Onza HO cantis

These brakes seem to be mentioned a lot on Retrobike and obviously have a cult following, popping up in the For Sale ads quite often. In case you're wondering why I'm posting this in a Road forum....they do look smart and definitely out of the ordinary and I'm tempted to track down a set for my 'cross bike, but (a) do they work OK with drop-bar levers (Chorus Ergopower in my case), (b) are they any better than orthodox "wide profile" cantilevers like Weinmann, Avid or Empella Froglegs and (c) are they best kept for "pose value" or are they robust & reliable enough for week-in, week-out competitive use? Feedback very welcome, thanks in advance.

David

Road levers are fine with cantis , they dont work very well with V brakes .

I dont think Onza are that good .

Never really got on with the low profile cantis with road brake levers and Onza are fairly low pro, they just seem to miss on the power (I've got a set of Pauls neo retro and tourers, much better!. The ones to buy if you've got your heart set are the silver onza brakes, never, never, never buy the nasty black ones which will brake as soon as you look at them.

Depends on how you like your mud clearance.

Frogglegs will give you an extra 3mm per side.

For me that's reason enough to go down the non-low-pro path.

dia compe do a drop-bar v lever


287 springs to mind

But he's running Chorus Ergopower....

pete_mcc":3n7s1bd0 said:

never, never, never buy the nasty black ones which will brake as soon as you look at them.

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that should read 'break as soon as look at them',not brake. That spelling mistake sort of ruins the whole point I was making!

my advice would be to use avid shortys over the onza ho cantis ive got ho's on my atb but i just would't stress them on a cross bike not worth the risk of them failing on ya buddy

I've used the HOs and did not reckon much to them although someone mentioned today that it is almost a right of passage to own and sell a set and I'd reckon that's fair.

I'd rate Shimano low profile (XTR, XT or LX all perform fairly equally, depends on budget/bling factor desired) highly, have worked well for me with Shimano or Campag aero levers so would have thought they'd be equally fine with Ergo levers. I know that XC Pro (with SE rear) work well with Ergo levers, good power but initially a little fiddly to set up (for a mechanical fool like me) but fine once you know how.

Taking all that waffle into account, I'd have thought that Frogglegs are the No. 1 choice of crossers for a reason and guess but don't know that mud clearance is not the only reason why. I've got a set and am yet to fit but I'll try to report back when I do.

cce":31reb048 said:

dia compe do a drop-bar v lever

287 springs to mind

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I've used these, they do work with careful setting up but do need to be accurately adjusted and, for me, are a compromise and not a very good compromise at that (used them with XT, Deore and Avid Single digit v's).