# What are the best cantilever brakes



## User16390 (1 Jul 2011)

Anyone out there give me some recommendations for the best performing cantilever brakes to replace my rather old and tired ones on my touring bike please


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## HLaB (1 Jul 2011)

Never used them but the avid shorty are supposed to be good brakes.


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## John the Monkey (1 Jul 2011)

What levers do you have?

For Tiagra STi, I like Oryx, but they have to be gapped *very* close to the rim to work well, and need relatively frequent adjustment.

Tektro CR720 will give you more clearance, at the expense of (ime) power.

For levers designed for cantis, I don't really know, as I understand that they are better tuned to the mechanical advantage of a conventional canti brake. Anecdotally, for such levers, the CR720 with a reasonably low straddle wire is thought to be good.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (1 Jul 2011)

i upgraded to v brakes, far superior and was cheap at £12 per pair


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## MichaelM (1 Jul 2011)

bromptonfb said:


> *i upgraded to v brakes*, far superior and was cheap at £12 per pair



With STI's?


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (1 Jul 2011)

op doesn't mention sti's


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (1 Jul 2011)

plus travel agents make v's useable with sti's anyway


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## HLaB (2 Jul 2011)

bromptonfb said:


> plus travel agents make v's useable with sti's anyway



Useable would be the correct word, they are far from perfect


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## John the Monkey (4 Jul 2011)

MichaelM said:


> With STI's?



Possible - either with travel agents (which personally, I don't fancy very much) or with "mini-vs" which have shorter arms to match the mechanical advantage of road levers. I've yet to try them myself, but intend to at some point.

This is a useful thread for figuring out what sort of mini-v you need;
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=146309

The plus of these is that they tend to be cheap (£10 - £15) so it won't break the bank to try them out.


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## HLaB (4 Jul 2011)

John the Monkey said:


> Possible - either with travel agents (which personally, I don't fancy very much) or with "mini-vs" which have shorter arms to match the mechanical advantage of road levers. I've yet to try them myself, but intend to at some point.
> 
> This is a useful thread for figuring out what sort of mini-v you need;
> http://forums.roadbi...ad.php?t=146309
> ...



That's interesting JohnTM; my v's are 90mm and I use them with travel agents and the braking is not perfect but it looks like I can get 75mm. The bike's on the turbo atm but if I ever put it back on the road I might try 75mm brake arms ;-)


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## Dave Davenport (4 Jul 2011)

Not sure if these are the 'best' but I've got them on my tourer and have found they work pretty well in all conditions, they're a lot better than the Tektro ones on mrs d's tricross. Bloody good brakes for 20 quid anyway.

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/suntour-...antilever-brake-set-front-and-rear-prod18982/


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## John the Monkey (4 Jul 2011)

HLaB said:


> That's interesting JohnTM; my v's are 90mm and I use them with travel agents and the braking is not perfect but it looks like I can get 75mm. The bike's on the turbo atm but if I ever put it back on the road I might try 75mm brake arms ;-)



I did the measuring and the LHT needs 85m, by my reckoning. It's something I keep meaning to try, but it's at the back of the queue behind a couple of wheel builds &c


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