Originally Posted by
Road Fan
Do you think a Travel Agent would have the same result with cantilevers?
On my rando bike (the Terraferma) I've tackled squish by really careful cable routing, housing end squaring, good, tight ferrules, cleaning/lubing levers and calipers, and eliminating play from caliper pivots and bolts. As I did all this "blueprinting," the squish reduced with every step, but the rear still was softer than the front. All that could have been left were the seatstays being forced apart by the leverage of the caliper against the rim.
On other single bikes the same treatment has resulted in very little difference between front and rear brake feel. I think brake cable length is overblamed as a cause of squishy braking.
It's good to hear that a Travel Agent solves the leverage issues that are involved in this kind of problem!
Have you considered a brake bridge reinforcer, like DaVinci Designs "stiffy": http://www.davincitandems.com/components/. I've never used one myself, but have talked to others that reported a marked improvement.
I'd take anything read on Santana's site with a fine dust mote of salt. They spent years disparaging competitors for making open-style frames, going so far as putting willing suckers' non-Santana bikes on some flex measuring jig to prove their assertion, (yet never publishing the results). Lo and behold! Their latest "innovation" is an open frame bike.