Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

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Si
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by Si »

FWIW, i changed the cantis on my galaxy to Vs and tektro levers. Best braking i've ever had on a drop bar bike, and i found the hoods comfortable too.
MikeDee
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by MikeDee »

The best upgrade I've made to my touring bike was to put V brakes on it. I had a lot of friction in the cables going through the cable hangers with cantis. Cable routing and management are one of the big plusses with V brakes.
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531colin
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by 531colin »

MikeDee wrote:The best upgrade I've made to my touring bike was to put V brakes on it. I had a lot of friction in the cables going through the cable hangers with cantis. Cable routing and management are one of the big plusses with V brakes.


The longer cable travel at less tension is no bad thing either.
tooley92
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by tooley92 »

Si wrote:FWIW, i changed the cantis on my galaxy to Vs and tektro levers. Best braking i've ever had on a drop bar bike, and i found the hoods comfortable too.


Me too!
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by MikeF »

tooley92 wrote:
Si wrote:FWIW, i changed the cantis on my galaxy to Vs and tektro levers. Best braking i've ever had on a drop bar bike, and i found the hoods comfortable too.


Me too!
+1 My Tektro hoods I find very comfortable. Shimano could take lessons. :wink: Mini V on the front canti on the rear. Rear brake provides little stopping power on roads and "trails", so it doesn't need to be as effective as the front.
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MikeDee
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by MikeDee »

If you go with V brake levers, go with the Tektro ones instead of Cane Creek, they are a lot cheaper and there only minor cosmetic differences between them. I have both.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by The utility cyclist »

MikeF wrote:
tooley92 wrote:
Si wrote:FWIW, i changed the cantis on my galaxy to Vs and tektro levers. Best braking i've ever had on a drop bar bike, and i found the hoods comfortable too.


Me too!
+1 My Tektro hoods I find very comfortable. Shimano could take lessons. :wink: Mini V on the front canti on the rear. Rear brake provides little stopping power on roads and "trails", so it doesn't need to be as effective as the front.

How little? Less so if you put an inferior brake system on and/or pay it no mind.
Sorry but as someone that uses their back brake first to retard speed I don't agree with your summation. Why have two different braking types in any case, it makes no logical sense at all :?
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531colin
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by 531colin »

In general, you can have more retardation from the front brake than you can from the rear.
Emergency braking on a dry road is (should be) limited by your ability to keep the back wheel down and in contact with the road.....the rear brake has very little effect under those circumstances.
On un-tarmaced tracks there is generally less tyre grip available. Although a front skid is more of a problem than a rear skid, you can still get much more actual retardation from the front brake before the front wheel skids than you can from the rear brake before the rear wheel skids.
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by dragonrider »

Having just ridden 140 miles in the Southern Lake District - Cartmel, Bowland Bridge, High Newton, etc., I can’t for the life of me these days imagine why anyone would want either Cantis or V Brakes for touring especially in wet weather. The mechanical BB7 discs on my Spa Elan (thanks Colin!) never gave a moments worry on big hills with wet and poor surfaces. Smooth, progressive and fade free. Disc brakes will change your life! PS I should add I was a purist once but things move on, and get better.
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by Colin_P »

dragonrider wrote:Having just ridden 140 miles in the Southern Lake District - Cartmel, Bowland Bridge, High Newton, etc., I can’t for the life of me these days imagine why anyone would want either Cantis or V Brakes for touring especially in wet weather. The mechanical BB7 discs on my Spa Elan (thanks Colin!) never gave a moments worry on big hills with wet and poor surfaces. Smooth, progressive and fade free. Disc brakes will change your life! PS I should add I was a purist once but things move on, and get better.


Couldn't agree more. (I'm not the Colin you refer to by the way, I'm another one :wink: )

If I were having a frame built, I'd spec it for discs and fit Avid BB7 cable disc calipers.

There is no downside other than having to periodically adjust the pads, which takes seconds. They stop you just the same, wet or dry and there is no nasty mess on the rims from riding in the wet as there is with rim brakes.

And a new set of pads for about £15 is far preferable than having to re-rim or buy a new set of wheels as and when the time comes.
GideonReade
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by GideonReade »

My tuppence worth...

I agree with the school of thought that the front brake gives the strongest braking, the rear can have less ultimate power. But nursing a heavy tourer, or a tandem, down one of those horrible (foreign!) hills, full of hairpins but with a gravelly surface, after 45 minutes of applying the rear brake "gently", my hand gets awful sore. So I'd rather have a rear brake requiring low lever effort. Which in practice probably means a powerful brake.

About disks - isn't there a (retreating) school of thought that the resulting need for very stiff forks, means that a front disk gives you either a harsh ride, or you need 2"/50mm tyres, or suspension? Whereas a rim brake allows a springy fork to be used. No such issue at rear, don't Thorn offer a bike with rim front, disk rear for just that reason?
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by Brucey »

this thread is meant to be about a choice between two rim brakes, not whether disc brakes are better or not. I've owned and used bikes with disc brakes for about 20 years and they are good for some jobs, not good for others, and very far from universally trouble-free.

For a long time when contemplating disc brakes on touring bikes, I'd be wondering why on earth anyone would want a heavier, more expensive, less comfortable bike, with weaker wheels.

Well, I'm still wondering.

BTW when folk are wondering about spending more on a slightly different bike, the vexed subject of weight vs cost comes up. In a traditional bike, more weight knackers you in two respects;

- first it is more weight to lug up and down hills
- second it usually causes the bike to ride less well

Most folk get completely fixated on the first one, which is just stupid. The second one is far more important. The reduction in ride quality comes from two sources; first, there are likely to be parts of the bike that are stiffer than they should be and second there are heavier things flapping around attached to the springy bits.

Fitting disc brakes only ever makes all this worse, not better.

I sometimes ask folk if they would willingly carry a 1kg of extra equipment attached to their bike, all the time. Lets say it is scientific equipment; the results of the science will be of no use to them or anyone they know, in fact the data will be kept private and will be owned by a faceless corporation who will use it for their own profit and nothing else. They always say 'no' to this. I then ask them if they were paid to do so, how much money it would take to have them do it. There is sometimes a realistic number in response to this; well, this is about how much it is worth, to you, to buy a lighter bike that rides the same. Remember that this weight only influences the first thing, it doesn't really influence the way the bike rides. In reality if you take two traditionally constructed bikes of similar quality where one is heavier than the other the lighter one almost invariably rides far better than the heavier one.

The bottom line is for me that a bike with a disc brakes is usually a worse bike in every other respect in return for (in road use) some largely notional improvement in braking performance. To my mind the fact that manufacturers seem keen to produce bikes with disc brakes is arguably a reflection of two things;

1) they have run out of genuinely good ideas and
2) there are enough (gullible?) punters to buy them.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Colin_P
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by Colin_P »

I'd say V's or Cantis over cable operated disc brakes would add <200g, not 1500g.

Wearing out wheelsets gets boring and expensive but depends on when and where you ride. If your bike is a winter shed queen that never comes out between October and April then rims brakes maybe. If you are out in the wet and and grit and do a few miles then wheels wear out quite quickly, I'd go through a set every 2,000 miles along with countless pad changes in that time. Converting to discs for me has been a revelation.

As for ride and stiffness, bigger tyres take care of that. By definition, most people would expect a little added weight on a tourer and ruggedness sacrificing all out comfort, but not all.

As for V's vs cable discs, performance wise, I'd say they are the same with the discs only out performing them in the wet. The real difference is wear. As for cantis, I binned them years ago, in my mind inferior and a proper faff to set up with continued faffing required to keep them optimal.

But as with everything in life, you pays your money and makes your choice.
Brucey
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by Brucey »

Colin_P wrote:I'd say V's or Cantis over cable operated disc brakes would add <200g, not 1500g. .


well, you would be wrong.

cheers
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dragonrider
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Re: Canti's or V-brakes for new touring frame

Post by dragonrider »

Brucey wrote:
Colin_P wrote:I'd say V's or Cantis over cable operated disc brakes would add <200g, not 1500g. .


well, you would be wrong.

cheers


My two most loved and used bikes are for summer a 5 year old Specialized carbon Roubaix with standard road brakes, weight ready to ride 10.25kg, and for winter/touring a titanium Spa Elan with BB7 discs, weight ready to ride 10.50kg. Weighed on the same scales on the same day.

They both have Mavic Aksium wheels (disc version on the Elan), and the same gear set up exactly (triple XT Plus Tiagra 10 speed). Saddles and Handlebars are the same, but the Elan has the slight weight penalty of mudguards and 28mm tyres as opposed to 25mm on the Roubaix. Tyre type is identical. The bikes probably weigh more than expected but I am tall so there is more frame material.

I think a 5 year old carbon and a new titanium should be about the same weight. So I can’t see from this evidence where extra weight of the discs and kit is. If there is any at all it is probably in the order of 200gm as given by Colin P. What has happened in recent years of course is that the weight of the disc/wheel/fork set up has been refined and reduced. So now they are pretty much the same.
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