Originally Posted by
Bianchigirll
Well said. it is funny we used single pivot sidepulls for a few decades, and although some worked better than others, we never heard many horror stories about riders falling off mountains, or getting run over by cars because their brakes did not stop them.
Indeed. Although dual pivot calipers in principle can have better mechanical advantage than single pivot calipers, once the caliper has stopped the wheel from moving (either skidding the rear or face-planting with the front) that additional mechanical advantage doesn't really matter. It would be much more cost effective for the OP to simply replace the pads with e.g. Kool Stop pads.
DPs have been around about 20yrs and in the last 5 or so years it seems everyone thinks it is suicide to ride without them.
They've actually been around much longer than that, but until about 20 years ago they were never found on professional-level racing bikes. E.g. here's a Gerry Burgess "Synchron" dual pivot caliper from the early 1960s:
