Tandem rim brakes

[DaveP]

The rim brakes on t' two seater are Avid Arch Rivals. These are a v brake with a parallel motion linkage. I imagine they are similiar to what XT v's used to be like - not sure because I've only ever seen pictures...
At any rate they did seem to be well regarded in their day and indeed they work satisfactorily now. The problem is that the springs are rather rusty making me worry about a sudden failure. This wouldnt prevent them from stopping us but would, I imagine, be a bit of a pain until we got home, so I'm thinking of replacing them before going too far from home.

Am I over reacting?

D'you think conventional V brakes would be as effective, with the right blocks?

Any reccommendations?

[stewartpratt]

Rust by its nature generally looks much worse on the surface than it is underneath. I think they'll be fine.

I don't think there's any real braking advantages to be had with linkages. They make the brake easier to set up and give more even pad wear.

On our tandem we just have normal Vs (one XTR, one Deore) but I use levers designed for old cantis. Gives more power at the lever, but means you need to run the pads close to the rim and thus you need the wheels to be good and true.

[TonyR]

Unless they are rusting through (very unlikely, it's probably just surface rust), they'll be fine. If you want dunk them in rust converter to passivate the rust. I suspect anyway you might have a lot of trouble getting replacements but they were very good brakes in their time and still should be

[531colin]

I'm still running a couple of sets of XT parallel push.
Leverage is exactly the same as any other V brake, but there is no fiddling to get the pads onto the rim as they wear. I run the pads down to less than a millimetre and just slip in the new pads and away you go. I also carry spares when I'm away! The shoe touching the rim makes a different noise.....