Better Braking?

On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:47:46 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

Probably true. But isn't this true of nearly everything that one
buys... at least to some extent. Did anyone try all manufactured
calculators before settling on their Brigs and Spencer reverse osmoses
calculator? Does one try every known breakfast cereal before settling
on Super Chocky Strawberry Nuggets?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:45:58 +0100, Tosspot
wrote:

On 31/01/2020 01:55, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:11:13 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/30/2020 5:18 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 17:30:02 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:
I've been looking only at the advertisements for direct mount brakes.
...

The pictures I have seen show the cable entering the brake exactly like
a sidepull brake, but the pivots are reminiscent of Mafac Racers with
brazed-on posts.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/l...-future-193731

I have Mafacs with braze-on posts on my randonneuse and they work
excellently with very good modulation and power; the Racers are paired
with modern Campy Record brake levers and it is a good combination for
me. The centerpulls offer excellent clearance for fenders and
moderately fat tires (700 x 31). The design also allows the brake pads
to have some clearance from the rims in case the wheel gets slightly out
of true.

I first heard of centerpulls with brazed on posts about 40 years ago. I
considered them when modifying the frame of my old Raleigh, but went
with cantilever bosses instead. But I suspect the braze-on centerpulls
would have worked about as well.

I've not tried the direct mount brakes, but they do remove the straddle
wire from the equation. That ought to improve efficiency, if greater
flexibility wasn't created in the brake arms.

The straddle cable isn't a source of flexibility (if that's what you're
implying) if you shape it ahead of time to run in a straight line from
the saddle to each brake arm. Most of the lost motion occurs because
straddle cables are naturally straight, and when installed, are bent
into a curve to reach from brake arm to saddle to brake arm. If there's
no curve, there's negligible lost motion.

Somewhere, I've seen photos of rigid links used to replace the straddle
cable. I suppose that might be even better, but I don't know of a
supplier. They might not be hard to fabricate, if you're into that thing.

Another source of flexibility with center pulls or classic cantilever
brakes is the hanger that stops the brake housing. Especially on front
brakes, that's often a thin steel or aluminum stamping that flexes a
lot. A rigid hanger greatly improves the brake's feel, IME.

About the website linked above, I have some agreements and some
disagreements. I agree that the chainstays are a terrible place to mount
any brake. Like the guys quoted, I don't doubt that some of the other
purported benefits (aero, rigidity) exist, but I think the differences
are likely negligible. Especially, there are other ways to get rigidity.

But I strongly agree with the statement near the end: "However, we think
many brands that fit direct-mount brakes at the chainstay are doing it
for trend or marketing reasons."

Because, fashion! Fashion is weird and powerful.

I've installed center pull, cantilever, single pivot caliper, double
pivot caliper and vee brakes on the same bike at one time or another
and it seems to me that the determining factor, brake pad composition
aside, in braking power is the ratio between the brake arm, pivot to
cable attachment, and the arm on which the brake pad is mounted,
pivot to pad mounting, i.e,, the mechanical advantage of the brake,
and in reality nothing else seems to matter. The most powerful brakes
I ever had on that bike were cheap old vee brakes which, mounted on
the previous canti lever studs, had the brake pad at the lowest
possible position on the brake arms and thus the highest mechanical
advantage between the cable attachment and the pad.

Note that brake arm length and ratio also effect the cable pull
necessary to apply the brakes and I am talking about only the
effectiveness of the brake itself. And the brake levers themselves
have a mechanical advantage that will also effect braking.

While I never installed disc brakes on that bike I have brake tested
bikes with discs and if the ability to stop the wheel from turning is
a measurement of braking efficiency then any of the more efficient rim
brakes were equal in braking efficiency to the discs.

This exactly my experience as well over various brakes. You have to go
some way to get bad braking, it's usually the setup. Well setup rim
brakes work as well as discs, but imho, there are other reasons for
moving to discs. Half of my bikes are disc, the other half lack bosses
or they would be, but not for reasons of braking power except may be in
wet, and definitely in ice, but I don't cycle in icing conditions much.

A friend bought a second hand bicycle solely as transportation in a
very large yacht marina - he does mechanical maintenance on yachts -
and tells me one day that "I'll never buy another disc brake bicycle!"
I, having read all the users extolling discs on this site say, "How
come?" He says, "Cause they squeak all the time."
--
cheers,

John B.

On 1/31/2020 5:31 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2020 15:11:15 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:
On Thursday, 30 January 2020 17:18:31 UTC-5, Tim McNamara wrote:

I've not tried the direct mount brakes, but they do remove the
straddle wire from the equation. That ought to improve efficiency,
if greater flexibility wasn't created in the brake arms.

I haven't used those but I did put old school Alivio V-brakes on my
dropbar MTB with Tecktro dropbar V-brake levers and I find the braking
FAR superior to what I had with my cantilever brakes. This is even
more so in snow or rain.

Makes sense for a few reasons. One, there is no straddle wire. Two,
the mechanical advantage is greater than almost all if not all
cantilevers (close to that of centerpulls). Three, the cable approach
to the brake is smooth with wide radius bends. Four, unlike cantis the
brake arms don't jut out from the frame quite so much.

I'm not sure what Sir meant by "braking FAR superior..." to cantilever
brakes - or for that matter, to other brakes. "Good braking" seems
nebulously defined.

And I'm not sure what Tim meant when characterizing the lack of a
straddle wire as a benefit. I don't see any great detriment in a
straddle wire, especially if it's set up correctly.

I think a lot of people perceive "better braking" to mean "more
deceleration from a given hand squeeze on the lever." OK, let's examine
that. The bulk of it is simple mechanical advantage - that of the lever
plus that of the brake itself.

Is more mechanical advantage better? Not necessarily. It comes with the
built-in disadvantage of less pad or shoe travel, meaning it can
tolerate less crookedness in the rim, disc, drum or whatever. IOW you
pay for it when your disc squeaks or your rim brake scrapes when JRA.
Tim mentioned this.

But the other disadvantage is hypersensitivity. People do crash from
over-braking, and ISTM the less lever force required, the easier that
mistake is. I prefer to have to squeeze moderately hard to decelerate
moderately hard. For mountain biking where long super-steep descents are
common, super-low lever force may be nice; but otherwise, perhaps not.

Different brake designs do have different mechanical advantages, but
people sometimes guess wrong about those MAs. I haven't run the numbers
for a long, long time (I once gave those as a project to a student
wanting some advanced credit for a course) but ISTR Jobst pointing out
that, contrary to myth, centerpulls don't have more MA than normal
sidepulls. (We can discuss.) Shimano upped the MA with dual pivot, but
that did require truer wheels. They upped it again with V-brakes, and
had to compensate by reducing the MA of the levers, making almost all
levers incompatible, as Tim said. (I sometimes think Shimano has a very
large Department of Incompatibility.)

I'll admit, though, that high MA in the brake itself may confer a couple
of secondary advantages. It means less tension in the cable, and less
tension means less friction loss. I think it was also Shimano that
started the practice of return springs in the lever as well as the
caliper. That allows a lighter caliper spring (since the caliper's not
dragging the cable) and a little less hand squeeze. But I think those
benefits are very small, unless a person has really cruddy cables.

Another factor affecting braking force from a given lever squeeze is the
choice of shoe or pad material. Are there rim brake pads better than the
Salmon ones? If I had brake problems and didn't use Salmon pads, that's
the first thing I'd check.

There are other secondary or detail considerations. I agree, I don't
like the fact that classic L-shaped cantilevers protrude so much. I've
switched to low profile ones except on my mountain bike, where that
doesn't matter.

I think one big reason for direct pull V-brakes taking over from other
cantilevers is that they don't require a cable stop on the frame. That
cable stop required some real kludging when mountain bikes switched to
suspension forks. Direct pulls solved that handily. Other than that, I
don't see significant differences in cable routing (or bends) between
the two. Actually, a flat-bar bike gets about 90 degree bend for a
normal canti, vs. about 180 degrees for a direct pull.

Everything is trade-offs.

That's certainly true. But aside from weirdnesses like Campy Delta or
Roller Cams, these non-hydraulic things are just lever systems.
Designers just dial in the desired MA, try to reduce flex and friction,
and keep things out of the way.

BTW, it's fun to browse through The Data Book and other historical
documents to see what's been done with brakes. There's been lots of
tinkering over the decades. And I'm sure that every design is better
than every other design - at least, in someone's eyes.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

With the direct mount brakes there isn't hardly any flex so you can mount the brakes so they start with a full brake shoe contact on the rims. No shudder and no excessive wear on the brake path on the rim from that shuttering.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to toe in direct mount brake pads.
Perhaps less than others, but there's still a bit of toe-in.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/31/2020 6:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:47:46 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

Probably true. But isn't this true of nearly everything that one
buys... at least to some extent. Did anyone try all manufactured
calculators before settling on their Brigs and Spencer reverse osmoses
calculator? Does one try every known breakfast cereal before settling
on Super Chocky Strawberry Nuggets?

You're right, this is true of almost everything for almost all people.
But we're supposed to be different here. We're supposed to have
technical discussions about the advantages and disadvantages.

If there's a BreakfastCereals.Tech group, I bet they do the same the
Which is the crunchiest? Do you even WANT crunchiness? What size spoon
is best? And the Milk Wars - whole milk vs. 2% vs. 1/2%. I bet it gets
brutal!


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 23:01:22 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/31/2020 6:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:47:46 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

Probably true. But isn't this true of nearly everything that one
buys... at least to some extent. Did anyone try all manufactured
calculators before settling on their Brigs and Spencer reverse osmoses
calculator? Does one try every known breakfast cereal before settling
on Super Chocky Strawberry Nuggets?

You're right, this is true of almost everything for almost all people.
But we're supposed to be different here. We're supposed to have
technical discussions about the advantages and disadvantages.


Really? The ongoing "discussion" of bicycle lights for example? Where
overwhelmingly it appears that the criteria for "best light" is "my
light is better than anybody's"?

If there's a BreakfastCereals.Tech group, I bet they do the same the
Which is the crunchiest? Do you even WANT crunchiness? What size spoon
is best? And the Milk Wars - whole milk vs. 2% vs. 1/2%. I bet it gets
brutal!

Well, obviously MY breakfast cereal is better than anybody's... if you
don't believe, just ask me :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

No, no, no, Franki-boy. You don't understand human psychology and you never will because you're now too old to learn anything. The biggest marketers with the biggest, most professionally operated advertising budgets, don't care about people like you: they're going to scoop you up anyway in the second or third phase simply by excluding all their competitors in what you're pleased to call your mind. They spend millions on PR and advertising to gain some critical mass of *opinion formers*. Then they spend tens of millions to show people like you a celebrity endorsing their product. But the main job is done with the first few million. The rest, the tens and hundreds of millions, is spent on repetition to people like you, who need everything hammered into their heads a hundred times before they grasp it.

Almost everything that is on your butt and in your fridge, house and garage, and definitely everything that you aspire to, I or someone I trained, or someone just like us, put there. I know we're in your mind, and that you know we're there, because you keep telling us smugly how modestly you live, how you try to resist the consumer society, starting with your small house. Unfortunately for you, all that back to basics, resist the big spenders crap, all of that too was generated by my people. Resistance is futile: we get you coming or going but we get you. One more point: there's nothing humble about the way you live (and that your personality betrays every day): it's just another idea a set of opinion formers (the Catholic Church, masters of manipulation) put out there for losers like you to pick up and run with as if it were their own idea.

Ande Jute
I dunno why I bother explaining (now watch the tenth-raters make their cheap cracks about my sig line)

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:47:53 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 5:31:07 PM UTC, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

-- Jay Beattie.

You're confusing Franki-boy with an historical sequence. BTW, I agree with you, there's so much pseud**** in writing about bikes today, even an old advertising man is embarrassed by the supine vapidity of it. -- AJ

On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 4:56:24 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 2:47:47 PM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
snip

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I usually buy mid-fi equipment, Ultegra and lower, including BR-RS785 discs that you got. Technically, that was a non-series disc brake that was bundled with 105 and Ultegra (IIRC, before the current Ultegra hydro group). It's my daily driver and a great brake for my purposes.

Like it or not, discs are taking over, at least in the PNW. I am amazed at the number of disc bikes on the road and in the racks at work. I wouldn't bother with them in Florida, but they are great in a wet climate for any all in one, year-round bike.

-- Jay Beattie.