dellwilson

I have a Surly Cross Check with Avid Shorty cantilever brakes that I built a few years ago. I've never been able to get these brakes to perform even close to the level of the cheap Tektro caliper brakes on my road bike. After a major tuneup by my LBS, which had my bike humming nicely, they were better but a couple hundred miles later are squealing again with anemic performance. Maybe they ultimately do have the same stopping power if I ignore the squeal and apply much more force that I do on my road bike, but my confidence level in these brakes is not great. It really has me thinking of ditching the Cross Check and moving all my components to a Surly Straggler to take advantage of disc brakes, but that is a very expensive option. Do I have a crappy model of cantis? Are there brake pads or some adjustment I don't know that will make them perform better. Any helpful advice?

awfulwaffle 

Have you tried toeing the pads in? Got rid of the squeal with the cantis on my commuter. Good pads make a lot of difference in stopping power as well

urbanescapee

A much cheaper option is swapping out your cantis for v-brakes. You won't go back, and apart from wet/muddy performance, they are just as good if not better that discs in many ways. Just do a search on here for different brake types and you'll see. A good quality set of v brakes can be had for under $60, they're a million times easier to set up and adjust than cantis. You may need to change brake levers too though.

timdow

I have the same issue with cantis. Went to a set of Kool Stop salmon pads, and not much difference. I got these based on advice from this forum, and this comment from Harris Cyclery: "The Kool Stop salmon-colored brake shoes are the finest bicycle brake shoes made."

Still takes herculean effort with a side of squealing.

Can v-brakes be used due to different cable pulls?:
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-me...atibility.html

Steve B.

I've used Travel Agents successfully with STI and was happy with the result. I've read that over time they can cause cable failure, but after a few years of use, never saw issues.

The other question is how's the rear housing and cable stops set up ?. V or Canti ?. Canti typically has some form of housing stop centered on the frame. The current Cross Check photo on their site shows a V brake setup. Curious as to what the OP has on the bike as it affects the ease of installing V brakes.

mdilthey

Time to upgrade to compressionless brake housing. I like Yokozuna better than Jagwire.

Tourist in MSN

I think my Tektro CR720 cantilevers work much better than the Avid that I have on a different bike.

Regarding squeal, the comments on toe in above are spot on.

I prefer cantilever over V brakes because I like the shorter pull brake levers better.

robert schlatte

I have squeal with my front cantis but not the rear. I originally had Tektro 720s but upgraded the front to Paul touring cantis with Kool stop thin line pads. They are very nice but still squeal. i have toed the brake pads and that works for a while but squealing eventually returns. The other thing i did was change the cable hanger from stem mounted to fork crown mounted hanger in hopes that the shorter distance cable would cut down on the squeal. Everything has helped some but squeal is still there when I apply a lot of force. Now i have learned to live with it.

dellwilson

Typical cable hangers: headset in front and seat clamp in back.

dellwilson

I've toed in the pads and it doesn't seem to last long. Either the force returns them to square or the pad wear returns them to square. I've tried various brands of pads including Kool Stops, but I've not noticed much of a difference. I like the idea of V brakes, but I'm not crazy about the device required to change the pull ratio. And I would really hate to give up STIs (SRAM Rival groupo ATM). I would never switch to barcons, but might switch to down tube shifters. Are there indexed down tube shifters?

I'll try toeing them in again.

gerryl

Squealing brakes may be annoying but doesn't mean anything, a quick toeing in of the brake pads usually takes care of that. As for "performance" whatever that means, make sure you have the correct brake levers for cantilever brakes, and develop some muscles in your hands.

timdow

Addressing the original question: "I have a Surly Cross Check with Avid Shorty cantilever brakes that I built a few years ago. I've never been able to get these brakes to perform... ...Any helpful advice?"

What I am going to try is moving the brake shoes inward to increase the "catilever angle," and also shorten the traverse cable to reduce the yoke angle. According to Harris Cyclery, it can make a big difference: The Geometry of Cantilever Brakes Best of all, it's free

urbanescapee

There are v brakes or linear pull brakes available with shorter pull designed for road bike levers. They are often referred to as mini v brakes like the tektro 928a for example.

RISKDR1

I don't know how helpful this will be but perhaps a different set of canti's is more economical. I have Velo Orange Zeste cantilevers on my VO frame and those babies are stoppers! Smooth and easy to modulate their power and no squealing. I am using them with standard mountain bike levers (not for V brakes). Best brakes I have used. very well made. Grand Cru Zeste Cantilever Brakeset - Brakes - Brakes & Parts - Components. Easier to set up than other canti's I have used due to multiple adjustment points.

andrewclaus

Yes, try this first. I put up with poorly performing brakes for years until I sat down with my old college knowledge and figured out the physics and did a little math with tangent functions (this was way before the internet made it easy). Definitely read the Sheldon Brown article.

staehpj1

FWIW, I always found cantis quite adequate. Keeping the straddle cable short helps as does using decent housing. Squeal is best controlled with pad choice and/or toe in. FWIW, I found Coolstop salmon pads to be more prone to squealing than most. The salmon ones are supposed to be great for stopping in wet conditions, but I find the Coolstop black pads squeal less and work well. That said I usually use Avid pads and am pretty happy with them.

bikemig 

Never had a problem with cants and I've set up a lot of different ones. Agree that the koolstop salmons tend to squeal more than most. For the money, it's hard to beat tektro 720s. Agree with @timdow (post no. 12), that the key is adjusting the brakes correctly and there are plenty of good online guides for doing that.

corwin1968

I second the recommendation to switch to V-brakes. The only advantage traditional cantilevers have over V-brakes is thicker pads. V-brakes are easy to set up, easy to adjust and in my experience, are much more powerful. I rode traditional cantilevers for twelve years and then bought a bike with V-brakes and one ride was enough to convince me that I'll never go back to traditional cantilevers. Now, when I buy an old bike with traditional cantilevers, I go ahead and use them if they are working well but as soon as they need an adjustment, I pull them off, throw them in a box and install V-brakes.

Tourist in MSN

I noted above that I prefer the short pull brake levers over the V brake type levers. But on a new build I did a couple years ago, I could not use cantilever, had to use V brakes on one wheel. I reluctantly tried the travel agent, and I was pleasantly surprised how well it works. While I would prefer to use cantilever on a new build over V brakes (I admit I am in the minority), I would have no reluctance to using travel agents on a V brake again.

On the bike where I have the travel agent on one brake, that is on an XT V brake. The other brake on that bike is a Tektro CR 720 cantilever. Both brakes show an equal tendency to squeal.

I mentioned above that I like Tektro CR720 more than Avid, but to clarify this - I think I get better stopping performance out of them, but potential to squeal I think is about the same.

When I set toe in, I put a thin piece of plastic under the rear of the brake pads, apply brake and tighten up the pad bolts. Ride around the block, if I have too much squeal, then I try two pieces of the thin plastic for more toe in. Again go around the block, if too much squeal, try three pieces of plastic. I keep repeating this until I get the squeal to minimal or silent. In other words, I do not just blindly apply lots of toe in, instead I adjust the toe in until I get it just right.

I just pulled out the caliper to measure, last time I did this I used plastic strips as a spacer that are 15 thousandths of an inch thick. I think I usually use about 3 strips, or about 0.045" of toe in.

When the Aluminum oxide layer on my brake pads starts to look pretty ugly, I sand that down to expose new brake pad surface. I do this to reduce wear on my rims, but a side benefit is that it usually reduces squeal somewhat.

There are indexed down tube shifters but there might not be for your particular setup, you did not say how many speeds you have. Do a google search.

tarwheel 

I've got canti brakes on four bikes and none of them squeal and they all have more than adequate stopping power. My bike shop installed and set them up, so I can't give you any advice on that other than perhaps try a different bike shop. However, I have found that quality pads make a huge difference in brake functionality, stopping power and noise. KoolStop salmon pads work the best for me, particularly in wet conditions, and seldom squeal. When they do squeal, it's because the rims are dirty.

The pads on one of my bikes wore out a year or so ago, and my bike shop didn't have any KoolStops in stock, so I regrettably allowed them to install some inexpensive pads that they had on hand. The cheap pads squealed terribly and didn't stop very well, and I ended up replacing them with KoolStops.

V-brakes may have their advantages, but be aware of their shortcomings. In addition to having thinner pads, they have much less clearance between the pads and rims, so they will rub if your wheels get even a little bit out of true. They also make it more difficult to swap or install/remove wheels.

fietsbob

secrets ? no, 30 years of trying. Gets solutions figured out.

cantilevers work even better if the frame tubing is not too thin-wall as the force torques the posts away from each other.

Now discovering the German Magura hydraulic rim brakes , they are a new favorite.. mount on cantilever/V brake posts..

booster arches counteract the forces pushing in on the rim that spreads the posts apart.

bmike

MAITOY: Cantilever Brake Geometry

And the technical paper:
https://www.circleacycles.com/cantile...i-geometry.pdf

dellwilson

Thank you very much for the adjustment strategy. I'll definitely try that. Excellent.

There are quite a few recommendations for the Tekro 720 brakes here and, since they are so affordable, I would probably try them next. As I mentioned in my original post, my road bike has Tektro brakes and they work very well.

It sounds like switching to V brakes with the travel agents could be a third option if I'm still not satisfied.

Thanks to all for the responses. This gives me a lot to work with.

rhm

I believe squealing is not just noise, but actually reduces brake effectiveness. The pad gets a vibration going that severely reduces the amount of rubber touching the rim at any given instant. It's like a tire skidding on the pavement. So... do what it takes to stop the squealing.

As was mentioned, set up the straddle cable as short as possible.

The frame bosses probably have two or three different holes into which you can set the brake return springs; use the weakest ones that keep the pad off the rim.

If larger brake pads exist, larger than the ones you're using, get them. The more rubber you can put on the rim, the better your brakes will work.

seeker333

Surly switched to V brakes on the XC probably for the same reason, as another poster noted. You might try one of these fork crown mounted cable stops (they come in black and silver), it reduces brake chatter if you have any:

https://www.aebike.com/Tektro-Front-C...r_p_46320.html



The next step trouble-wise and cost-wise would be V brake conversion, which requires either new long-pull levers (Tektro, Cane Creek) or a Travel Agent cable pull adaptor, in addition to two new brakesets. I recommend Avid Single Digit 7 brakes, great performer/value:

https://www.pricepoint.com/Components/Brakes/rim-brakes/

Disc brakes do work much better in rain than rim brakes, but in dry conditions they are only slightly better while heavier and more costly.