I have a mid 80's Fuji Touring Series III - I have swapped the drop bars for riser bars, and for the time being, moved the brake levers over to the new handlebars.

The brake levers work ok but it's obvious that they are not designed to be used with a riser bar. I want to put mtb style brake levers on there - if I do this will I need to replace my (traditional) cantilever brakes? They are Dia Compe with the non-adjustable spring.

And if I do need to replace the canti's with something new, what will be compatible with my bike. Would new Dia Compe canti's fit on the frame bosses?

Thanks

Most newer MTB brake levers are designed for use with either V-brakes or discs and have the wrong "pull" for cantlevers. You can still find suitable levers but be sure they were designed for use with canti's.

Othewise, you could replace your canti's with V-brakes and use appropriate levers.

Can you get V-Brakes that will fit on a touring/road bike frame? I have an extra set of V-Brakes but they do not fit on the frame - already tried them.

I just picked up a set of Tektro MTB brake levers that work with both canti and V brakes, cheap as hell too, from aebike.com

So, there are V-brakes that will fit on a touring road frame?

I see you posted this question in the Touring forum. I just answered it there.

Cantis are better than V's IMO, and you can get levers that will work just fine. Don't forget MTB's had cantis before v-brakes were around!

I dunno...I've managed to endo using very light pressure with V-brakes, but never using moderate braking pressure with cantis. My personal experience shows V-brakes to be more powerful for me.

If you've tried v-brakes on your frame and they don't work, chances are you'll have to stick with traditional canti's, and maybe some specific canti brake at that. I've got an '83 Centurion touring frame that came stock with some funky Dia-Compe canti's, as far as I can tell those may well be the only brakes that will work with the frame's brake boss positioning. There are definitely frames that are compatible with both canti's and v-brakes, I've gone from canti's to v's on old mountain bikes for example. But there are some frames that won't work with v-brakes even though they have canti bosses-

If you have canti Braze-ons. They will accept Linear-Pull is the correct word {Vbrake means Shimano} However!!! With drop bars there is not enough pull in the brake levers to make them work right. Only one style I found that worked 90%. Was a BMX brake called "A-Brake" by Odyssey.

As for putting on Straight bars. Any Brake lever that isn't linear pull will work just fine. Tourist Levers, Mountain Bike levers included. Most newer MTB levers are now linear pull. But Not ALL are before 2001 or so.

As mentioned TekTro & Dia Tech make levers that you can adjust for either old style cant's or Linear pull.

Did you read my above post? I have an '83 touring frame that has traditional cantilever brakes, and v-brakes will not work with it-

with mountain bike bars YES they do

the braze ons are in the same place

unless they are U-brakes or Roller cams the braze-ons are under.

btw I sold 1983 fuji touring bikes and go back to 1971 bikes in general

There are several manufactures that make wide slotted calipers. V-Brake is Shimano. So yes Shimano may not work. But Linear Pulls will...

Mountain bike bars? The OP's question I was addressing was about his frame. As far as levers, if the OP wants to go from canti's to linear pull brakes, and use drop bars, he'll need to use Dia Compe 287-V levers I believe. The bike I was referring to is not a Fuji, it's a Centurion, as I said. I've seen at least one other bike discussed here that apparently has the same Dia-Compe canti's as my Centurion, and it won't accept v-brakes either. That bike is a mid to late '80's Schwinn Passage. Are there other older touring bikes that came stock with some type of traditional canti brakes that won't accept linear pull brakes? I don't know, but I'd say it's quite possible, if not likely, and most definitely the ones that came with the Dia Compe canti's I mentioned won't accept them. The ones with the funky Dia Compes won't even accept more modern traditional cantilevers, for that matter. The primary problem with the frames designed for those brakes is that the bosses are too high in relation to the rim, you can't get the brake pads low enough to line up with the rim. So to make the blanket statement that all frames with traditional canti bosses will work with linear pull brakes is incorrect. Since the OP has already tried some linear pull brakes on his frame and found them not to work, I'd say it's likely the frame's not compatible with linear pull brakes-

Just friendly talk here "wb"

You keep mentioning VBrake. Shimanos won't work.

However companies like DiaTech which is the sister line of Dia-compe do make a linear pull that will go that low I'm almost sure.

Along with the A brake I mentioned

I tend to use "linear pull" and "v brake" interchangeably, as do a lot of others here, but I do understand "V brake" is Shimano's proprietary name. As far as more modern brakes being compatible with this particular Centurion frame/fork (all v-brakes and linear pull brakes included), I really doubt it, the bosses just aren't in the right position for it-

My Fuji does have Dia Compe cantis and levers and I no longer have the drop bars on the bike, I took them off and replaced them with an mtb riser bar.

The V-Brake or Linear Pull brake that I tried on my frame did not fit properly - well biked, I think I may have the funky Dia Compe cantis that you described. They work fine, the springs should probably be replaced but otherwise they function properly so I think the best thing for me to do would be to find some older MTB or BMX brake levers to replace my road levers.
I'm going to keep my eyes open for old spare Dia Compe canti parts.
Thanks for the help guys.

Yep, I've decided the same thing regarding the brakes, I'll have to stick with the Dia Compes. I really wanted to use some Tektro Oryx canti's because of their easier adjustability, but they are a no-go because of the frame/fork brake boss positioning. When I realized the Tektro canti's wouldn't work, that's when I tried a few linear pull brakes I've got laying around (as well as some older canti's off of old mountain bikes), and they weren't even close to compatible either.........FWIW, the funky Dia Compe canti's come up on ebay regularly-

Well, that's not always true. The issue is where the return spring hole is located. I had a Raleigh Technium from about that era that had the spring mounting holes on the wrong side of the stud to make linear pull brakes, or most other canty's for that matter, work.

That's one of my pet peeves too (along with most uses of the word "alloy").

For the trump... https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-adjustment.html