Originally Posted by
pkulak
But what is "great"? Can you lock up the back wheel on the hoods? If you need to stop quickly, do you palms hurt after from exertion? There may be great "modulation", but that doesn't sound like good breaks to me. I'm starting to think BB7s have a great rep because of MTBs they are installed on. For road... meh. Cantilever are probably much better.
This tells me there is something seriously wrong with your setup. My experiences with cantis are that you need to squeeze the levers with a large amount of force in order to get any braking power out of them. Locking up the tires is only possible, in my experience, with higher end cantis. And in the rain they have very little power.
If your BB7s are set up right, you won't need to use much lever force at all to lock up the tires.
I went on a "road" ride today. Did about 60 miles through dirt, paved roads, mud, and gravel and my BB7s functioned perfectly. I'm getting to the point where I can hit the front brake and rear brakes just right to bring me to a stop much quicker than cantis or calipers, and on par with quality v-brakes. And in the rain, the BB7s lose absolutely no power. That's saying a lot, as I weigh 220 and my bike's about 25 lbs.