renyay

Hi There,
I am new to this forum, so I apologize if a similar thread already exists, though I couldn't find one. Anyway, I am building up a Soma Double cross frame and trying to decide which brakes to buy for it. I'm considering just going with a classic old pair of Mafac Canti Brakes. They seem to be the design everyone is still basing new models off of; I am just wondering about how the springs will have held up after so many decades. Does anyone know if I can get a new set of canti springs to use with the old Mafac brakes? Also, I am assuming they should work fine with STI lever or road brake levers, but I could be wrong and would love more info if am.
Newer models I am considering are: Frogglegs, Tektro cr720, or possibly Origin8 Proforce. Does anyone have any experience w/ these? Especially the Origin8's... they are generic but they do make some decent stuff. I'd love to buy a set of Paul's but they are just too pricy for me right now.
Thanks for any help!

Cynikal 

I love the tektro 720's. I run them on the front with IRD cafam's on the rear. Honestly, wide profile brakes are kinda overkill for Nor Cal races. We don't need the mud clearance that they offer.

flargle

It never rains in California.

renyay

Ya, honestly, I'll probably be commuting on this bike more than I'll be racing it. I just love the cross design, I think its super versatile. Though, I do want to do some racing when the season comes around. Anyway, I am more concerned in stopping power than mud clearance. I thought that the wide profile cx brakes gave better stopping power... but should I just go with something styled like the Oryx brake? (and no i don't want to switch to v's or try sidepull).

Andy_K 

I've used Avid Shorty 4's (which are a lot like the Oryx) and CR720's. In my experience, you can get decent stopping power out of either but it's a lot easier to get it with the 720's.

Cynikal 

It rains just not enough during cross season. At least in Nor Cal, we get our rains in the spring.

renyay

doesn't seem like too many people like the avids...

Andy_K 

No, definitely not. I'm not a big fan myself, but they can be made to work. The biggest hurdle with cantis in general is getting the hang of adjusting them. Once you can do that, any of them that allow toe-in to be adjusted are good enough for commuting.

Cynikal 

I had the shorty 4's for a a while and could not get them to stop squealing. I'm actually using on on the rear now with a tektro 720 in the front and it's fine. I'll never use one for the front again. There are better options.

renyay

Its funny that catis are supposed to be some of the weakest brakes out there, because in my experience, they seem more solid and strong than sidepull or v's. I've never actually owned a bike with anything aside from side or centerpull though... I'm just judging from bikes I've built and worked on. I totally can't stand cheap sidepulls... anything lower quality than 105 is useless in my opinion... and I just don't like the feel of v's... they seem spongy to me. I have really been surprised though how strong center pull and cantilever brakes seem to be on some bikes.

mander

720s are different from mafacs, frogglegs or whatever old school wide profile canti, because of their hemispherical washers that allow for much easier toe in adjustment compared to anything with an old post style pad. They're great brakes, i have them in front on my crosscheck. Especially for the price, they rock... they're not the prettiest but functionally they're just about as good as anything out there imo, including pauls or whatever.

Any modern road lever, sti or aero, will pull the correct amount of cable for cantis.

Wide profile cantis have a great feature where the leverage increases as the pad moves towards the rim, so that you actually have both mud clearance and stopping power. Narrow profile cantis do the opposite---the mechanical advantage decreases as the pad moves in. As well, wide profiles allow you to run less post in between the canti arm and the brake pad, which in my experience greatly decreases the tendency to squeal. That said i run a narrow profile in back (shimano r550) because it's supposed to help you avoid getting stabbed in the leg.

Stopping power with cantis of any kind is all in the straddle cable height; whatever you get, you can probably make it work fine in the end, but it's going to take some fiddling and experimentation.

renyay

Thanks for the info mander....
I was also just reading some stuff by sheldon brown, and answering a few of my own questions:

mander

Yeah with "soft" canti brakes when you really squeeze you can see the cables tightening and the arms + hanger beginning to flex as all that power goes into them.

The problem with very small frames is that they have short clearances between the cable stops and the canti studs, so you may not always have enough room to get the straddle height correct. However, unless you're really small it will probably be totally fine on your bike---apparently this only really became an issue with the advent of mtb frames and their generally quite low top tubes. Sorry, I'm not sure how much clearance you absolutely need, but just quickly measuring my own 720's, which are set up pretty well, it looks like 15 cm would be plenty, 14 cm would get you by, and much less would start to get close.

If you're just doing commuting/ road riding/ dirt roads and not doing either cx racing with repeated remounts, or technical off road stuff where you're always dropping way back behind the saddle, i think the risk of actually getting poked is quite low. But if you're worried about leg stabbage, you can always just get a narrow profile Oryx or whatever in the back, which is where the stabbings are supposed to happen. You don't need as good a rear brake, and also for some reason having the studs behind the wheel's direction of rotation tends to totally eliminate the squeal issue that's associated with low pro brakes.

flargle

The silver ones don't look half-bad. Not nearly as pretty as Paul's, but a heck of a lot less expensive.

Andy_K 

If you're going to do any CX racing (and you definitely should) then I do think you should worry about hitting your leg on wide profile brakes in the back. I run the 720's in front and Shorty 4's in back for this reason. Rear braking power isn't as important anyway, so you can pretty much use whatever you want in back. I used the Shorty 4's just because I had a pair on hand.

Sixty Fiver

I am also not a fan of Avid Shorty's... they are the only brakes I could never to get to work without screaming like a cat in heat and by comparison the 53 year old Mafac cantis on my Peugeot are pretty quiet unless it's cold and wet.

Properly set up cantis are wonderful brakes... they are powerful and offer excellent modulation and as per SB, the issue is usually that people don't know how to set them up right. I would take a good canti over many v-brakes and there is a reason cantis are still a popular choice for touring cyclists.

My favourite canti brakes, and perhaps some of my favourite brakes of all time, are the XTR cantis I run on my Trek... they are mated to XTR levers but have also been mated to road levers. I believe that if one was to find a set you'd be looking at paying about $100.00 for NOS versions... they are worth every penny.

KonAaron Snake 

I had the exact same problem...also, the pads they come with are horrendously bad. I HATED those brakes.

fuzz2050

I'm going to suggest abandoning the idea of Mafac cantilevers and going with a nice modern reproduction. Yes, the basic shape of the brake arm is the same, but Mafac cantilevers are the one brake I've never been able to quite down. I guess I don't have Sixty Fiver's level of Cantilever-fu. There are dozens of brakes out there that are easier to adjust and provide just as much mud clearance, and stopping power.

renyay

This is good to know, there is a set on ebay, im gonna check right now to see if they are still up. I was really heavily considering them... but thinking that they wouldn't work well with road/sti levers.

I'm totally gonna stay away from avids... and I'll save my mafac infatuation for something more retro. When the season comes around I really do want to try cross racing. it sounds really fun to me. If not that I'll at least do some offroad riding... this is the first non road style bike I've ever owned and I'm excited to try some dirt riding. Only thing that scares me about cross is that my right shoulder has been a mess for over a year now... falling on it, or huring it by throwing a bike onto it repeatedly would put it out of commission again. Are shoulder injuries a common cross riding problem?

renyay

Does anyone have an opinion on these?
https://cgi.ebay.com/NOS-Suntour-XC-P...item439e18688f

also... can i be certian I don't need to worry about running brakes like this or the XTR's with STI levers? I've always thought that you had to run special road levers... i forget what they are called but they are aero leverss designed specifically to pull for canti brakes. I imagine that STI levers would be designed to deal with this, but what If i just run some generic tektro aero levers?

Sixty Fiver

V brakes need special levers or travel adapters if they are to be used with road levers... cantis are designed to work well with road levers.

TimJ

Yes. I did this all the time when I had a 720 on the back.

Oryx are fine brakes too. And cheap.

Though you seem decided already, here's some mafac-looking brakes that are nice, new and inexpensive:

https://www.velo-orange.com/grcabr.html

renyay

Well... its good to know I don't need to worry about running aero levers w/ canti at all...
Those Velo Orange brakes do look nice... I'm still trying to figure out what to buy but I will keep them in mind. There are also sets of frogglegs on ebay for fairly cheap, I've been considering those.

bloom87

OK so I searched and found this thread in hope of finding more info about the MAFAC's useability.

unfortunately the thread isn't so much about MAFACs as is it about its already well-known alternatives

so back to the OP's question ---> any info about MAFAC cantis ?? I can get a pair on the cheap and have a glimpse of period-correctness on my vintage cross (end of the 70es french frame!!!) ride project.

Sixty Fiver

Mafac cantilever brakes are good, they were designed to be used with a longer pull lever... with the introduction of low profile cantis the levers changed to reflect this and this is why Shimano offers several lever types for their different cantilever brakes which have gone back to being wide profile for some models.

Fit modern pads and use good hardware and the Mafacs work rather well, the bad taste some have in regard to these was when they were mated to steel rims and used mushy hardware.

Even with chrome rims my 1957 Peugeot has adequate stopping power with it's original Mafacs, the design is also nice as it allows you to adjust the straddle height easily and uses no special crossover cables.