Brakes for touring
 

What's best for loaded touring? Cantilevers? V-brakes? Disc brakes? Are there any issues with using disc brakes for loaded touring?

I had cantilever brakes and they wouldn't stop my bike. Had to put my feet down a few times to stop before an intersection. Not a nice feeling, and it was bad for my booties, too.

I switched to Alhonga deep-drop brakes. No stopping problems since, even fully-loaded.

Alhonga Deep Drops

I have heard disc brakes are great, but I don't have them.

Wow. I'm surprised, I'd have thought cantis would be more powerful than sidepulls.

Cantis are powerful, but they really rely on proper set-up. A poorly setup canti will stop worse than most things on the road today, unfortunately, and learning to set them up seems to be sort of a lost art.

I love 'em, though.

V-brakes are easy to set up and pretty damn powerful, if you're running the sort of brake levers that agree with them.

Shameful admission: I've never owned a bike with discs.

Somewhat conservative and retro advice: Cantilevers are fairly simple mechanically and they have stood the test of time as touring brakes. Expensive V-brakes (xt) have more moving parts, more possibilities for trouble. Disc brakes are probably superior in braking power but fixing them in the middle of nowhere seems like no fun to me. Go retro go with cantis, (I do however really like my rear XT U-brake with Cool Stop pads).

Gosh, folks have used every kind of brake on touring bikes. Lolly Pop is using long arm caliber brakes-- a choice that was common in say, 1983, but pretty rare now. But they work--- so they are the correct choice for Lolly.

With that said, you can use any style brake you want. There are reasons for one type of brake over another in a certain application, but that's too complex to go into here. Disc brakes mean you have to be care choosing racks and bags, but it's easy enough to do.

Have you got a project in mind?

Yes, an early Trek 728, without the canti posts. Original equipment was caliper brakes. I have to do some frame repairs, so I'm also thinking about what type of brakes to set it up with. I'm more interested in really reliable braking rather than originality with this bike. My original thought was cantis, but then started thinking about disc brakes. I've heard they're superior for wet weather; however, I thought there might be issues with racks and panniers, and wanted to get people's opinions on them, as well as any other thoughts on what makes a great brake system for loaded touring.

I'd just put calipers back on it. Does it take the standard (long reach) or the short reach ones?

Disc brakes are costly and can be hard to set up with road break levers.

You might even get a new disc compatible fork and have 2 different kinds of brakes (caliper in back, disc up front) Some folks think this is getto, but it wll work fine.

The simplest advice is to look very carefully at what options are being used by the frame builder for their completed bikes. You don't have to grab the exact some parts, but you should at least stay close to the idea of that set up. Of course you can go off on your own tack, but then you need to be able to see how any changes affect the overall system. It's more complicated than on MTBs or road bikes, because the manufacturers aren't thinking of tourists when they build these parts.

A lot of systems have enough stopping power and are strong enough. Getting a brake that works with the brake levers, the fork, the rack, and that has enough clearance for big tires, fixing flats, etc... is more than just grabbing someone's favorite. It may not work on a different bike.

Most of the problems come if you are considering a road type touring frame. MTB type touring bikes with flat bars are easy to build.

I've heard of having cantilever studs welded on a frame that came without them but I've not heard of welding disk brake tabs to a frame that came without them. I would do BOTH, then you could have whatever kind of brakes that you want, now and in the future.
Obviously you're using caliper brakes. The simplest thing to do would be to continue to use them. If they're not dual pivot calipers then get some, they're far superior to single pivot calipers. Cantilevers have stronger braking performance but nothing beats a dual pivot caliper for low maintenence.
If you go with cantilevers get modern cantilevers with threaded posts on the brake shoes. They are simple to set up compared to older cantilevers with unthreaded posts on the brake shoes.
Examples of modern cantilevers. Shimano R550, Cane Creek SCX-5, Tektro Oryx 992A, TRP CR950, Avid Shorty 6, Avid Shorty 4.
Linear pull brakes aka v-brakes are great. They are easier to set up, require less maintenance, and are stronger than cantilevers. They are no more expensive than cantilevers. You can get simple ones without parallel pad mechanisms. They use the same brake pads as modern cantilevers.
The problem with v-brakes is their compatibility with road bike brake levers. Road bike brake levers don't pull enough cable for v-brakes. They make adapters that enable you to use them with road bike brake levers but they are problematic. Examples of adaptors. Problem Solvers Travel Agent, World Class V-Dapters.
There are Diacompe 287V road bike brake levers that work with v-brakes without any adapters. You would have to use bar end or down tube shifters with these.
Avid and soon Shimano make cable actuated disks that are compatible with road bike brake levers. Disk brakes are great. They are better in the wet, don't depend on wheel trueness or rim sidewall condition, don't fade, and don't wear out your rims. You would have to buy new wheels with hubs that can accomodate the disks. Disk brakes are probably the heaviest option here. They are easy to set up and are low maintenance. Pads are easily found.
Any of the above will work great. Do what tickles your fancy.

I tend to agree with this. I have 2 of these mixed brake bikes.

A qbp/dimension steel hybrid/cyclo-x 1" disc only fork is ~50 bucks - a cheap way to evaluate. Bear in mind it takes several thousand miles for a disc brake to break-in well so that you experience full brake potential (semi-metallic pads wear slower than polymer pads). At first they don't brake well at all. Disc brakes are superior in rain.

If you're gonna add a disc mount to the frame, putting the mount between the stays (like the custom waterford in commuter forum) will eliminate mounting conflicts with rack and fenders. Problem then is finding a caliper body that will fit in the small space (easier on a large frame). Newer hydraulic disc brakes are smaller than the avid mechs, but then you'll have a hydraulic line routing / lever compatibilty issue.

Or, just stick with calipers and save yourself a lot of work.

The best brakes for loaded touring are the ones that stop you when you need to! Ha... couldn't resist!

I've used all of them for touring -cantis, v's and disc brakes (OK, so not sidepulls or centre pulls). I think all of them are adequate if setup properly (e.g. good cable run and good rim trueness and adjustment) and with the right components (meaning, Koolstop or some other high quality brake pad as pads can be a huge difference).

My personal preference is without a doubt the disc brakes -I have Avid road discs on my tourer. They are just great, and I have to say set up very easily, lovely modulation and great power. In my opinion they outperform any well setup Koolstop equipped non-disc brake.

Disadvantages/Comment about disc brakes:
1. when touring in some strange place, you may not be able to readily get spares or fix a broken brake as easily as the more "traditional" brakes. This is just a guess as it's never happened (think how robust disc brakes are in terms of mtbing though), and in any case I cycle tour mostly in tame places and would be able to get a spare thingymajiggy pretty fast fedexed out. So yes, disc brakes are more complex animals, but I guess you can't say that they are unreliable (at least based on my Avid mtb and road mechanical disc brake experiences).
2. Heavier -well at least for Avids and compared to most of the traditional brakes.
3. Though -in my opinion -they are great brakes, other brakes are more than adequate and usually cost less. If I was short of money and needed a good brake, I wouldn't at all be bothered to use a non-disc solution. However, would I give mine up? No way! If you have the money and disc mounts, I'd recommend them fully.
4. Disc brakes do cause some issues; many traditional racks and fenders are unable to be mounted since the calipers get in the way. I got around this by fashioning my own brackets (very cheaply and they are sturdy).
5. You have to be fairly careful not to drop chain lube on your disc or disc pads or some other similar oily substance to prevent brake fade.

Advantages of Discs (well, specifically the Avid mechanicals)
1. great stopping power
2. relatively simple for disc brakes
3. relatively cheap
4. great modulation
5. very reliable
6. good in rainy conditions
7. no dependency on really good rim trueness

Bottom line: if you have to be careful with money, get some good quality cantis/v's with koolstop pads. If you don't expect to be cycling Siberia or Tajikistan anytime soon, have money, and know you might need to fiddle around with rack and fender mounts but want the best brakes possible..... go with the discs.

Fitting disks, fenders, and racks to a frame is a royal PITA unless the latter was carefully designed to accommodate all. Sure, disks are great. I love mine. But my touring bike was purpose-built for disks. Despite this, the real estate around my rear triangle is quite crowded.

You can improve the stopping power of your calipers by using Kool Stop brake pads. Braking won't be as good as disks or even cantis, but your braking ought to be good enough under most conditions. Just be more conservative about going downhill.

I should have made this more clear-- it's the frameset only, and I will be building it up, so I have to decide how to build it up. The easiest choice seems to be calipers, since I won't have to change anything. The next easiest choice is cantilevers or v-brakes, which will require the addition of canti posts to the frame-- not too difficult, since the frame needs repairs anyway. The 3rd option would be to outfit it with disc brakes, which seems to be the most difficult to engineer.

Cantilevers don't have the power that one will find in properly set up v- or disc brakes. V-brakes, technically speaking, are a modified cantilever brake with a longer lever (the place where the brake cable attaches is a longer distance from the pivot point than in traditional cantilever brakes). This gives v-brakes more stopping power than traditional cantilever brakes, and is the reason why one must have special v-brake levers for v-brakes to work properly (v-brake levers pull more cable with the lever pull; if one uses traditional cantilever levers, braking will be close to all or nothing).

Disc brakes, on the other hand, are at least as powerful as properly set-up v-brakes without the drawback of rim brakes: no rim wear, no worry about blowing out a tube from heating the rim with poor braking technique, and true-ness of the rim and inclement weather doesn't affect braking performance. Additionally, in my experience the pads last at least 3 times as long (but are typically 3 times the cost; the benefit here is less routine maintenance).

One can convert to disc brakes by getting a fork with disc brake mounts (for the front, of course). And, if desired, the rear can also be converted to disc using this: http://www.braketherapy.com/conversion.htm (I believe it's approx. $150).

You could just go with some modern dual pivot sidepulls -and forego fenders and run narrow tyres, it might just be a lot easier. Just my opinion (so it's either a load of rubbish or fantastic depending on how you take it) but I think you might be trying to make the frame fit components it's not supposed to. I'd think for the money and time you might need to invest (thinking of brazing on posts, and then a respray), you could be better off looking for *that frame* that fits your ideas of what you want. Good luck!

My long drop dual pivots have pretty much the same stopping power as my cantis but I find that they have better modulation /control and sharper bite. Callipers are good up to 32mm + fenders , beyond that you need a different style of brake.
You need to match the brake lever to the cable pull of the brake. V brakes need too much cable to work well with most road style levers. They can also interfere with racks and fenders.
Cantis are not ideal but are the least worst for general touring. It is hard finding a stiff, practical cable stop for the front.

One of the advantages of custom tourers is that you can have much better integration of all the bits. There is no reason why fender stays have to go to the dropouts, you can fit the fender thread higher up your fork or seatstay and clear room for disks.

Do front disks require a much stiffer fork? I wonder how comfortable this would be?

MichaelW asks a good question-- Do frount disks require a much siffer fork? I think the answer is yes-- the older crowned forks on many older bikes are pretty whippy. This why many folks love that old steel ride.

Putting on a new unicrown pipe style fork changes the ride and handling of the bike. I'm not saying this a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind.

I've messed around converting different bikes to touring rigs--- something I wholely support because a dedicated touring bike costs a lot of money and most of us only get to tour for a few weeks a year anyway. so if it's possible to tour with whatever bike you already own, it makes sense.

The only rule seems to be... Stick as close to orginal design of the bike as you can. So I would hesitate in totally changing the braking system of a bike.

We ride fully loaded (with gear), cantilever brakes are fine if adjusted but Vees are easier to adjust, and work great. I ordered our newest tandem with two disc brakes and studs for vee brakes just in case. If you want simple cost effective and easy to deal with go with vee brakes.