Review: Tektro 720s vs. V-brakes
As a warning, this will no doubt be a contentious post. After 7 months of bike touring with Tektro 720 cantilevers, I’ve swapped them out for Plain Jane Deore V-brakes and am much happier! I bought the Tektro 720s for aesthetic reasons but also because they cleared the big tire and wide fenders I was running on my Surly LHT. Setting up canti’s for the uninitiated can be a practice in frustration, but I familiarized myself with them months before we left on our trip.
In the end, despite the constant fiddling with straddle cable height, toe-in, changing brake pads and applying the advice from Jan Heine’s special brake issue of Bicycle Quarterly the brakes always felt a little “mushy.” I was able to get a relatively positive response from the front brake, but the rear brake never felt right. Maybe I’m not nuanced enough to appreciate brake modulation, but all I know is that in order to lock up the wheels I had to be deep in the drops and squeeze like hell.
I’m in Austin, TX right now taking a few weeks off from touring and took the opportunity to try out V-brakes. I’m using Deore V-brakes with stock pads and Tektro’s road brake levers that are adjusted to work with linear pull brakes and they feel many magnitudes better. The levers have a nice crisp response and feels better than what I remember from using Travel Agents or Dia-Compe’s 287v levers. I can bring the bike to a skidding halt from the hoods of the brakes with relative ease.
As a caveat, I haven’t put on many fully loaded miles with this set up so time will tell how they hold out. But for now, I’m greatly pleased with them and urge other LHT users to try out V-brakes if your canti’s aren’t stopping you.
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Yes, brake levers with the correct travel for the linear brakes will have a lot less friction than a travel agent adapted system. I have no choice but to use travel agents in order to use my STI levers and have V-Brakes on my touring bike. I can always fallback to spare friction or bar end levers if the STI levers fail. Your choice is simple and robust, and should serve you well on the road. I’d be tempted to put a sleeve of spaghetti tubing over the cable run going over the top of your fender so any bouncing will not lead to cable wear. maybe the clearance is more than it looks to me in the photo, so it may not be an issue for you.
The thing that should be mentioned is the fact that the modern “ergo style” aero levers made by Cane Creek/Tektro pull too much cable for a standard cantilever set. True, on some cantis you can easily adjust the straddle cable length to change the leverage but it usually isn’t enough. It’s my thinking that those levers were designed for dual-pivot side pulls and if used for anything else you don’t get very good results. Classic cantis with classic levers always felt better.
My beef with linear pull brakes is that you have to have the pad adjusted soooo very close to the rim that rub often becomes an issue. Spring tension seems to become uneven quickly and adjustments are often.
So, it’s been like 6 years now but I hope that Cane Creek will start offering a proper canti/single pivot dropbar lever.
I’m with you, Russ. I have Tektro Oryx cantilever brakes on my Jamis Aurora, and they’ve always felt mushy. I’ve thought many times of swapping them out for a basic pair of V-brakes.
A good skid always feels right.
A real great set up for cantis is using non-aero brake levers (the kind with the cable coming out of the top). They feel great. I broke my 80’s vintage Shimao 600 levers and had to switch to modern aero-levers (Tektro R400????) and the decrease in performance was quite noticeable. Still stop ok, but I have to grab a lot harder.
I have the same bike, and from the factory I also had to sqeeze one of them like hell. Then … I did something … I can’t remember what … and they magically started working acceptably. The possible fixes were:
1) replacing the cables and/or housing
2) diddling with the toe-in
3) changing the pads
4) my hands got stronger (?)
When I bought my LHT I swapped the stock canti brakes for Shimano V-brakes at the suggestion of the salesperson and have never regretted the change. Easer to set up and maintain and much better stopping power especially fully loaded.
I’ve used V-brakes on my touring/commute/cross bike for a long time now. I find that the brakes require less maintenance (pad fiddling, etc.,) but do have to be set out further. This means the brake engages later in the pull, reducing the available time with the pad engaged. The linear pull design does provide a pretty good stop all the time, under all kinds of circumstances, even with more slop/slack in the brake lever. And I adjust my brakes about twice a year. I like super low maintenance plans a a lot. Cheers, and keep on with the trip. I love reading your page.
Russ,
Thx for the post. This has been such a current issue for me that it’s weird and great that you posted this.
Waiting for my Deore V brakes to come this week and switiching out the levers as well. Hope to add some better braking power and feel to the whole LHT experience.
Tech question alert:
BTW, did you have to use the cable hanger in front (on the steerer tube) to maintain a line of tension to the front brake or was that unnecessary with the new levers?
Thx again for running this blog. Always info-taining.
Rod C.
I think part of the issue with the stock Long Haul Trucker braking system is that the Tektro aero levers are made mainly of plastic - and flex a great deal under heavy pressure.
I have a nice set of Shimano 105 levers that are going onto my LHT and I hope to see some improvement.
Pardon me if I’m off base here, but don’t linear pull brakes always have greater stopping power than canti brakes?
I know its nice to have the power to skid, but how much stopping power is enough?
Clearly cantilever brakes have been stopping you well enough for several months of loaded touring. Is the hardware swap worth a newfound piece of mind, or more of a new bit of information to put on the blog?
>Pardon me if I’m off base here, but don’t linear pull brakes always have greater stopping power than canti brakes?
Prior to using the Tektro 720s, I didn’t have a lot of experience with cantilevers so I had to find out for myself. There is a lot of internet talk about how they are great, just as powerful as V-brakes and their wide profile has the best stopping power…but being one who needs first hand knowledge I decided to try them out.
So, I decided to try them out and optimize them as much as possible with better brake pads, fidgeting with straddle cable height, etc.,
Interestingly, the 720s performed much better with mountain bike levers as opposed to road levers so there are enough variations that testing things out for yourself is worthwhile.
>I know its nice to have the power to skid, but how much stopping power is enough?
When I took the League of American Bicyclists class one of the exercise drills was the emergency stop which required hard braking that would sometimes end in a skid. I couldn’t do this with the 720s.
>Clearly cantilever brakes have been stopping you well enough for several months of loaded touring. Is the hardware swap worth a newfound piece of mind, or more of a new bit of information to put on the blog?
I’ve never been entirely pleased with them and the difference between the V-brakes and canti’s are pretty profound especially with a load. I did it because I simply needed to stop more and I thought that people ought to know that canti’s (which seem to be used on lots of touring bikes) may not always be the best option.
Hi Russ,
Tammy has a similar issue on her LHT even after me putting on new brake pads this weekend. I have looked into your solution and I like it. However I want to try something before we take the plunge and convert Tammy’s brake set up to linear pull. I want to try jagwire “compressionless” brake housing to see if that makes up the difference. I was reading on Ecovelo that a few folks had used that housing on mechanical disc brakes to help the spongy “feel” and I think it may also help with this issue you and Tammy have had with the rear tektro canti brakes. Its only a $22.50 investment so its worth a try.
I’ll get back to you on how Tammy says it turns out. 
Cheers,
Logan.
This has been a big question for me. I have an old school ‘Gardin’ touring bike with some old Shimano canti’s. Currently the braking power is terrible, even with Kool Stop pads. I have finiked with the pads several times, which proves difficult with an allen key, a cresent wrench and to hold the pads. I’ve debated with new levers and throwing on some v-brakes I already have, or get ‘better’ cantis. This string has convinced me to find new levers and use my v-brakes. I cant imagine riding through the Rockie’s with mushie brakes.
Thanks everyone for convincing me to go v-brakes…
Great news,
Follow up report: Tammy says that after a few weeks of use the jagwire ripcord compressionless brake housing seems to have solved the “mushy/spongy” brake feel! Yay! I guess too much compression in the brake housing was the source of this “mushy/spongy” feel. I suspect that since v-brakes pull more cable perhaps it somehow compensates for this.
Anyway hope this revelation/conclusion helps other folks.
Cheers!
I’ve got Deore V-Brakes with Tektro V-Brake Levers (road), and Tektro V-Brake Interrupter Levers on my Rivendell Sam Hillborne. I swapped out the Shimano pads in favor of salmon Kool Stop after discovering negligible wet braking and aluminum bits in the pads and pad residue on the rims and scratches on the rims. I’d suggest the stock Shimano pads be replaced first thing, with Kool Stop. Don’t even bother to give the Shimano pads a chance. They’re not worth it.
Otherwise, the V-Brakes work fine for me. Plenty of power and decent modulation. I can brake gently to a stop, or lock them up, or anything in between.
I discovered a bad side to canti’s. My wife’s 1986 Diamond Back has canti’s, Shimano I think. They work for her. I replaced her pads with Kool Stops also. The down side of canti’s is they stick out to the sides! Doh! Well, when you put two bikes on a rear of car carrier, and they get a bit too close, the canti’s turn into paint scrapers!!! Wasn’t too happy about the paint scraped off of my new Rivendell. Now I am careful to lash them in position to keep them from sliding together. I suppose some cyclists don’t like the look of V-Brakes, just because somebody told them brakes shouldn’t look like that. But they work, are easy to fool with and don’t stick out to interfere with other stuff. Sounds like a winner to me.
I’m building up a Fuji Touring Bicycle (bought the frame 2 years old, ridden about 500km and stripped of it’s group-set) with V-brakes in mind. I bought a set of Cane-Creek Drop-V levers, which I am lead to believe are otherwise identical to the ones offered by Tektro. They have the same part number stamped into them and the only differences I can see are the rubber hoods and the fact that these have “Cane Creek” written on them. I’m using a set of Diacompe Silver Shifters mounted into bar-end pods. I need about 4 parts to finish building the darn bicycle before I can go out on a tour with it (oh the pains of being a university student and buying 2nd hand and waiting for sales!) Will report back on them when I have done my first S24O. I have V-brakes on my “Trekking Bicycle” and have found them to be excellent when riding with heavy loads. It is also fitted with north road bars, and is in reality something of a cross between a city and a touring bicycle.
I don’t know why more touring bicycles don’t come with V brakes and bar-end shifters as standard fittings. I love them!
Curious as to whether or not you’ve read Sheldon’s article on Cantilever Geometry. http://sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-geometry.html. He points out that “mushiness” or “sponginess” is actually a good thing as it indicated a higher mechanical advantage in braking. Specifically, “Brakes with a high mechanical advantage will feel “spongy” by comparison, because the large amount of force they deliver to the brake shoes will squash the shoes against the rim, deforming them temporarily under pressure. You can feel this deformation in your fingers. The brakes with the rock-hard feel may seem nice on the work stand or the showroom floor, but when it comes to making the bike actually stop, the spongy set-up will do the job better, with less finger pressure and greater margin for safety in wet conditions.”
The reason v-brakes are better is because of the decreased tension in the cable. Some say shimano came out with v-brakes for easier maintenance, or etc. Although that was advantage, it was not the main reason. Shimano had quite a brilliant design idea. If cables and housings were infinitely stiff than it wouldn’t matter but since they aren’t, by halving the force in the cables, the cable deflection (elastic stretch) is halved as well. This is a significant advantage especially if you have a lot of cable or a lot of cable housing or both… So not so important on singles especially if housing is minimized, but on a tandem it makes a huge difference. On my tandem, the braking went from practically non-existent to being able to lock up the rear wheel. By the way if you have to use a travel agent, install near the brake lever. Also, initially I had older parallelogram v-brakes that i couldn’t keep quiet. Going to plain jane Deore solved the squeal