Cycling UK Forum

Tuesday this week i decended Whinlatter pass.
With a group of like minded friends ..
P went down the hill without the use of his brakes .. really .. it's on Strava ...
I went down deciding which car i would crash into at 20 mph ..
To stop me ......
My cantilever brakes would not stop me .... AT ALL .

Why can i not get my super simple Tektro Canti's to work ?

Which pads? Rim to pad clearance ?

Or ..

Are Canti brakes simply unable to stop 100kg @ 39.1 mph in 30 meters .... ??

What sort of cantis? What sort of levers? I have cantis on the rear of two bikes and find them good. I use mini vees on the front as the light mount is easier.

To make them work the usual suspects are cables and blocks. Was it raining?

Ditch the cantis - get Vee brakes.

Rob

robgul wrote:Ditch the cantis - get Vee brakes.

Rob

+1

reohn2 wrote:

robgul wrote:Ditch the cantis - get Vee brakes.

Rob

+1

+ another. Simply never good enough to justify the effort of getting the "best" out of 'em.

My bike is based on a Jamis Aurora ..... which V brakes would you recommend ?
That fits on the stock forks ...
And why does a braking system that is held to be ineffective by it's users, still in production .. ?
There must be liability issue here ... ?

landsurfer wrote:Why can i not get my super simple Tektro Canti's to work ?

Which pads? Rim to pad clearance ?

If you want advice on whether the performance of the brakes as currently set up can be improved, then I suggest you post photographs of the brakes, and state what the current pads are.

tell us more about your levers, brakes, and show us photos of your setup.

Cantis are not bad brakes per se, but they are sensitive to setup; they are a more, uh, subtle brake than some others.

If you are using STIs (which like their namesake some might regard as 'a modern disease' ahem) then probably you won't want to stomach buying different ones just to fit a different brake. STIs vary in brake lever MA, so different STIs suit different brakes.

There are predictable cries of 'ooh you should fit Vee brakes' and this advice might be good, might be a good way to waste your money. If you do fit Vee brakes you will probably fit new cables and brake blocks too. Ironically this might be all that is wrong with your cantis right now....

cheers

Tektro 992 forged alloy cantilevers.

And to be honest ... before the decent of Whinlatter Pass they where a fear free braking system ....

P, suggested the problem was not the brakes stopping efficiency but my insistence on using brakes ..... !!!

The next day V suggested that using brakes on a downhill that you have just climbed up was daft .. why climb then brake on the down hill ?!?!?

She was quite vocal on this issue .....

And possibly quite right ...

If i had the confidence to just freewheel down Whinlatter my journey would have so much stress free ......

??

Tektro 992, AKA Tektro 'oryx'




levers?

setup?

Before the inevitable cries of 'those brakes are crap' I would just like to mention that 'those brakes' can vary at least a factor of two in power depending on how they are set up, what levers are used, etc.

cheers

landsurfer wrote:My cantilever brakes would not stop me .... AT ALL .

Can you qualify that? (as in, "they were pretty poor but did eventually stop the bike" etc). 100 kg at 40 mph down a very long steep hill in the rain might be a challenge for cantis but my guess is that there is/was an issue with the rims or the cables/blocks or the set up etc. I'm not saying that Vs or discs wouldn't have done better (and I'm no expert) but the laws of physics tell me that dry rubber blocks in good condition held tightly onto the rims of both wheels would actually have stopped you.

horizon wrote:

landsurfer wrote:My cantilever brakes would not stop me .... AT ALL .

Can you qualify that? (as in, "they were pretty poor but did eventually stop the bike" etc). 100 kg at 40 mph down a very long steep hill in the rain might be a challenge for cantis but my guess is that there is/was an issue with the rims or the cables/blocks or the set up etc. I'm not saying that Vs or discs wouldn't have done better (and I'm no expert) but the laws of physics tell me that dry rubber blocks in good condition held tightly onto the rims of both wheels would actually have stopped you.

They didn't ... see the original post ..... thats the issue ...... Dry, warm, tarmac ..... retardation, but unable to stop .....Squealing .... lots of squealing .. The reduction in speed / forward motion was inadequate .. to preserve life ... alledgley ...

lever?
brake blocks?
setup?

Brucey wrote:Tektro 992, AKA Tektro 'oryx'




levers?

setup?

Before the inevitable cries of 'those brakes are crap' I would just like to mention that 'those brakes' can vary at least a factor of two in power depending on how they are set up, what levers are used, etc.

cheers

Should be able to make them work, I've got them on a couple of bikes and with good cables and pads (stock pads can be rubbish, koolstops better) they can work. If you want to change to vees you'll need new levers.

landsurfer wrote:
Are Canti brakes simply unable to stop 100kg @ 39.1 mph in 30 meters .... ??

As a 100 kg rider whose bikes have Vs, cantis, mech disks and hydraulic discs, I wouldn’t trust any of them to do that, I would trust all of them to slow the bike before that need arose. There’s a few roads where in the right conditions I’ll let it gain those sorts of speeds, but it wouldn’t be where I needed to stop in that distance. I’m currently in the Picos where some of the hills make Winllaters look like a gentle slope, my BB7’s are doing fine, though so are the Vs, cantis and DP callipers on some other bikes in the group.