I have a tour bike with tektro oryx cantilever brakes and brifter levers. The braking is very weak. There is some initial 'bite' which slows the bike but then when I increase pull on the levers the braking force effect doesn't increase as I would expect and it needs a lot of force to do so. The bike is second hand. The brake blocks are worn but still plenty of life left in them and they are adjusted to hit the rims nicely. Block are Jagwire.
I have replaced the cables but little improvement. From looking at Sheldon's site I think that the link cables are too long and this means that the mechanical advantage is low. At rest the link cable angle is less than 90 degrees and obviously under braking this reduces even further. see pic
Hence I am thinking of getting shorter link wires and seeing if that improves the braking. Is this the right thing to try or does anyone havee any other suggestions? I have also seen these tektro 'power hanger' gizmos that replace the link wire. They claim to increase power and don't need frame cable stops which would sort out a n awkward cable routing I have round the seatpost. However, I can't find any other mention of them on the net and I am thinking there must be some reason they didn't become commonplace. I also need to look and see if they could fit around my mudguards.
New cables won't make much difference. New cable casings will.
Shorter straddles will problably make these brakes even worse. They might be a bit better if you can put thicker spacers between the blocks and arms, to make the arms stick out more horizontally, but the best thing is to replace this old mountain-bike style model with a modern version of the original road touring cantilever, e.g. Tektro CR520.
See (much) earlier posts on here about these brakes.
Chris Juden One lady owner, never raced or jumped.
What levers are you using? V-brake levers are incompatible with cantis.
Orynx aren't great and the Tektro 520s are much better. Looking at the picture it looks to me that the pads have been put on with the spacers the wrong way round (wide ones on the inside rather than on the outside). The bit of the bar that the pads screw into should be more like vertical. Obviously you'll need to readjust the cables again. To make these brakes work you need to get them really close to the rims.
I hope that this is helpful.
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again so is the bicycle puncture repair kit." - Billy Connolly
I replaced the outers as well. The new frogleg version looks very nice but I have already spent more than I intended so I want to have a go at getting these to work before I splash out on new brakes.
I have been recomended elsewhere to try replacing the link wire with a straddle cable for greater adjustability. I think I may have an old yoke kicking around from a centre pull so I may try that and get the yoke lower and adjust the pads in closer and see if it makes a difference.
From my email Inbox this morning (my comments [like this]):
Dear Chris,
A very big thank you for reviewing the Tektro [CR520] cantilever brakes in the last issue of CTC magazine.
I have a Thorn XTC which was originally set up with straight bars the reason being I have a background in mtb riding and so was accustomed to this style of riding position. However after 3 years of joyous riding and given that my mtb was in need of a new set of levers and brakes I decided to convert the Thorn XTC to drop bars and put the levers and brakes on my Specialised Stumpjumper.
The XTC was fitted with Shimano R550 cantilevers [similar to Tektro Oryx] which compared to the mtb V brakes was like trying to stop an out of control elephant by pulling on it's ears - I exagerate but only slightly. I had been looking for alternative brakes to the R550s but found nothing that I thought would make a noticeable improvement until your review of the Tektro. I purchased a pair immediately from dotbike.com [presumably CR720, the CR520's smarter twin brother: anodised and with slip-in pads] and have to say for the £40 spend you have given me a bike which is once more a sheer pleasure to ride.
I live in Leeds so have the 'undulations' of the Yorkshire Dales on the doorstep. The brakes have proved to be very responsive, progressive and effective giving any braking requirement from a gentle slowdown to a controlled prompt halt when travelling downhill at speed. First impressions are therefore very favourable, let us see how they perform over the next 6 months.
Once again many thanks.
Paul M
Best bit of my job is helping people and then getting letters like that. I hope that putting it here helps a few other people too.
Chris Juden One lady owner, never raced or jumped.
My daughter's boyfriend has a pair of Oryx on a Dawes Horizon. I got them working by shimming the pads as per CJ then shortening the straddle. They'll never be as good as my old Dia Compe tandem longarms but they're certainly in the parish.
Changing a pair of glazed over pads might help too.
CJ wrote:New cables won't make much difference. New cable casings will.
Shorter straddles will problably make these brakes even worse. They might be a bit better if you can put thicker spacers between the blocks and arms, to make the arms stick out more horizontally, but the best thing is to replace this old mountain-bike style model with a modern version of the original road touring cantilever, e.g. Tektro CR520.
See (much) earlier posts on here about these brakes.
As an experiment I've swapped the spacers over on the rear Oryx brakes on my (7 week old) Dawes Horizon - thicker on the inside. Interesting to see if this improves the braking! If not, I'll try better pads, and if that don't work then I'll try a pair of CR520.
CJ, The new brakes do look nice and I am quite tempted. However, my budget is very limited and I am sufferring from bike fatigue at the moment. I bought a 2nd hand bike intending to tour in europe this year and instead of it being virtually ready to go, as I thought, I just seem to be running into problem after problem which require more money and time spent on it. Hence my reluctance to throw money at the brakes problem and reasoning that if people have been successfully using oryx on touring bikes for some years they should be able to work and won't suddenly have become useless just because a better type has come out. Also, if I think I will use it a lot, I would probably think of converting to a trekking or straight bar which would entail changing brakes again to go with mb levers.
On the other hand, I have been shocked at the price of new blocks (some people have recomended I try replacing the blocks although they still have a fair amount of wear left) and as the new brakes you recomend come with blocks I suppose that makes them seem a bit cheaper.
I also wondered whether to just buy one pair of the new ones for the front and keep the oryx on the rear.
Also I have seen people on the cyloX forums talk of 'mini Vs' with road levers but these don't seem to be talked about for touring bikes. Is there a reason why mini Vs aren't used on touring bikes?
I have tectro oryx cantis on my 07 Galaxy as fitted and they work fine. Squeal a bit from time to time but will lift the back wheel if used in anger and somewhat carelessly. They do need regualr adjustment as the blocks seem quite soft and you can run out of lever travel fairly quickly.
Bailout, I use mini-V's. Campag Mirage with Shimano STI levers on a Trek 520. They work very well. There are 2 problems people seem to report with mini-V's and they depend on the geometry of your frame and forks.
Standard V brake arms are about 100mm, minis seem to be 85-90 depending on the make. The shorter arms may not allow enough clearance for your mudguard. Depends on the clearances and tyre sizes.
The other problem may be that you still won't get much pad movement with the cable an STI/Ergo lever will pull - the lever may bottom out if the pads aren't adjusted very close to the rims. In my experience this depends on the placement of the brake bosses on the forks/stays. On my 520 the brake arms are 85mm and the pads sit near the top of the adjustment slot in the brake arm. This gives sufficient movement and the pads don't need to be adjusted very close to the rims all the time.
If you have drop bars but are using Down Tube or Bar End shifters then you can use full size V brakes with special V brake drop bar levers from Tektro or Cane Creek (in my opinion better than the ones Dia Compe make)
I thought the Avid shortys, rather like Tektro Oryx, on my Ultra Galaxy were rubbish, very poor for such an expensive bike, just OK in the dry but not really enough in reserve for the wet. Koolstop salmon pads didn't help much, either.
But eventually I got round to "sheldonising" them with shorter straddle wires - shimano "A" type instead of the supplied "B" - and they were miles better. I just put CR720s on the front and was a bit disappointed, they're not much different from the tuned shortys.
MartinC, thanks for the info on the mini Vs. I thought there might be clearence issues. My bike has 26" wheels and hence quite wide tyres and large mudguards, which could probably be fixed a bit lower.
goodlife, I have swapped my front link wire for a hook and straddle wire set lower but haven't had time to teat it yet. From looking at the table of linkwire sizes on sheldons site it looks like the linkwires that mine came with are the largest (106mm). I tried my local lbs for a shorter link wire but he didn't even know what I was talking about
BrianInnes wrote: As an experiment I've swapped the spacers over on the rear Oryx brakes on my (7 week old) Dawes Horizon - thicker on the inside. Interesting to see if this improves the braking! If not, I'll try better pads, and if that don't work then I'll try a pair of CR520.
Well after swapping the spacers over on the rear Oryx brakes on my Horizon and commuting a few times they still aren't all that effective on the steep downhill on the way home. Just recieved a pair of Tektro CR520s so I'll fit them at the weekend.
Interested to hear how you get on Brian, I don't really like the drop handlebars on this bike so I might look into how much it would cost to swap to a trekking bar and put v brakes and mtb levers and changers on it instead.
