Everest

The other day i was given an old mountain bike by a friend of mine. The bike is pretty low quality but it dosent bother me as the bike will be used primarily as a commuter and if it gets stolen oh well it was free. Heres the problem however I rebuilt the entire bike and got everything running fine but the brakes absolutely suck. There cheap Lee Chi units or some no name company like that and feel like they were built by monkeys. They are absolutly worthless. So I am definately going to replace them, but hear's the root of the problem, the brakes are caliper style. The fork and rear triangle have no braze ons fror cati or v brakes and there are no disc tabs. Are there any companies out there making mountain bike caliper brakes? Is there an economical way to upgrade short of having canti bosses welded on? Right now i'm thinking about trieing to put on some bmx caliper style brakes. Would these be of better quality and offer increased stopping power? The bike will ridden off road occasionally but not on aything technical as that what the Gary Fisher is for. I appreciate any help or advice you can offer.

Dirtbike

You could change out the fork to one that has V-brake mounts, and for the rear, Im sure there is a company that makes good calipers somewhere. Most BMX bikes use them.

Everest

Yeah i thought about the switching the fork but i want to keep the cost to a minimum i think i'll try the bmx brakes unless someone else has any other suggestions. Can anyone recomend a brand of bmx calipers that are cheap but of good quality.