Having braze on pivot mounts takes a lot of flex out of the system. The location of the pivots can be tuned a bit, one has to decide on where you WANT the brake block mounted in the arms and work back from that to locate the pivot. Spring preload can be adjusted too. In the rear assembly after the installation the seat stays will be the big flexor. Braze on the pivots, hard mount the cable stops, say through the stem or equally stout assembly ( early Campagnolo off road headset collars are very stout) and with decent cables/housing you have brakes transformed. Direct mount dual pivots would have you beat but then you would be on a modern carbon high end bike. Jan Heine's site has a mount kit if I recall.

They'd go well with a bespoke leather saddle.

Yeah, that's basically what I'm thinking.

As you say, Compass has what you need to braze to the frame, to fit Weinmann, Dia-Compe, MAFAC, etc. (not Paul) brakes. It's tempting.

The Peugeot PY 10 CP had them.

EDIT: Blast, already mentioned.

And hows' about moving to 650b on a 700c frame? would that get those posts high enough? Or is that another boneheaded idea?

also, rueda tropical has some nice documentation on their site. MAFAC, Dia-Compe & Paul Centerpull Brake Specs : La Rueda Tropical

650b would be possible with long enough CP's. I.e. Mafac Raids, New Compss, Dia Compe 750.

Cycles Toussaint sells a new rando-inspired frameset and complete bike with centerpull posts for Mafac etc.:

Velo Routier 650B Low Trail Frame | Cycles Toussaint
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=412994

wow, that's an extremely neat frame, especially at that price point.

Sure, it would be fun, but what problem would you be solving? Do you have a bike with crappy enough brakes to warrant this treatment?

Boy, howdy, you betcha. Jan Heine tested one in the latest Bicycle Quarterly, gave it a fairly positive writeup. Just read it within the past few days, and didn't remember the Velo Routier had braze-on brake mounts. The Centurion Pro Tour, from the Bikeology catalog I last saw more than 30yrs ago I remember, the cool new frame I just read about never sank deep enough into my brain to even escape. Sheesh.

Yes. http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...l#post17231006

I'd ask [MENTION=20548]JohnDThompson[/MENTION] his opinion on the Gran Compe centerpulls.

IIRC, he built his 720 with cantis before they were offered with cantis- but still has a high opinion of those centerpulls.

[MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION], what brakes has the 720 had so far, and have you tried dual pivots? I put no-name long-reach DP's on my friend Al's Super Course, and they're pretty impressive. A name brand pair would probably be even better.

I had Suntour Superbe side pulls on there for a long time. Later switched to Gran Compe. The combination of tires, fenders, and a front rack never really worked with those sidepull brakes. Nor with Mafac Racers. I could have solved the problem with a longer brake mounting bolt and a stack of spacers and just wasn't willing to go there; I want the front rack to be mounted securely.

I got Tektro dual pivots for it in August specifically for the tour I took in late August. I didn't have a whole lot of time to set up the bike, though (I was only back in NJ for one weekend) and guess what? The dual pivot brake hangs down far below the fork crown. The frame has plenty of room for fenders and fat tires, but the brake does not. Fail. That's why I toured on the Holdsworth.

Oh, that's too bad.

I didn't hear about your tour. Point me to a link if a description is online.

I never had any problems with the Gran Compe centerpulls, and they sure are pretty. But then again, I never did any loaded touring with them either. I did put MAFAC tandem cantilevers on my 720, well, just because I could and I felt like being hard core for loaded touring. But my wife did fine with loaded touring using Universal 77s on her bike.

There is not technical reason why you would want to do this. If you were to do it, you would want to do this at the time of initial building as reheating the fork crown after it has already been built is not beneficial to the fork.

I do have such a bike and there seems to be a bit more direct feel to the braking but not sufficient to warrant the considerable added work.

@Citoyen du Monde I'd love to see a full shot of that bike. Great looking frame!

If I interpret your question correctly, you're looking for a production frame with brazed-on centerpull studs, correct? Well, here you go:

Velo Routier 650B Randonneur Bicycle | Cycles Toussaint

Great deal at $500 Canadian, which is $445 US today. For that price it's a TIG bike, but you get 650b, low trail, double-butted full CrMo frame, and all of the braze-on bits for light touring/randounneuring.

Paul Components has been making a long reach and medium reach version of the Mafac racer for a while

thanks for the link again. It was mentioned earlier on, but it's still a screaming deal.

The direct-mount centerpull has real advantages over canti's, including the posts being much closer to the crown, so the posts flex a lot less.

A booster-plate for centerpulls can easily be much shorter and thus lighter and more elegant, if it was even needed.

I've messed around with centerpulls, and this pair, modified with cord pull straps to each pad and home-made booster plate was good enough for wet descents on the World Cup XC circuit.
They're still going strong along with the bike in CX guise, though by now the rear caliper's bushings have worn very loose due to the thin stay's flexing in twisting fashion while the pads remain parallel to the rim surface under hard braking. A booster plate on the rear caliper would have prevented this.
BTW, some bikes were fitted with "push" brackets that fed the pad's braking forces directly into the stays instead of into the pivots, much like the pull straps on my front brake accomplishes.

Centerpulls would also seem to have less overhang outside of the fork blades and seatstays than canti's, so less chance of hitting things or snagging the rider's leg.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/...9df7125b_c.jpg
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7185/...1f4b21d4_z.jpg

Velo Routier 650B Randonneur Bicycle | Cycles Toussaint

That's an attractive consumer-direct price for this presumably Taiwan-built bike. They're sold out of stock (except for XL frame-only), and their frame geometry link is dead at the moment.

It would be interesting to try out such a bike, though I wonder how much that the "low-trail" geometry takes away from the bike's potential as an off-roading bike.
If the head angle is 71-72 degrees, at least a more heavily-raked fork might be used to replace the 2.2lb stocker, to increase the trail and stability, but for carrying heavy loads in front it should be excellent as-is.

I took a long (road training) test-ride on a customer's 21.5lb Bianchi cyclocross bike the other day, and I was surprised by how fast the bike felt with the new Michelin 34mm (actual) tires that I had installed. I had also added an 11-34t, 10s MTB cassette for versatility, adding a 9s XT derailer to work with the bike's original 10s Ultegra STI shifters.
I liken the bike's stability to some of the Schwinns that I ride, but which do not feel fast, even with 1-1/8" road tires. Stability is a very under-rated thing!

Just checked Velo-Routier, looks like their stock is low/gone primarily on complete bikes, but frameset-only stock is good.

I'm just working my way through the low-/med-/hi-trail thing, not ready to sign off on low-trail supremacy at the moment. But one of my relatively recent revelations (say that 5 times fast!) has been how fast and smooth 30-37mm rubber can feel on the road, yet still not beat me up on trails. Tires that wide used to feel sluggish on pavement, while also being punishing on trails.

BTW, old news at this point, but I did mistakenly refer to my Ocean Air Rambler earlier in this thread as a lugged frame, even though it ain't. Tig-welded, with lug-looking headtube reinforcements. My brain wasn't really paying attention to my fingers, or vice-versa....

I have an '83 Trek 720 badly in need of a repaint. The cantis worked fine for touring but I would have thought that center pulls worked pretty well also. I almost bought the '82 but instead waited to get the 1983 frame with cantilevers. Sometimes I wish I hadn't though. It can be tough finding cantis that work on an old trek.

That is good to know. Thanks! So what do you think, have someone braze centerpull bosses on, or just go with the bike on ones? There is a certain elegance to the brazed on ones, but if there's no real advantage, well...

The posts are much closer than on a modern bike which is why most cantis won't work right on a Trek 720. Frankly, I'd get the bike repainted and get some center pull brakes. They work great and will give you plenty of clearance.

Another possibility might be a 650b conversion but the bottom bracket might be a bit too low. Still 650bs would be sweet as you'd have plenty of room for fat tires.

Having the posts closer together offers a more-horizontal pad trajectory at the rim, so reduces pad-dive implications especially as the pads wear. My 720 had Shimano MT70 canti's, which worked well with aftermarket pads. Changing to 700c rims increased leverage noticeably, but the narrow post spacing helped prevent pad-dive from becoming an issue with the smaller rims.