[Closed] Quick! Cantilever brakes question

Cantis are adequate but can be faffy to keep in good working condition. Hydraulic brakes would be much better for an all weather bike

I never really considered my TRP cantilevers as brakes. They were just shiny red bits of metal that made a sqeualing noise( if I was lucky) to alert others that I was about to crash into them. They were absolutely lethal in the wet. In my opinion they had nowhere the stopping power of road brakes.

Thank you for that. Decision made.

in the meantime, why have I seen so many competition-based CX bikes with cantis then?

Cantos are fine on the road.

Tradition and fanbois.

You barely need to brake in proper cx racing, and the nice thing about cantis is you get lots of pad-rim clearance. But that's what gives the low power.

Mini v's work infinitely better if the bike is being used as an all rounder - approaching disc levels of stopping power.

Weight possibly? After one season racing in Scotland I'm not even sure the braking on a CX bike is all that important.

People bang on about the all-weather performance of discs but on my commuter they just screech when they're wet and cold, I've gone back to the CX bike with mini vs instead of cantis, and posh Swisstop pads which slow you down in the wet, minus screech

Damn, too slow, basically repeated what the last three posts said...

Honestly if you keep them well adjusted. Over the handlebars you'll go.

In the wet they'll take a bit longer to clear the rim.

Are they better than disks? Nah.

But neither are road brakes and its not that common to cycle into the first wall you see.

Is it a deal breaker for me? No not if the bike is a steel

It's possible, with the right parts and with perfect setup and the ideal pads, to make them merely bad. I'd forgotten how much I hated them so I got a crosser with them, but after I think 3 rides like 13thfloormonk I stuck mini Vs on mine (which cost £7 an end) and they were instantly better than any cantis I've ever used...

Canti apologists kept telling me they lacked mud clearance but they had more mud clearance than the frame so, I dunno.

Canti apologists kept telling me they lacked mud clearance but they had more mud clearance than the frame so, I dunno.

I think the mud clearance that I keep hearing about relates to clearance between pad and rim - cantis pull the pads back a long ways from the rim so less likely to drag/rub/grind muddy paste continuously.

Mini v's run the pads closer to the rim - less clearance

Discs are actually the worst as there's barely any clearnce pad-rotor, so you spend most of the race with scratchy draggy brakes.

Discs better for a commuter especially with all the rain we are owed!

I have Avid Shorty, some TRP carbon and some mini Vs. The Avids are great, the V brakes replaced the carbon, then I replaced the Avids with carbon.  (two bikes). I’m going back to the Avids

well set up they work fine and  in all weathers on my winter bike. The mini Vs are on the race cross bike due to folk shudder

I wouldn’t race discs in cross. Heavy and squealy

I had cantis on my old work bike (steel frame tourer so quite heavy). They were dreadful in the wet. And the dry. Hateful things.  I swapped them for mini Vs even though I had to faff about with the mudguards.  The mini Vs were much better but still not great.

P.s. The cantis were Tektro Oryx, which I think are renowned for being shite.

I'll echo what's already been said.

Cantis can be very good if you set them up just right.

Mini-Vs are just as good/better, and there's no faff in the set up, and a fraction of the cost of good cantis.

Disks are way better but heavy in comparison.

But with discs you will miss out on all the fun?

Nothing beats the challenge of holding the brake arm and pad with one hand so that the front of the brake pad is against the rim, with the rear of the brake pad about 2mm away for proper toe-in, with the pad following the arc of the rim as close as possible, not to close to the tyre but not so close to the bottom of the brake track that it risks slipping down onto the spokes and also allowing for enough brake stud protruding so that the brake contacts the rim at the right point in the brake pull, holding the assorted angled washers in line with your second hand whilst trying to cinch up the brake pad holder with your third hand before it all moves out of alignment by a fraction of a mm and you have to start again.

My best ever Cantis.

XT low profiles with Scott Matthauser Superbrake pads. As good as discs in the dry, errr not brilliant in the wet but better than you expect...

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Actually, since we appear to have all the cantilever experts in one place, is there any accepted wisdom on long thin pads vs. short thick pads?

e.g. comparing the Swisstop BXPs to something like the Koolstop Salmons.

Just wondering if the longer pads require less toe-ing in...

keep your pads and cables in good nick and they are more than good enough for the job - you might get arm pump on the trails but for commuting they are fine.

set your levers so that the last half of the lever pull engages the brakes - this will give max power in my experience. I spent years with them set up so close to the rim and was so surprised when a club mate showed me how to set them up.

toe them in too and you'll not get any shudder etc.

with all things like this they slowly deteriorate so you only notice how bad they have become when you replace cables & pads

some canti's are easier to set up than others. I have TRP EuroX and they are a little fiddly to set up. but the shimano and avid ones are easier (just one allen key to move up and down)

Personally I wouldn’t go for the very long pads as they might be trickier to set up and are more likely to be a harder V brake compound.

Softest compound you can find in a block which isn’t massive I’d say.

Personally I dont like cantis, I just dont see the point when there are now far better braking solutions available (IMO), your needs/use may be different. Cantis are cheap and simple, pads are cheap. Well set up cantis work reasonably well (eg you can endo etc) but will require adjustment as pads wear to prevent them diving, open system hydraulic discs brakes are self adjusting as pads wear. Mechanical discs will require the pads to be advanced due to wear, but the caliper should not need repositioned

Rim breaks wear out rims as well as pads, again this depends on your use, I have customers that can wear out a rim a year!

A lot of canti issues are setup issues. Sheldon Brown has good info and setup;

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-geometry.html

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/canti-trad.html

I believe theoretically the size of the pad doesn't matter.

But in practice a longer pad may work better in the wet by clearing more of the water away, thus allowing the further part of the pad to do the braking on a drier surface than otherwise.

I score sipes in the leading edges of my pads.

I was thinking more that the longer length of pad would prevent whatever mechanism it is that causes squeel if not toed in (I imagine the squeel is caused when the back of the pad gets pulled forward/under the front of the pad by the wheel's rotation which twists the brake arm and lifts the front of the pad off the rim? Longer pad length equals more pad 'behind' the brake arm so perhaps less likely to get pulled 'under').

It's not a big issue really, I just find it wasteful having to bin pads that still have lots of material left at the back but none at the front! Swisstop do a longer pad that looks like a precursor to the BXP compound, will try remember and order a set, see how they perform.

13thfloormonk

I was thinking more that the longer length of pad would prevent whatever mechanism it is that causes squeel if not toed in...

I've never had squeal to the extent it bothers me too much on cantis. Mine do squeal occasionally though.

I have wondered if bolting a little lead weigh on each pad would help by changing the resonant frequency. It was how we fixed the vibration on motorbike handlebars back in the day of rattley flexi-cranked British big parallel twins.

Neither have I really, just interested in the mechanics of it, I don't have to toe in my Ultegra callipers, but I do have to toe in my mini-vs. Much cheaper rims on the mini-v equipped bike now I think about it...

I have TRP carbons on my CX 'race' bike and TRP CX8.4 mini-vees on another bike. Modern cantis that take a cartridge-type, vee-brake shoes are a lot easier to adjust for toe-in and generally more effective that traditional Frog-Leg and wide-style mantis IME which require three hands to adjust. No-one ever won a CX race by braking harder - it's only in the last few seasons and I expect pressure from sponsors than the top-riders have switched to discs, but they still use cantis in some races.