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.

Oops. You're right, Dirtdrop. I even had a pair of the Competitions, and I still got the model name wrong. Man, is my face ever red. :o

Mafacs were pretty much the state of the art in the mid-50's to late-60's, at least for raw stoppng power. They also alerted potential witnesses in traffic accidents, because unless you had them set up juuuuuust right, they squealed loud enough to wake the dead when applied. The sound could be really obnoxious.

Not sure about the availability (ie: to the general public) of C-Record in '84, mainly because it's my understanding that it was released and therefore subplanted Super Record in the late 80's and into the early 90's. Doesnt make any difference though. As to the aerodynamics, that issue became more key with C-Record after the delta brake design. If there was any brake that was completely unaerodynamic, it would have to be the deltas. (IMO of course).....after all, I'm just a bike rider. :D

I have a brochure from 1984 showing C-record, in any case it was definitely in the pro peleton in 1984. The first generation of Delta's were from 1984 as the cobalto's were introduced in 1985 while they worked on revising the delta design.

Interesting :D

of that I have no doubt, however in '84 Hinault and Fignon both were using Super Record in the TDF. In '85 Hinault was using Super Record too as did Greg LeMond in '86. In '88 a lot of the pros were using Delta brakes even into the early 90's, then subplanted by Record dual-pivot in '92.

Really its interesting what the pros did or did not use for a given year, as compared to when components were actually available.

Yep. Here she is:

Bump.

I just bought a 1984 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe, and was surprised to find ("Schwinn Approved") center pull brakes on it. I initially thought somebody had put them on in place of Dia-Compe side pulls, but they did appear in the sales brochures for 1984. The touring model above the Le Tour Luxe, the Voyageur, came with Cantilever brakes. Just thought I would include this for what it might be worth.

The current Bicycle Quarterly magazine has a virtual expose' on all of this.

U-brakes are exactly the same design as centerpulls, but the studs are part of the frame instead of a bolted-on part. It's quite apparent when you look at this picture.

Suntour made campy copies @ significantly less. i just sold some last summer. Parts were interchangable. SunTour Superbe and Superbe Pro.
Bought a set back in the day to replace my Model 61's as i broke one of the arms. Problem was reach in the back. I found replacement parts last summer and restored the old set, selling the SunTour's for $125 in the original box.