Cantilever or V brakes, which are better?

Ok have searched to no avail or my search skills are poor.

Have some cantilver brakes and some v brakes and was wondering which would over superior stoping power. This will be a predominantly on road and soft off road bike Or are they much of a muchness.

What is your opinion.

v brakes are a kind of canti.

do you mean caliper or v brake? in which case it depends on your frame.

v brakes are a kind of canti.

do you mean caliper or v brake? in which case it depends on your frame.

ahhh I mean cantilever with the bridge cable and V brakes with the noodles. I though they were different in some way, apart from shape of course.

i see. i was of the impression that v brakes were better.

easier to get right

V-brakes have a higher mechanical advantage than cantis (i.e. for a given braking force at the lever, more force is applied at the rim).

I used both on a cross bike recently. Vs seemed to stop faster and are easier to setup/adjust. Canti's gave slightly better modulation which was useful when using skinny tyres off road as V brakes lock up very easily (more of a switch action on a V than a canti)

NO fucking brakes muthafuckers!

V brakes are an evolution of the older style cantilever, I went from cantis to Vs on my MTB and Vs give better stopping performance.

Remember that V brakes tend to need a longer pull than cantilevers so make sure your levers are suitable for use with Vs as well.

Horses for courses, as far as I'm concerned, V's are best if if your handlebar shape (i.e. flat bars) let you use brake levers with the correct cable pull. Canti's if you need brakes that work with drop bar levers. Don't muck with leverage adjusters (travel agents etc) if you don't have to.....

Also:
V brakes with pads and concave/convex washers are easy-peasy to set up.

V bakes don't stick out as much as canti's which may snag your panniers etc

Canti's with unthreaded studs on the pads can be a bit fiddly- so no toe-in possible without bending (erm, cold setting). Getting the cable linkage set up for optimal leverage can be a bit fiddly. Of course you may see this as an opportunity to bias the braking the way you like it.
YMMV,
Scherrit.

V-brakes everytime, superior stopping power, and if you want decent modulation get yourself the Shimano XTR's with paralell push mechanism, maximum stopping power and great modulation.

WIN WIN.

I'm a fan of V-brakes, despite their uglyness on anything other than MTB forks. Easy to set-up, and powerful. I have them on my commuter 'the mongrel (tm)' with drop bars and tektro RL520 levers. This set-up works really well, as I find the both powerful and controlable from both hoods and drops. These and a pair from Dia-comp are the only two drop levers I know of which are suitable for V's.
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-Tektro-Tektro-RL520-Aero-V-Brake-Levers--Silver-14955.htm

http://static.londonfgss.com/attachments/11329d1245433586-dscn3869.jpg

V brakes all the time, a nice set of avids or XTR's should do the trick

... bump ...

I found that a correctly set up V-brake had superior power and modulation on a Mavic ceramic rim in comparison to an XT disc brake with 160mm rotor.

Effortless stoppies with the V-brake, all or nothing (and the all wasn't good enough) with the XT disc.

i found horses are better