dirttorpedo
Senior Retro Guru
Ok, so this weekend I picked up a "new" bike and it came equiped with early 90's vintage Shimano Cantis. Whole bike looks pretty much stock except for the fork and the front cable hanger for the brakes. The old Marzocchi has been replaced with a rigid unicrown.
So, I've been happily riding my v-brakes since 1992 or 93 when I swapped the stock Shimano Canti's that came with my Stumpjumper for XT v-brakes. Based on memory I could never keep those canti's adjusted properly, so I'm a bit leery of these things. But, I don't really want to swap them out, so I'm going to give them a chance. It looks like they still have the original pads - so those have to go. I'm going to replace them with koolstop salmon for our wonderful west coast rainy winters. The fronts seem to be set up pretty well - I can get good strong braking with those shimano pads. The rears are a different story. Can't get a lot of power with them. Certainly can't lock them up. They don't seem to want to return to the neutral position - not sure if its because of the funky cable protector sleeve or tension adjustment or ?.
Anyhow, I've found the canti adjustment threads and the links to the various sites. I've noticed here that some people swap the stock cable hangers for aftermarket designs. These things have those funny disc shaped Shimano ones that use a fixed length cable and the main brake cable as a run through. My sense is that these are "OK" but that there are better designs out there. Anything that can make this simpler would be worth the investment of a few bucks so I'm looking for suggestions.
So, I've been happily riding my v-brakes since 1992 or 93 when I swapped the stock Shimano Canti's that came with my Stumpjumper for XT v-brakes. Based on memory I could never keep those canti's adjusted properly, so I'm a bit leery of these things. But, I don't really want to swap them out, so I'm going to give them a chance. It looks like they still have the original pads - so those have to go. I'm going to replace them with koolstop salmon for our wonderful west coast rainy winters. The fronts seem to be set up pretty well - I can get good strong braking with those shimano pads. The rears are a different story. Can't get a lot of power with them. Certainly can't lock them up. They don't seem to want to return to the neutral position - not sure if its because of the funky cable protector sleeve or tension adjustment or ?.
Anyhow, I've found the canti adjustment threads and the links to the various sites. I've noticed here that some people swap the stock cable hangers for aftermarket designs. These things have those funny disc shaped Shimano ones that use a fixed length cable and the main brake cable as a run through. My sense is that these are "OK" but that there are better designs out there. Anything that can make this simpler would be worth the investment of a few bucks so I'm looking for suggestions.