ss friendly canti? (rear wheel)
 

hi all (i am new here..),

i am currently setting up my ss cross bike and im looking for a good cantilever brake that has some adjustability, should i decide to change the size of the rear cog. i am thinking about running a 16/18 combo, so i am not even sure that the brake would need to be adjusted that much, but in the event that it does, i dont want it to be a PITA each time. btw, the frame i have has track ends.

any advice is appreciated...thanks!

Quickbeam.

what is that?

The Quickbeam is an SS frame from Rivendell with canti's.

I have an ss cross bike and am running a flip-flop with 17 on one side and 20 on the other. I have to adjust my brakes every time I flip the wheel, the wheel just ends up in different places. You might be able to avoid this by running two chains, one for each cog. This might allow the wheel to end up in the same place in the dropouts. To make it easy use a chain connector like the superlink, this also means you are more likely to remove and clean your chain.

To make it easy to change select a brake with v-brake style attachment, adjusts with a single 5-mm hex wrench rather than the old school when you need a hex and a crescent wrench.

I have Paul Components Neo-Retro brakes and am really happy with them. Great quality, easy to set up but they aren't cheap.

The ideal setup might be an adjustable bottom bracket and vertical dropouts. The relationship between the rim and the brake never changes. Obviously this doesn't work since you are working with an existing frame.

Hope this helps.

yeah, that helps, thanks. i was thinking about going with the pauls or the spookys. are the pauls easy to adjust? i hate v brakes and dont think i could live with them on my cross bike.

since im using it for racing the gearing probably wont change much....which brings me to my next question, what gearing are you using on your cross bike? im thinking that 42x18 would be a good way to go...but not completely sure.

Yes, the Paul's are easy. I have them on two bikes, they work great and are easy to adjust. I don't run v-brakes on any of my bikes.

The gearing is really dependent on the types of courses you ride and your style of riding. Is it hilly where you live, are the courses really muddy, are you going to carry your bike up the hills or try to grind it out?

42x18 will let you get up to speed quickly after remounting, give you pretty good speed on the flats but means you are going to carry. Racing single speed cross usually entails a lot more running than for geared cross. I either run a 42x17 where I want speed or a 42x20 (for the nasty, muddy, hilly rides).

Have fun out there.

i am in the northeast, so the courses vary from euro style to jungle cross style. and ther is definetly potential for alot of mud...although ive never seen it as bad as in portland!

maybe i will just get a couple combos for the rear and leave the front as 42...seems like that is pretty common among most ss racers...

Pauls are far too pricey for mafac knockoffs. I'm a fan of the avid shorty family.