Originally Posted by
FastJake
Vintage caliper brakes almost universally suck, until you got to Shimano SLR single pivot sidepulls in the mid-late 80s. Still, the next gen dual pivot calipers were quite a bit better.
I have a Schwinn Prologue with mid 80's Shimano 600's and they are more like "speed modulators" than brakes, especially compared to the more modern dual pivots I have on other bikes. If you are not caring about keeping everything Vintage, you can obtain some Tektro dual pivots quite inexpensively and they work well.