miyata 610 cantis
 

I believe the bike is an 83 or 84. The cantis dont appear that great compared to later models. They look quite cheap/weak. I am wondering if it worth trying to clean them up and get pads for them or if i should look for a more modern set. The bike also has 27 inch wheels and the cantis dont appear to have any up and down adjustment and i suppose that limits me form changing over to 700c. The rims are good and they are the concave weinmann rims. I believe the hubs are malliard.

Its mostly original but needs a really good cleaning and rebuild. Someone put Northroad bars on it but it should clean up well. I have some extra drops i can put on it.

IT has the rack mounts on the rear dropouts but no extra mounts for fenders back there. I suppose you just cinch down the rack and fender on the same mount. The front fork has both mounts on it. I thought that was strange.

The front Miyata 610 cantilever brakes are problematic. The post centers are spaced narrow and most modern cantilever won't fit.

It looks like those came with Dia Compe 960s.

Those are some pretty decent brakes. Even the really nice Dia Compes like the 980-981s had the exposed spring- they had pretty arms, but they stuck out really far. The 960s have good stopping power AND have short arms.

If you're having stopping problems, you're best off to get some Kool Stop pads. I put the Kool Stop Cross Pads on my Trek 620 and I really dig them. They stop great, don't mar the rims and they don't scream "I'm new!!!"

If you just want to get new/different brakes- go for it! If you're looking for roughly period correct brakes- IMO- the 980 and 981s are about the nicest looking DiaCompe models and they're great brakes. The other top shelf choice for the time would be the Shimano BR-MC70 brakes- those were the brakes from the "Deerhead" XT group.

The DiaCompe 980:

http://mombat.org/MOMBAT/Bikes/Image...MachBBrake.jpg



The Dia Compe 981:


http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/files/img_2264_126.jpg

Check out Stronglight's excellent Flickr page on the 981 brakes:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/strong...7606108523956/


And the Shimano BR-MC70:

http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3aabb9c0.jpg


Here's my 85 Trek 620 with the BR-MC70 brakes with the Kool Stop Cross Pads:

http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psxo0dxvlz.jpg



HOLY CRAPBALLZ!!! Photobucket is HORRIFYING. Just launching it totally hosed up my computer. I had to go to Google Images to find my own effing pictures. No, I'm not going to pay you to not launch your ads that make your site useless.

THanks for the great reply. I will have to have another look. I dont think they are the dia-compes. They are short like that but i could not find a marking on them. I was looking at the rears and i do remember seeing the small DC logo so perhaps they were the 981s. I had the same thought as the flickr page. I will dig into it a bit more after reading that.

I didnt pull them off so i didnt really get to see if they had any up and down movement (to fit 700c). I will be going with the KoolStops for sure. The pads are orginal....and hard as a rock im sure.

I havent decided on if i am going to switch to 700c yet or get some 27in panaracers. It needs alot of clean up and doing up before i get to that point.

Its got some shabby looking Suntour Mountech mechs on it. Not sure if they are even functional at this point. It will need cables, housings, etc before i can sort out that stuff. If they work, i may keep those or might switch them out.

It is a really nice bike. I cant wait to get started on it.

The 610 is a really nice bike- depending on what you do for brakes, you can choose what you want to do for wheels- (or decide on the wheels- and choose brakes to match your wheel choice). I have 3 1984/85 tourers, I've been using 27" wheels on those bikes for years- I just switched my 720 over to 700c (and 10 speed), the Panaracer Pasela and Sand Canyon tires give you a really nice selection of tires, but nothing compared to what 700c tires are available to you. (FWIW- I don't have any other plans of changing my bikes to 700c any time soon).

Again, FWIW- I did my 720 with 700c and used some early 90s Suntour XC Pro cantis- they had enough adjustment to work with 700c.

http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psgmc4zn9x.jpg



As far as the Mountech stuff goes- IMO the Mountech front derailleur is one of the best ever made- if that's not in bad shape- use that. As far as the rear derailleur- if the upper pulley is in a "housing," those have proven to be problematic over the years. If the upper pulley is free- with a great big lower pulley- those are pretty decent units. I prefer other Suntour derailleurs to even the good Mountech.



http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...pscsobydaq.jpg

i just spent 6 minutes staring at photos of canti brakes and enjoying it.

IIRC there were some cheepo copies of the DC cantis that looked very near to the 980s but were made by either Cherry or ?Cheng Ling? (can't remember that brandname) but the quality was sub-par to the DCs.

They are in fact 960. Thanks a bunch guys. I popped them off and they will clean up well. They have 10 84 stamped on the rear of each. Guessing since the bike appears to be an 1984 thats the year of the brakes as well. 10 must be the month perhaps.

the blog post above explained alot. When i first looked at them i thought they were some cheap junk after thought thrown on the bike to get it out off the production floor but the exposed springs and small design is on purpose. I could probably get some newer models that might perform better but i think i will stick with these as they are period correct and complete the look.

Thanks again for the replies.

I feel the same way about even the fancy DC brakes with the exposed springs. They just don't look "finished."

I find it so much fun (and unfortunately expensive) to swap around parts. Some things make a huge difference, some don't. Some look pretty and work phenomenal. Some look pretty and... umm... well... they look pretty.

I will say the BR-MC70s on my Trek 720 were great with some Shimano 600 non-aero levers. I switched levers to some Aero Gran Compe levers- which, according to everything I've read, should have increased my braking power. They didn't- braking was worse. That leads me to believe that those levers need to be paired with calipers/cantis that they're compatible with.

There's a whole bunch of cantis from the early 80s to now that would look great on that bike. Probably a much smaller handful that would have the adjustability to go from 27 to 700c. I honestly don't know how well the 960s can adjust. I do know they're good brakes, not the "best," but definitely solidly well performing and good looking brakes.

If you have to change any parts- you can make up whatever rules that cover your rebuild. Especially since it's a bike of the caliber of the Miyata 610, you can justify putting on upper level parts. (not that you couldn't "just because"). If you want to be militantly period and catalog correct- you can. If you want to be militantly period correct, but with flagship level parts- go for it! If you want to use the best parts of all time- it's ON!

To me, what makes Touring bikes fun for this is that in addition to general "road" parts and touring specific parts- so much of touring bike componentry is also ATB/MTB components. You have a whole WORLD of outrageously cool parts available to you. :D :thumb: