Originally Posted by
Angus37
Center-pull cantilevers.
Help me out here; why would the levers matter? From my perspective, I pull on the brake lever, which pulls a cable, that the brakes are connected to. I'm sure I've simplified that plenty, but it seems to me that one lever would pull just as well as another and the rest is cable length.
Levers can vary in the location of the pivot and the resulting amount of cable that is pulled. Imagine a seesaw with an off center pivot. One side moves more than the other. If you can't pull enough cable you don't get enough braking.
I don't know your particular bike but it's it's an old 1" or 1 1/8" threaded steerer I'd suggest getting a steerer tube adaptor like one of these to make stem changes convenient:
http://www.bikeman.com/Stem_Column_Adaptors.html
I've tried one of those Nitto road stems with long height extension for adapting road bars on mtn frames but they are a lot more flexible than the modern clamp stems.