Canti cantilever brakes at a price point

So will v brakes fit on a bike that originally had canti's?

And what's all this long and short pull stuff about? Really can't get my head around it, is it only standard v brakes that are long pull? Normal canti's, road calipers and bmx type u brakes are short?

Pretty much. Only V-brakes and cable disc are long pull. If there is a "short pull" version of a v-brake out there, it has been specifically designed to be backwards compatible with short pull levers/road levers.

mini v-brake FTW, which are short pull version of a normal v-brake.

Get some of these if you want v-brakes;

This is what I had, modulation is very much an on/off affair, but the extraordinary amount of stopping power is worth it.

Pretty much. Only V-brakes and cable disc are long pull. If there is a "short pull" version of a v-brake out there, it has been specifically designed to be backwards compatible with short pull levers/road levers.

Thank you :D

So this would explain why my mtb xtr brake lever feels so much better than my odyssey one that has been designed for u-brakes, best get out my tools and swap the lever back over :)

Any concencus on a good short pull lever to use with cantis and a flat bar?

Dirty Harry?
Avid Single Digit?

If you're using a flat bar surely you would choose to use v-brakes? But yes Single Digits are a good bet

so, which cantis then?

not frogglegs. pain in the manhandle to set up and the cable straddle is made of hardened earwax or something equally flimsy.

I found the tekro 720s worked well.

After lots of searching on the internet they were the ones that fitted my original brief - ie the 105's of the canti word.

A bit of judder on the front that I managed to iron out, and pretty cheap. The 520s are meant to be the same with worse pads, so it might be worth getting those and some swissstops.

The 720's are the only canti's I've used that weren't made out of plastic... so my opinion's not worth all that much. That said I managed to set them up myself and got them to work as well as a road calliper brake.

Any particular reason you're choosing canti's over v's with V compatible Levers, or mini-v's?

Cane Creek SCX 5 are the best canti's I have used. Easy to setup with a link wire in place of yoke so just one cable run from lever down to nut on the caliper with no messing around with cable through yoke (although lose adjustments possible via straddle cable length changes)

Have also used mini Vs but the pad to rim clearance has to be lower which is not good in off road use. They are also have less finesse so not quite as easy to control off road when tyre grip is low as easier to lock up.

But the biggest draw back to mini Vs is that the cable between the two arms is too low if you have big tyres. The rear tyre rubbed on the cable and had to move my wheel further back to avoid.

Any particular reason you're choosing canti's over v's with V compatible Levers, or mini-v's?

Yes... I have no idea what Im doing. I'd never really understood the distinction.

Having read a bit more over the last day or so, v's sound like the way to go.

Does anyone have a view on these things?

Should I purchase this: http://www.bike-discount.de/shop/k234/a29630/v-brake-lever-set-digit-7-speed-dial-7.html

or this: http://www.bike-discount.de/shop/k234/a47448/xt-v-brake-set-br-t780-black.html

with some levers, obvs...

Unless you're going to invest in the parallel push XTR v-brakes I think everything is pretty much the same, just comes down to build quality and I dropped one of the avid digits whist installing and it snapped rendering it useless however I am very fond of the single digit levers, much prefer the shape of them to shimano's offerings. IMO just fork out for Magura's there are loadsa' pairs floating around second hand.

Thanks for the info... I shall investigate Maguras.

I have some old Shimano Deore M550, but I'm having trouble finding replacement pads for them.

They need to have their own threading / nuts n bolts etc (like caliper brake one's), but need to super super thick, simply to reach the rim (normal road one's miss the rim by about 1cm).

Any suggestions?
Or maybe it's time to get a new brakeset...

I use Swisstop Green which have long bolts. As you can see they have two different thicknesses of washer so have some flexibility. They also work very well as an added benefit but are not cheap.