It has been so long since I last did this I forgot how this works. Doing low profile cantilevers and Shimano used a special straddle cable. A and B length? In lieu of a simple straddle, it has a button that the main cable feeds through and goes to one side. The other side of the button is a cable to the opposite arm. That way if your main cable breaks it does not let the straddle wire hit your tire and send you over the bars. As I remember the front and back are different. Any info would be helpful

Here's an article: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-geometry.html

Got it. That explains why rear straddle cable is a bit longer, less chance of rear lockup.

I have found that some bikes (small ones) can't fit a long link wire on the rear. Andy

didn't shimano offer a series of colored setup guages for these brakes - to set up the straddle wire correctly ?

if I'm thinking of the same brakes

/markp

In Shimano’s long history of bad ideas, the “special straddle cable” is probably top of the pile and largely responsible for the near demise of cantilever brakes. It’s a bad solution in search of a nonexistent problem. I’ve never had a brake cable break nor have I ever heard of anyone who has. A true straddle cable is so much better than the stupid Shimano “special” cable. If nothing else, it has an infinite amount of adjustment which makes dialing in a cantilever easier. You don’t have to depend on what some engineer (probably long dead) decided was the best length of straddle cable nearly 40 years ago.

Thank you. I've been laughing to myself over this since another thread with much ado over nothing came up some time ago.
I have never, in all my years seen a straddle cable or brake break. I've pulled the ends off, but that was invariably a new cable and the the first squeeze trying to make it fail.

I have never seen that either. The built in safety factor of most products is pretty high. Consider that a 2.5mm wide zip tie is rated to 18 pounds and you realize quickly that steel wire is pretty strong. The Shimano straddle cable appears to have been created in a corporate liability lawyer's office on slow day.

the shimano straddle setup is NOT primarily for "safety", it's a way to ease setups by automatically giving both sides of the straddle the SAME LENGTH of Cable.. a Set length on the quick release side, cable routed through the Gray Tube on the other side... easy peasey. The "safety" thing is a sales pitch for worry warts.

I'm not much of a fan of Shimano straddle cables like the second and third pics. I do like the yokes that came with the Tektro CR 720s. Those were great cantilevers but Tektro is no longer selling them. Sunlite has the same style yoke that came on the CR 720s. The adjusting screws on the yoke let you dial in the position of the straddle cable. If you're worried about the straddle cable breaking and locking up the wheel (and I agree with the other posters that this is highly unlikely), you can always run a reflector bracket

One of the biggest problems with that thinking is that the length of cable needed doesn’t lend itself to the ones predetermined by Shimano. There can also be issues with one side of the brake clearing the tire when released. Sometimes the arm just can’t move far enough out of the way.

I’m a big fan of Paul Moon Units (and Paul Cantilevers).





I even have a spare set of Moon Units and cantilevers if anyone is interested.