Cantilever Brakes

Andrew, remember when we had this disagreement about cantilever brakes and you thought that they worked as well as any other brakes?

Last Saturday there were four people on the ride that had used cantilevers. I didn't want to bias any of them so I approached each separately as we were riding and questioned them about cantilever brakes and the to a man said exactly the same thing - that cantilever brakes were weak and/or required a whole lot more hand pressure to activate enough to slow especially under difficult conditions such as downhills or carrying weights on a touring bike.