed descents. The heat dissipation is away from the tires.

(Actually, I've taken the same single lever principal to a solo rider - Mafac lever dual pull pulling two Universal centerpulls. Quirky, yes but I love it.)




Should add, I recently checked out a new GT having the Tektro TRP Hydr brakes. Trick hydraulic calipers that pads fully retract, no issues with centering BUT has a mechanical / cable pull. I would much rather explore this set-up vs. hydraulic lines and fittings.

Italuminium

getting the things together for a new build?

KonAaron Snake 

I'm FINALLY going to be building a few frames that have sat around! The suntour superbe pro stuff is going on a Raleigh 753 frame. I'm still missing the seatpost. I keep not getting bids on ebay through in time (happened twice, including last night) and I don't feel like rushing or overpaying.

Bandera

I don't know about anyone else but when selecting which bike to ride from those I own I've never based the decision on how each one slows down for a given route.
"Let's see, is it '70's centerpull technology that's required today or something more dual pivot-ish?"

Brakes just slow you down.

-Bandera

rekmeyata

More incorrect info, even in the days of single pivot brakes they had 3 different size of caliper arms and the long arms were longer then the ones today are! In fact my medium length Superbe's are a tad longer than either my Athena or my 105.

Self aligning? so what? I never had any alignment issues with any of my sidepulls, once they are aligned they stayed aligned until I had to replace the cables, but aligning them was no big feat, gee it takes maybe a minute, maybe two if I take a sip of water and look at my watch. Cantilever brakes are a pain to align, at least for me.

Once the bike has reached maximum wheel braking threshold all brakes, be it single pivot, dual pivot, center pull, cantilever, or disk brakes will stop the bike in the exact same distance if all the variables are the same. Some brakes take more hand pressure especially the Cantilever design but I only have mid level Canti's, maybe top of the line ones work a lot better. Hand pressure? I don't see your point here at all regardless, I don't feel anymore effort using my hands to stop my Superbe brakes vs my 2 dual pivots of Athena or 105 systems, my mid level single pivots are also very easy to use and will stop just as fast as my modern stuff and those I can't really tell much of a different in hand pressure at all. You guys sound like your all very weak handed. I do know this, none of the pro racers back in the day that had to use those darn tough single pull brakes had Popeye like forearms!

bcsaltchucker

Don't need popeye arms to drive a car with unboosted steering either, but just a real pita to have unboosted steering on a modern car. And non-hydraulic brakes on cars for that matter too. When SLR brakes came out in the late 90s, it was a godsend - brakes didn't have to feel like shyt any more (and yeah the classic brakes worked fine for stoppage).

however on a classic bike today, I want feel that shytty brake feeling just like I'd love to drive a 1920s Phaeton with unboosted steering and cable drum brakes.

rekmeyata

How old are you? Because your attempt at trying to explain how those brakes felt is nothing like how they felt which leads me to believe you never used them or you used some cheap arse dime store bike with cheap arse single pivot brakes and think they all felt like that.

old's'cool

I agree. Let's not put all vintage brakes in the bucket of the cheap and/or deteriorated and/or badly setup category of inadequate brakes. In my own experience, and apparently others' here in this thread, not to mention past generations of competitive riders, decent quality vintage brakes, properly set up and maintained, provide all the stopping force you can ask for, meaning up to the point of skidding the rear tire, or endo-ing the entire bike on the front.
All that is left to argue about is hand pressure versus pad pressure, and sensitivity/modulation. And I will grant right now that newer brake designs tend to require less hand pressure for a given pad pressure, so no need to argue that point any further,with me, at least.

bcsaltchucker

Too funny. I used all of them, starting with my first bike a Lejeune in 1974 whic had Mafac on steel rims. Let's see, various dia compe and Suntour through to the mid 80s, when I got my first Shimano 600EX equipped bike, then in 1989 got my first C record custom race bike. Also built about 1500 bikes as a mechanic in the 70s, 80s, mid range and a small percentage were serious race bikes (in those days, all Campy) in our family shop, and later I worked in Bicyclesport, the home of the Mariposa custom bike builder in Toronto. I was immersed in everything cycling from an early age as my parents were cycling mad, we had no car just a bike shop and dad a champion racer, only vacations we ever had were touring on our bikes in europe and North America.

yes, my opinion is that pre-SLR brakes had excessive hand force to operate. For the obvious reasons - to overcome friction in the cable. There is good reason for 25 years of having additional springs in the levers now which shimano solved back then. At the time never gave it a thought - just Shimano and their devious ways showed me a better brake feel and I like it.

and yet, I like classic bikes too, still. Brings back a lot of great memories. too much to list here, though. Just finished restoring my much loved 89 Battaglin which I purchased new in 90 and campaigned in the lesser categories for several years long ago. And speaking of this Battaglin - it is the first bike I had with SLR brakes as my previous one had C Record deltas. Really loved these brakes (Shimano 105), yet they are old enough to antiques now too. And I still have them, but I stuck them on this S-Works Tarmac frame I recently bought because I can hardly tell any difference between my 25 year old SLR and 2015 Ultegra or Rival calipers - so there is a thumbs-up to old stuff. Those old 105 brakes kept me in control in a rainstorm coming down Alpe DHuez with 100,000 other riders after spectating the stage in the 91 Tour and still work like the day I bought them. (that is not to say my 1974 Mafac Racer brakes would be unsafe on this descent, would probably just need to go slower. The Campy Delta would have been equal to the task for sure) While the Tarmac leaves the old Battaglin in its dust, I ride them both regularly.

rekmeyata

^^ I do admit the old cables, fortunately for cable technology, years gone by left a lot to be desired, but by the early 80's cables improved dramatically from the 70's and my Superbe brakes were born in 1984 so thus the cables were better by that time, then as the years went by the original cables wore out and better ones installed. Its the same thing today, I improved my 2013 Lynskey with all 105 components to feel as smooth (and shifts, and brakes as smooth and fast) as an all Ultegra group by changing just the rear derailleur to Ultegra and the cables to Dura Ace 9000. The friend of mine who has the Dura Ace equipped Motobecane TI bike had to read my brake levers after he rode my bike because he thought I bought Dura Ace! So yes cables do influence how a system will feel, and the old cables, especially those prior to the 80's sucked, but like you said that's all we had, even with those pros and others didn't go flying off Alpe DHuez to their deaths!! LOL

Sorry about the how old you are thing I just found it odd you complained about the older style single pivot brakes when I love them and still do and they compare pretty much equally to the modern stuff I have. Even my first "real" road bike, a 1976 Trek TX900 had Campy Record brakes and I don't recall those feeling bad either, unfortunately I sold that bike in 77 to get a car because girls weren't impressed back then with a dude on a nice bike but a crappy car! Anyways I can't remember how they felt entirely and I'm unable to compare them with todays stuff.

I love reading about your history, that was great, thanks for sharing, and the story of your parents and dad being a champion cyclist, you had a very interesting and fascinating upbringing.

davester

I bet that a lot of these complaints regarding single pivot brakes have to do with cable friction. I have Superbe brakes on my Ron Cooper, and I was getting annoyed at the very high hand pressure required to slow down. Well, I switched to Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 polymer coated cables with silicone-lubricated housings and the braking became vastly easier and more effective. I then installed new kool stop salmon pads and the brakes now grab fast and the bike stops scary fast. I can easily lock up the rear if desired or slow the front to "flip over the handlebars" feeling. In comparison, my Shimano 105 dual pivots on my Trek are sucky (probably because I installed Shimano black pads, not kool stop salmon pads, and have the original relatively inexpensive cables0.

rekmeyata

I never experienced any high hand pressures even with the original Superbe cables or from any replacement cables I used later. I can't recall the brand that's on the bike now, I think they were Jags but there is no brand label on the yellow housing for me to make sure, I know I didn't pay a lot for them, but they work just fine.

Even the old Campy Record brakes I had on my 76 Trek TX900 did I think the hand pressure to activate the brakes was high.

davester

It's not so much the type of cables, but I think that the cables I was using were actually worn to the point that cable friction had increased substantially, which I suspect is true of many people's bikes. Since this was clearly a problem, I went with the lowest friction cables I could find, and the testing I have read put the Dura Ace 9000 cables at the top of the category. Perhaps the 9000s were not strictly necessary and i could have saved $15 by using cheaper cables, but they sure are nice.

Since the dual pivot brakes have a higher mechanical advantage, they can probably more easily overcome cable friction, which may be why there are folks out there who think that they're so much better. Given my personal comparison between the Superbes and the 105 DPs (and various other SP- and DP-equipped bikes), the vast differences some folks ascribe to the two different types of brake make no sense to me.

cale

Uphill races, finishes, like that of the Alpe D'Huez rarely require much braking.