WOW alot of interesting info here but I think some missed the mark, and most didnt even answer the question.

Q: why did centerpulls give way to sidepulls?

A: Because the tire clearances changed.

Centerpulls are a form of cantilever brake exept it is only one piece ("caliper" or whatever) the longer the reach the better they work. They have more "mechanical advantage" (what a confusing term). they just work better when they are longer.

Sidepulls work better when there is less clearance. And honestly, nowadays the clearance is so small, its hard to find a bike that you fit a freaking set of decent fenders. You have to buy some speacially desinged Mickey Moused fender-like creation to have fenders. Heck they even have those stupid "seatpost clamp-on fenders".

....OK rant over sorry.

I build up and ride a lot of bikes and will still use centre pull brakes because of their excellent stopping power and the fact they can be found very cheaply... my Peugeot fixed gear runs a Weinmann centre pull with Kool stop pads and the stopping power is nothing short of amazing.

If you are not concerned with weight and need good tire anf fender clearance then centre pull brakes can be a good choice.

People also complain about cantis and in most cases the complaints stem from an improper setup... there is a good reason why touring biikes use them as they are solid, tend to be trouble free, and provide much needed stopping power when a bike is loaded down with gear.

When I rebuilt my 1973 Raleigh Gran Sport I used a Shimano 600 group and some vintage 70's Dura Ace centre pull brakes as these offer better stopping power than the 600's side pulls and are also as old as the bike.

Off Topic: @ sixty Fiver I always tought your avatar was a toad on top of a pond. Today if finally recognized it as a butterfly. thats some good camo

I agree that was probably one of the reasons. Another reason (and probably more importantly) is aerodynamics. Side-pulls offer a smaller package, more so than any other brake system on road bikes. They're also lighter and simpler to set up. The performance advantage of this is recognized more on a road racing bike than say, a touring or cruiser style bike.

Clearances have definitely gotten tighter though on modern frames and forks starting from the early 80's and on up until now. Aerodynamics was a key factor in all this, so much so that Campy introduced the aero-brakes around 1990, which concealed the brake housings from the lever body and ran them along the bars to the calipers. The aero-brake calipers themselves were also aerodynamically sculped to take advantage of this. (I have a set on my Tommasini). Of course this caliper design only lasted about three years, until campy came out with the dual-pivot brake design.

Sooo,...I think it was aerodynamics, simplicity, lightness, and compact design of side-pulls that prevailed over center-pulls.

so what say ye, my brothers of skinny wheels. :D

This is what I had to do with my wife's mixte. Even with the mighty Dia-Compe 750, I could not get the brake to reach as it should mounted on the midstays.

http://gallery.mac.com/bbattle/100013/100_0446/web.jpg

http://gallery.mac.com/bbattle/100013/100_0305/web.jpg
I was hesitant to grind out the center hole to get clearance; don't think it would've gotten me enough. Very frustrating.

Yes. Youre right all the way. its like its always been. The design and what is available is dictated by what the racers are using.

Centerpulls wont work as good if they where implemented on a tight clearance. you would have to create special forks to mount them higher to keep the brake arms long. or mount them on the blades like they do now. That way you can tighten the gap. But like you mention; The weight weenies will then complain that its too heavy. Those guys always have something wrong.

Well who needs fenders or a big gap for that matter when you're racing right?

I dont think the shape of the caliper is as important for aerodynamics as getting rid of that gap was. Oddly enough now they have the "dual pivot" brakes that try to kinda-sorta emulate a centerpull while keeping the sidepull brake. Regular sidepulls would be lighter and brake harder (but come out alignment easier). Roadie fads contradict each other so much they cant keep their priorities straight. Sometimes I wonder how much of it is marketing hype.

I am just gonna go ride and shut up now. see ya guys :)

Sidepulls returned to fashion, in the late '60s, early '70s, long before the concern for aerodynamics in the mid-'80s. In fact, the quest for aerodynamics in the '80s briefly revived centerpull technology through a mechanical linkage in the heavy, complex, and difficult-to-modulate Campagnolo delta brake.

One clear advantage of sidepulls was in removing the flexible cable stop hanger from the system. Raleigh half-solved this problem by brazing a bridge between the chainstays, but that left the front still susceptible to some very non-linear pull under hard braking. The hanger would absorb cable pull with increasing resistance like a spring.

I got a pair of those in a box of brake parts I got from an Ebay auction in a box of parts that had a couple of things I wanted... I wondered how well they would perform, as they did look similar to modern dual pivot brakes in their configuration... I may have to give them a try.

As an aside to the main discussion, most freestyle bicycles still have centerpull brakes.

tcs

That's where Shimano got the idea.

tcs

Those are U brakes.

"U-Brake" is a more modern marketing term for the very old centerpull brake design.

Best,
tcs

No, they are different types of brakes. U-brakes are cantilever brakes with the mounting studs above the rim. Centerpull brakes are caliper brakes with a single mounting bolt.

This is not quite right.

No brakes work better when reach is longer. Mechanical advantage (AKA leverage) is the ratio between the length of the arm on the cable side of the pivot and the length of the arm on the brake shoe side of the pivot. Brakes that are mounted on the brake bridge or fork crown require longer arms on the brake shoe side for greater clearance, and therefore have poorer mechanical advantage with more clearance.

The real advantage of cantilevers is that the leverage is the same no matter how much clearance there is -- the geometry of the brake does not change because it just mounted in a different place.

Regular sidepulls have poorer mechanical advantage than centerpulls. This is not a problem with tight clearance, and good sidepulls work great in this application. There have also been some very nice centerpulls made for racing bikes(Gran Compe, Zeus, others, as well as MAFAC). But with older hardware, centerpulls work better than sidepulls on bikes that have room for fenders and bigger tires.

The disadvantage with sidepulls and cantilevers is that half of the force generated when you pull on the brake lever is wasted because the cable housing just pushes against the cable stop. With sidepulls, this reaction force is used to move one of the brake arms. Leverage is still better with centerpulls over conventional sidepulls at longer reaches, but the dual-pivot sidepull design actually capures the best of both.

That said, I don't own a bike that uses dual pivot brakes, but I have cantilevers, centerpulls, and sidepulls, and they all work fine on the appropriate bikes.

I only saw one mention of the early Shimano side pulls. If memory serves correctly in the early 70's Shimano basicly copied the Campy record side pulls for less than 2/3 the Campy price. These were nice brakes and almost as attractive as the Campy's. I am still riding an old bike with these same brakes. I believe that these were the first high quality brakes that Shimano produced.

Same here. My Panasonic fixed gear uses a center pull (with Kool Stops, too) so that I can run full fenders and 'cross tires in the winter time. The stopping power is great - not quite like the modern Ultegra dual pivots on my Klein road bike, but still plenty of stopping for me.

I had a bike built with each back in the 70s... the Campagnolo brakes cost $113., the DuraAce $68.

I have a pair of really short Weinmann centerpulls from a Stella. Never have seen any others so short...

shorter than 610's

I bought the first set of Dura Ace sidepulls I ever saw for $69 and I still have them. The chrome must have been inferior to Campagnolo because most every set I see is rusted like mine on the QR lever and tire guides.

You paid too much!

Actually, I thought the performance of the 2 was pretty similar, though it sure was a treat when I could finally afford the Campagnolos as a starving college student.

Sidepulls gave way to centrepulls which gave way to sidepulls, although sidepulls we're always around. The heyday of centrepulls was the 60's, as far as I remember. At that time, and well into the 70's, good bikes had centrepulls and cheap bikes had cheap, troublesome sidepulls. Then that situation reversed for a while into the 80's.

I was never a racer, but most of us at the time preferred centrepull Mafacs simply because the damned things stayed centered. Back then, sidepulls always seemed to end up dragging on one side (and you had to frequently fiddle with them to avoid it).

Assuming tire clearance is not an issue, in my opinon, nothing beats the modern dual-pivot sidepull. More stopping power for the least hardware and the least finger pressure. Centrepulls we're stronger, theoretically, but you did have that bare cable bridge to stretch in between you and the brakes, and you did have to have something to hang them on. Sidepulls look cleaner.

Just fyi, the most recent issue of Bicycle Quarterly has a nice set of articles on brake design, history, and performance: http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/currentissue.html

Here's the table of contents:
BRAKE SPECIAL
• History: from wooden blocks to disc brakes
• Popular designs and oddballs
• Why they worked or didn't
• Which brakes to choose for your bike
• How to set them up correctly
• How to use them properly
• Tests of medium-reach dual-pivot brakes from Shimano, IRD/Tektro and Cane Creek

Note: I have no relationship with BQ outside of being a subscriber.

I think bikingshearer's post captured the heart of the matter best...

So can someone post a photo of these early altenburger dual pivots?

Aero campagnolo brakes (with the optional aero or traditional) were available as early as 1984 with the first C-record group. Dia-compe and shimano also used aero design prior 1990. But in anycase, I don't think aerodynamics had much to do with the swing back to sidepulls in the early 1970s.