goldener

your brakes are v-brakes, not cantilevers. that alone tells me (us) how much you know about bikes and how familiar you are with them. not very.

Natron

Oh durr. hahah. My bad.

but yeah I've been riding bike for 23 years but only recently over the last year or so started trying to understand the technical side of it.

Either. Freaking. Way. Look into V-brakes, then! G'dam, dude...

Ken Cox

Practice back pedaling even with the flat pedals.

Get out of the saddle and shift your weight to the rear.

As the pedal rises, resist it with your thigh muscles, and let the pedal push the hip on that leg up before the leg bends appreciably.

More hip rocking, and early, and less knee bending, and later.

Use the sideways rocking of your hips more than your legs, and get as far back as you can so you can push against the rising pedal earlier.

I saw a rider here in Bend riding a fixie with flat pedals and flip-flop sandals.
He had a surprising amount of control and did a track stand at a stoplight.

jodypolk

um, v-brakes are cantilever brakes, dude... nice pwn attempt though.

dutret

Not in the general usage of the term.


It's not just set up either. center pull cantilevers suck compared to v's the only reason anyone uses them anymore is for cross clearance or cause they need to use short pull levers.

dutret

NO his brake is not working properly and he needs to get it fixed. Resisting is fine and all but there are plenty of hills that are too steep to resist down especially with flat pedals. Then there are emergency stops. I know one of your eccentricities refusing to learn how to brake properly but this horrible horrible advice.

Doing a track stand is a very low force task unless you are really really bad at it. It's nothing like resisting on a steep descent or emergency situation anyway.

Rusty Valiant

Hey, on the topic of front cantis/v-brakes, can anyone tell me which would be better suited to being operated by a pair of old Dia Compe road levers? Or if this would be feasible at all?
I picked up a fork with cantilever mounts, but wanted to run these cool old levers I had lying around, and now I'm wondering if it'll even work.
Thoughts?

dutret

cantis most likely.

Aeroplane

It's possible to run V-brakes with road levers, but you need a jingus-adapter instead of the "noodle". Cantis look cooler with drop bars anyways.

jeac

by "flat" do you mean platform pedals? Why do people ride with these on fixed gears?

max-a-mill

and looking cooler is WAAAY more important than stopping...

canti's suck... about 5-10 people will debate this and say they have canti brakes that stop awesome but compared to vbrakes, caliper brakes, or disks, in my experience they suck.

you can use diacompe 287v levers to run vbrakes on a dropbar.

Natron

They stop hard even when covered with water and snow but they suck. Good info, thanks.

patachenca412

yeah - just plain platforms.... i commute to school and i don't want to change my shoes and bring extras with me. i have been meaning to get some straps, but it hasn't seemed urgent. the other day when i couldn't stop was the first time i ever felt unsafe...

dutret

compared to v's... yes yes they do suck. They are completely adequate for a road bike though.

CCCCCCC

I'll give you a brake ... I'll brake you off a piece of my..

Hobartlemagne 

I recommend the following (Ive used this setup on 2 different bikes)
from universalcycles.com:
Dimension Cyclocross Fork (has disk mount), have them custom make a wheel with a MTB hub and road bike rim. Pick your favorite disk brake, and throw on a salsa lever.

jeac

Whats up with the people you see riding platform pedals, no clips or straps, and BRAKELESS??

what do they just rock jamaican skids all day long? yeah thats practical

noisebeam

I'm still thinking about getting a rear hand brake, for the somewhat rare case of getting a front flat while decending a steep hill.
Al

The LT

this doesn't make sense to me

dutret

I'm pretty sure it was meant purely to troll me.

The LT

most likely....seems silly otherwise

goldener

yes, but in some twisted way v-brakes= direct pull cantilever brakes, but i'm sure sheldon only uses this terminology.

goldener

well the super cheap mecchy discs suck, but the avid mechhy discs are easily as good as any of the hydroaulic systems.

I'm not really sure of the advantages of hydraulic discs, oother than no cable wear/stretch/housings to get gunked up

Aeroplane

Good hydros are better than sex. But Avid mechs are still pretty damn good.

TallRider

cantilever brakes require the same amount of cable-pull as standard caliper (sidepull or centerpull) brakes, and are thus compatible with standard road brake levers (and pre-v-brake mtb levers are compatible with caliper brakes as well as cantiler brakes).
V-brakes require a different amount of cable-pull. So you can use your Dia-Compe road levers with V-brakes if you get a "travel agent" adapter (or "jingus" as Aeroplane refers to it).

Lots of modern flat-bar levers have multiple adjustment settings so they can be used with V-brakes or with cantilevers or calipers.

As mentioned by max-a-mill, Dia-Compe makes a V-brake-specific road brake lever, the 287V, that is the only one of its kind. It comes on some touring bikes that use V-brakes but with road bars.


On braking power: properly set-up cantilever brakes can have great breaking power. There are lots of variables to play with on cantilevers, including the straddle-wire length to change up the mechanical advantage. Sheldon Brown has a good article on Cantilever setup - just follow the link from this page which discusses the differences:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-adjustment.html

However, traditional cantilevers were a pain to set up correctly, compared to V-brakes. This is a major reason for V-brakes taking over; they took a lot of guesswork and trial-and-error out of the setup, and left less room for user error.


Water and snow will affect any rim brakes similarly, whether they are V-brakes, cantilevers, or calipers. Pads and rim sidewall finish are relevant variables here.