Canti brakes on road bike?

GGBiker

I'm in the process of deciding on a build for a "do it all" bike , plan is to do a bit of cyclocross riding in autumn/winter, then stick mudguards and road tyres on and use it as a winter training bike . I have the spec sorted more or less but not sure about brakes.

Does anyone have experience of using canti or mini v brakes on the road?

Will mudguards fit under mini v brakes?

Thanks for any advice!

mercia_man

Touring bikes have used cantilever brakes for years. They work fine on the road, although not quite as good as modern dual pivot caliper brakes. But they are fiddly to set up and there can be compatibility issues with road levers.

The best canti brakes for road levers are those with wide horizontal arms rather than low profile cantis with the arms pointing upward. On my touring bike I use Campag Veloce levers (9 speed ultra shift from the early 2000s) with Campag wide arm cantilever brakes from about 1990 when Campag briefly ventured into the mountain bike market. They work well if adjusted so the arms are pretty much horizontal from the rim and the straddle cable makes a 90 degree angle where it is held in the middle by the stirrup attached to the main cable.

One issue with cantilever brakes on road bikes is that the lever pull ratio is generally not optimum, meaning you have to run the pads very close to the rim otherwise the lever will come back to the bars when you brake. But wide angle cantis are much better for this than low profile ones.

I've never used mini V brakes but I understand they also require pads to run very close to the rim. Some bikes with mudguards do use mini V brakes but clearance to the guards is very tight and I suspect you wouldn't be able to use tyres bigger than perhaps 28. I think Spa Cycles supply some mudguard models with Mini V brakes so it can be done.

Monty Dog

I have TRP 8.4 mini-vees on my custom titanium CX travel bike - the frame has clearances for 38mm tyres and with a 45mm mudguard I've had to cut a 20 x 6mm slot in the rear guard to allow the cable to run cleanly. My frame clearances are a lot bigger than a regular CX frame. I have cantis on my other CX bike so can make a direct comparison - the cleaner cable runs and more powerful braking would make me choose the mini-vees over cantis.

earthvspace4XTuUWcX

Have you considered discs? I think they are the best solution for the riding you have in mind.

kajjal

xdoc wrote:

Have you considered discs? I think they are the best solution for the riding you have in mind.

That would be my advice for wet and off road riding. Most rim based brakes are poor in the wet and also if you are quite heavy. I moved from v-brakes to disc brakes on my MTB a while ago and it is a big change with a lot more power and control. I weight about 100KG and am over 6ft6.

mm1

I have just built a cross / touring bike with Avid Shorty brakes and have to say I am very impressed with their performance, much better then the XT V brakes that I have on my mountain bike. The frame of my new bike (Condor Bivio X) has fittings for disc or cantilevers, and the main reason I went with cantis is that this allows compatibility across the various wheelsets that I currently own - this may end up being an unaffordable issue if the road standard changes to disc. I have nothing against discs per-se, both children have them on their mountain bikes, though at least one clubmate says he prefers racing off road on cantis.

mattrixdesign2

I have cantis on my Tricross, they are fiddly to get right, but once tuned in work well. Normally its has nobby wide tyres, but if I want to use it on road (say if the weather is bad) I can just swap wheels that have narrow slicks on, come winter I can easily swap to ice tyre/wheels etc.

Once the tricross has slicks on, its only marginally slower that my road bike.

If money was no object, and you did not need to change wheels, I would opt for disc. Makes so much sense in our wet, mucky, grimey roads.

Monty Dog

I had a CX bike with discs - I've got too many pairs of race CX wheels with tubulars so sold the disc-braked bike. I have 2 MTB with discs but I'm sticking with rim brakes on my CX bikes for now - didn't create too many problems on the 100 miles of the Dorset Gravel Dash 2 weeks ago where the mud and water was hub-deep in places.