[Closed] Gravel bike with rim brakes

V brakes suck. You can adjust the level off suckiness a bi.

Caliper brakes are great on narrow tyre/rim combos, not so much on wider tyres.

Get some disc brakes.

Hah, yeah, I'm probably just being a cheapskate moan. 😀

Surly Cross Check. V-brakes and massive sizes for massive peoples.

If you want V brakes you can either use Tektro RL520s with bar end shifters, or Travel Agents with STIs. I haven’t tried the latter. Or you could singlespeed it. Or hub gear it.

V-brakes were shit 20yrs ago. Doubt they’ve got any better.

Buy an old CAAD X OR Super X?
eg. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F173902056792

I had one, removed the cantis and replaced with mini-vs. Worked ok. Crap compared to discs, of course.

jam bo

V-brakes were shit 20yrs ago.

I thought they were brilliant.

Mind, I did grow up with rod-brakes... 🙂

Got mini v's on my old Genesis Vapour with travel agents and they've been fine so far for gravel bikepacking. 40mm nanos tyres. 105 compact up front and 13-42t cassette on the back.

I have a Rawland Nordavinden, that fits 35mm tyres easily and uses 55mm drop caliper brakes.
Hubjub had them in stock a while back. Pretty light, springy ride if you're not after a super modern bike. Does gravel just as easily as tarmac.

Rim brakes are shit and should be consigned to history.

simondbarnes

Rim brakes are shit and should be consigned to history.

Rim brakes are really just an extra large disc brake...

Decent rim brakes are fine, you big wendies. Given the choice I’d take discs, but each to their own.

I've got a charge plug singlespeed (alloy frame, clearance for ~45mm with v brakes).

IMO V-brakes are pretty much on a par with disks in the dry. They're still as scary as ever in the wet though.

Other downside is the rim weight. Realistically gravel rims are going to have a hard life. So you're looking at 550-600g touring rims to last a year or two rather than 400-450g (or lighter) disk rims which will last longer if you don't crash.

FWIW I have hydraulic disks, cable disks and v-brakes on different variations of gravel bikes. The power goes in the order you'd expect but V's are by no means useless.

I wouldn't deliberately buy a bike with them though. It's just a cheap and cheerful commuter. If there happend to be a comparable disk bike for sale tomorrow s/h I'd probably buy it and sell the plug.

Riding in wet - rim brakes simply aren't as good, need your wheels to be really true, and wear your rims out.

Rim brakes are really just an extra large disc brake…

Rim brakes are really just an extra large, rubbish disc brake…

simondbarnes

Rim brakes are really just an extra large, rubbish disc brake…

Indeed, and that raises the question - why?

A friction device operating at the perimeter of a large disk has more leverage than one acting at a ¼ of its diameter.

So why are they so bad in comparison?

The best rim brakes I've used are Resilion cantilevers from 1932 operating on an unchromed steel rim.

One of my biggest regrets when I had my old Specialized Tricross Single cross, was not exploring how wide a tyre I could fit. Supposedly they had clearance for ~40mm.

There are loads of reasons, a few of which are...

Braking surface area

Pad material

Rim material

Angle of pads hitting rims

Proximity of rim to puddles / mud

Yeah it sucks, discs have the monopoly unless you go custom or adapt a tourer. Van Nicholas Amazon comes to mind, Scotroutes on here has done a lovely job with his.

Gunbar Crosshairs would be awesome but best part oc £1500 once you've imported and got forks etc.

I've got a Charge Plug as well with posh mini-vs and Swisstop pads. So good I'm converting it to gears. The braking is absolutely fine, with none of the squeeling in wet weather that comes with discs, or the random rubbing, or that grinding you get in wet gritty conditions, etc etc. Just more pleasant to ride! Oh, and lighter and cheaper of course.

none of the squeeling in wet weather that comes with discs, or the random rubbing, or that grinding you get in wet gritty conditions, etc

That bothers extremely few people...

In answer to your original question OP.

Yes there are some rim braked bikes about that would fit the modern "Gravel" niche, not all that long ago cyclocross bikes used canti' brakes and ~32mm tyres and were adequate for going off road...

Have a poke about ebay/classifieds your bound to find an old cross bike to try.

But it has to be said, modern disc braked, 40mm+ tyred gravel bikes are much better for what is essentially mixed terrain riding/touring...

So why are they so bad in comparison?

The stopping force is proportional to the clamping force of the brake pads x the coefficient of friction x the leverage ratio.

Rim brakes win on leverage ratio and coefficient of friction. But lose out massively on clamping force. The pull ratio/hydraulic ratio of the disk brake calliper is much much higher, the pads barely move compared to a rim brake, thus move with much more force.

Any old cross bike is what you are looking for. I run mini Vs with Gevenalle levers. I should have gone for the mtb pull rather than road, and full on Vs instead. But the braking is fine. Even in the wet. Wheels are kayriums with Schwalbe G One Speeds

If you are running single speed or fancy bar end shifters, I’d go for road levers with V brake pull. Want gears? Add a bar end shifter.

Interesting about the pull ratio- explains a lot.

Despite being a retro grouch I would choose discs these days for consistency, fit and forget and the ability to change wheel size in a frame.

But, on an old eighties mtb I have cantis with koolstop pads and they a brilliant, even in the wet. Stock Shimano pads of the era were crap but if they are set up right, with good pads, cantis and v-brakes can be surprisingly good.

I have a surly cross check with v-brakes. Loads of clearance and a really good frame, if a little long in the top tube and low at the front.

Just get disc calipers and compressionless cable outers and use everything else you have.

Work great for me and i'm 100kgs...

You can still buy HS33s if you really don't want disks.

Thanks for the replies. I will no doubt end up with disc brakes in the end.

It just seems like rim-based braking, would be a cheaper/lighter/easier solution than cables disc in particular for the lower spec models anyway. Shorter cable-runs too, hence less drag/stretch than cable discs.

I didn't mean for people to get hung up on v-brakes in particular; I don't know if modern calipers out-perform v-brakes either (i.e. the 105 calipers on my Allez are very good, I can't remember how my Vs were back in the day), I just assumed as they were MTB they'd be more powerful of the two.

Thanks.

🙂

scotroutes

You can still buy HS33s if you really don’t want disks.

I've got a set of dropbar HS66s in the attic (dropbar) - was thinking of combining them with a set of steel rims. 🙂

It just seems like rim-based braking, would be a cheaper/lighter/easier solution than cables disc in particular for the lower spec models anyway. Shorter cable-runs too, hence less drag/stretch than cable discs.

I agree, it seems to be lower spec bikes in particular that suffer with cheap disc brakes AND cheaper other components, there's a lot of £1000 bikes out there now that I wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole, marginally improved braking or not.

And as for the more expensive disc braked bikes, I just look at them and wonder how much better the rim braked equivalent might be, lighter? Better groupset?

Like Mr Campagnolo himself said "I make my bikes to go, not to stop" 😉 (doesn't apply to MTBs obviously...)

Cable disc brakes with decent cables can be very good, I have TRP Spyres and I wouldn't swap them for any kind of rim brake.
Rim brakes are a solution to a problem and they work but disc brakes are a better solution

Rim brakes may be slightly cheaper until you trash your first set of rims, and especially not after the second and third and so on. It's wasteful if nothing else.

Rim brakes can be great in the dry but in rainy conditions (i.e. not just damp but lots of water) they don't work as well but they wear like mad. I don't miss stopping to reposition the stump of a brake pad half way round a ride.

Discs aren't expensive any more. I got hydro disc sets (lever, caliper, pads and rotor ready assembled) for my daughter's bike retail for £20 an end, the manufacturer's won't even pay that. And they work better than top end rim brakes.

I agree, it seems to be lower spec bikes in particular that suffer with cheap disc brakes AND cheaper other components, there’s a lot of £1000 bikes out there now that I wouldn’t touch with a 10ft pole, marginally improved braking or not.

Jameso is probably the man to ask but I suspect that the difference in price between spyres and v brakes isn't that much. Its only ~£25 difference buying them on eBay.

And you would then have to develop, CEN test and manufacture a separate frame which would almost certainly wipe out any cost savings.

Like I said V's aren't shit. But I wouldn't buy a new bike with them, my plug just came up at a price too good to refuse and fits my commute perfectly. A disk braked version would be better, but mine was £900 cheaper than the generic "£1k cable disk braked gravel bike" alternative.

As someone said, if you want a cheap drop bar gravel bike, just find an old CX bike on eBay and get one with lots of clearance (the aluminium plug certainly wins in that respect).

Ive got saved searches for a grinduro or verenti isolation though.

Al made the point earlier about wheel true-ness. I'd expect a "gravel" wheelset to go through a bit more harsh terrain than one being used primarily on road or on a CX course (short races in any case). A disk brake just makes so much more sense for that purpose, even before you start looking at the other benefits.

Another benefit not already mentioned is the ability to fit different wheel sizes. My VN Amazon is used with both 700 and 650 wheels. Other folk are doing much the same now that frame/tyre clearances are improving.

I raced for years on a rim-braked CX bike - many will happily take a 40mm tyre and perfectly suited to 'gravel' riding or type of off-road riding we did before someone stuck a name on it. My CXSS has a cable disc upfront and mini-vees on the back. Comments from posters about the inadequacies of certain brakes probably says more about their mechanical incompetence...though some models of cantilevers are a right pain to set up and we quite happily ditched them when vee-brakes came along.

I had (and still have some) bikes with every type of rim brake - side pulls, U brakes, Maguras, V brakes, cantis and even Grafton Speed Controllers, and they were all terrible. I'm surprised, given the option of having disc brakes, that anyone would still want rim brakes.

JP

My first cx had canti brakes and that is the reason I sold it. It was a focus mares and was an excellent bike excluding the brakes. I bought a giant revolt to replace it which is s gravel bike but essentially just the same. It has discs. The second ride after I bought it I was flying down a farm track and a car pulled out and luckily I was able to stop. If I was on my bike with canti brakes I’d have been ****ed. Proper ****ed 😀. Don’t ever plan on going back to rim brakes.

I rode for a few years in Scotland on Cantilever brakes, they do stop you!!! However if you live in an area with long or steep down hills you do have to be careful in wet conditions and plan according, on a really steep wet muddy section you may not be able to stop!!
Got me round the Dirty Reiver ok the first year in foul conditions.
Setting them up realty well can be a time consuming, but does make a difference.
In the dry they are not too bad.
A good way of picking up a good bike at a bargain price and seeing if you like gravel riding.
The avid shorty (on a cx bike ) were superior to the Shimano ( I had on a tourer set up for gravel which I did the DR on )
In cx the speeds are lower, but you can pick up quite a bit of speed on a fire road on gravel .
The future is disc and I would not go back now, but it was ok at the time ,and the riding just as good fun. I think good V brakes are a bit more powerful but "grabby" and possibly not as good working with sti type levers, but not so sure if thats correct or not.
Touring bikes can still be bought with Cantilever brakes, not trendy, but versatile bikes, make good gravel bikes.

Talking of cantis, anyone used the Big Squeeze versions? They look like they may have a better set up than most.

Rodriguez Bikes https://www.rodbikes.com/articles/bigsqueeze.html

How many adjustments do they have? Having had the faff of trying to fit modern-ish cantis to an old frame with mismatched widths I can see some appeal in that much adjustability*. But when people can't agree on the correct geometry for the cables on cantis in general making them more adjustable is not the solution! Mini V's are the solution!

*I ended up with the bastard offspring of a set of trp froglegs and shimano cx 70 to get the right clearance. They were still rubbish.

thisisnotaspoon

Mini V’s are the solution!

Agree - until you fit mudguards and the cable interferes with the mudguard.

I dunno why you'd think cheap discs are unsafe. There's next to no tech involved, and they won't break. Cheap V brakes are no different.