Originally Posted by
cyccommute
That’s not a word you used in your post. I’ll agree that frame breakage is rare…rare enough that the frame material makes very little difference. Aluminum touring bikes, of which Cannondale is a rather uncommon example, make for good, strong touring bikes with attributes that make them worth riding.
Ah yes. My bad. Unlikely was the word I used. Synonyms you know. Difficult to go through post with a phone while writing.
Your description of accuracy…thank you for defining it, by the way…fits any brake I’ve used with the exception of some cheap old center pull rim brakes. By that I mean Diacompe Mafac knockoffs. I’ve never had a brake that requires “Herculean effort” to stop. I run my brake levers close to the rims which makes a very large difference in braking power, in my opinion. The common “set the brakes to half lever before they hit the rim” makes for some bad braking. But the same can be said of any disc that is set up the same way.
Indeed I used to prefer to have the pads close to the rim. That's why I'd start bothering about sub millimeter throws in trueness.
I hate analogies because they simple don’t work in most cases. I simply don’t find bicycle brakes to work that differently from type to type as long as the brakes are of equivalent quality. I start with quality brakes and never have problems. Even with poor quality brakes I can usually adjust them so that they stop adequately when I refurb old bikes at my local co-op. I have to test them after I work on them and I make sure that I can stop when I put my considerable bulk on the bike.
I find analogies are a great way to emphasize points. The point I was trying to make here that it's easier to be accurate if the actuation effort is lighter (in almost anything and up to a point).
Since we're talking brakes I'll use one closer to home. I always found that while driving a car without abs it was easier to maintain traction on snow with a powerful brake I could actuate with my ankle rather than with the brakes of an old clunker I would have to employ my thigh muscles to actuate.
But we do need testing as it would seem brakes are quite subjective. How much pulling force on the lever creates how many newtons of braking force and with what kind of linearity.
If I just had the time...
I have Paul Klampers on a three of my bikes (one with a Klamper front and a Motolite linear brake back), Avid BB7s on some bikes, and TRP Spykes on another one. All of them are excellent and require very little brake force to be effective. On my bikes with cantilever rim brakes, I have Paul NeoRetros. They, again, don’t require a whole lot of force to actuate. I probably push them to a greater extent than my mountain bike brakes because I carry more load on that bike than I do on my mountain bikes.
BB7's are ok for mechanicals. Haven't tried spykes but spyres are also ok. For mechanicals. Neither shines a light against good hydraulics though.
I misunderstood because you didn’t make yourself clear. I’m not shy about speed and any willing to go very fast on any downhill. I’ve never experienced a situation where my brakes would have let me down in those situations…mostly because I do my power braking before the corner and use the brakes sparingly in corners.
I got that the brakes are “touchy” from your poor description. Saying you “almost crashed because of [the brakes]” says something very different from what you meant to say.
Well the point was that the brakes didn't let me down, I did. But it takes a good brake to be able to stop in a situation where one is in a corner too fast with too little lean.
And yet you have to one finger the brakes to make them work. What happens if you grab the brakes with more than one finger in a panic stop?
I slow down in a controlled fashion? The fact that I can actuate with one finger does not mean I must use all of my grip strength when actuating with two or three.
I have had one set of brakes which were, as you say, touchy. Full length V-brakes. Those had a very strange power curve. Almost like a wall, with steps.
With the shimano brakes you have a very shallow power curve at the beginning but if you need more you'll get it very quickly with very little effort all the while being controllable. With V-brakes you'd get the power but it wasn't controllable.
I think the friction of hydraulic fluid compared to cables in housings has a surprisingly large effect here.
Exaggerate much? I’ve never needed “100kg of grip” to come to a stop with cantilevers. I’ve never needed my full grip strength to come to a stop with cantilevers. I’ve had tandems with cantilevers only and the additional weight of two riders and never needed to use my full grip strength…about 40 lb per hand… to come to a stop. Hell, my loaded touring bike is nearly the weight of two riders (my stokers are small) and I don’t need full grip strength. I brake with 2 fingers most of the time and from the hoods on road levers. I’m not putting a whole lot of effort into braking in any circumstance, no matter what brake I’m using.[/QUOTE]
I just remember having to literally grab a fistfull of brake and pulling the lever almost to the bar to get full braking. My loaded touring bike with me on it probably weighs more than most tandem teams.