I have a Trek Shift 2 bike and I have found the factory V-brakes to be nothing but a headache. If the brakes are set to have the proper amount of resistance, the pads drag on the rims. I've taken the bike back to my LBS and they informed me that Trek installs a spring in the noodle of the front brake to prevent the brakes from being adjusted to the proper tension, apparently as the result of some litigation. My LBS removed this spring device and that made things better, but the brake pads still drag on the rim unless the cable tensioned is loosened to the point that the brakes are too soft. No amount of adjusting the modulation screws will resolve the problem. This might be OK for most people who intend primarily to use the bike on rail trails, as I do. But I pull a Burley D'Lite trailer with a 4 year old and 2 years old, so sub-par braking resistance is absolutely unacceptable.

I've also swapped out the pads with Kool Stop mountain bike pads, but that didn't help.

As has been my experience with bikes on the lower end of the price points, I'm sure these aren't the best V-brakes around. Can anyone recommend a good brakeset as an upgrade? I also know that V-brakes aren't highly regarded as mountain bike brakes, but I'd like to stay away from disk brakes because I don't know if they would be compatible with the trailer attached to the rear skewer. Would standard side-pull caliper brakes be any better?