Upgrading Cantilever MTB Brakes - Fitting Kool Stop Brake Pads & Tektro Brake Booster
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2018
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Today I’m out in the garage trying to get my Diamondback Ascent to stop a little better!
In my opinion, cantilever brakes are probably the worst kind of brake to have on your mountain bike. They were the choice and have since been replaced a few times over. They can get quite “spongy” and in the wet... standard pads don’t really like to work that well. If they’re not set up properly you can also get a horrible judder as you brake - it’s not nice.
Having said that, they are still used! Cyclocross bikes can be found with cantilever brakes so they’re not all that bad. They just need a little upgrade!
First stop is the pads. Clean rims and good pads really help. Dual compound pads offer better stopping power over all conditions than a conventional pad. I went for a Kool Stop variant which also has an increased length to add surface area. Throw in a bit of toe in and make sure the arms are sitting at the optimum position and you should be stopping in no time.
** Side note - Toe In / Out is purely in relation to the leading edge. For some reason in the video I said toe in is the front and toe out is the rear. Nope. My mind went to mush then. Toe in has the leading edge angled towards the rim. Toe out would have the leading edge angled away from the rim. **
Next up is fitting the brake booster. Now this is designed to reduce flex in the post mounts. Under heavy braking they cantilever posts will flex and that little flex will take away some of the braking efficiency. These brake boosters are designed to add another layer and stiffen up the mounts. Will it work? I won’t know until I try!
Thanks for watching. Any comments, leave them down below! - Спорт
Love Kool Stop brakes. It's the brand I use for all my repairs/restorations. Somewhat pricy but worth it.
bought some kool stops for a gary fisher I picked up for $40. Love them rigid steel bikes from the 90's this one has stx groupset , gary fisher aquila 95? i think. I even have it dorked out with fenders, rack and the dork disk but man it just screams down the path like a road bike. best 40 i ever spent on a used bicycle
Thank you for posting this. Been wanting to improve my mtb brakes, this is all the info I needed. 👍🙂
This video is very useful. Thank you!
Try to clean the braking surface on the rim with some scotchbrite ad some sort of detergent (maybe dish soap). Works great for me
I have an old steel Raleigh with post mounts that I slapped some cantis on. The rear had a horrible squeaking and a $2.50 Chinese brake booster from Ebay cleared it right up!
Bought some Kool stop pads for my V-brakes on a retro mod I've done. Stops instantly great pads.
Yep! They are great pads especially when dialled in right too!
Love the video please do more restorations
Thank you. Coming up soon!
Koolstop pads are great. Will try those longer pads they Must be better than the short ones
I have an STX canti set up on my steel Lava Dome and with Koolstop pads they work excellently! In fact better than the Shimano mechanical discs on my Dawes Galaxy Plus.......and yes I have adjusted them correctly, hence the TRPs that are about to go on!
That's surprising! Thanks for that feedback.
I recently restored an old Cyclepro Colorado (It's a daughter company of Nishiki), also with Shimano STX RC group, and I was surprised how good the cantilever brakes were.
Sure, the setup was a bit of a faff, but with some new pads the performance was fantastic. What I really liked is the progressive feel compared to V-brakes that bites instantly. Also they don't have to be as close to the rim so you don't have to have perfectly true wheels.
You don't need to manually toe these type of pads. The little lip at the back of the pads will do it for you. Great video though :)
Great advice. Pop the straddle cable out to give more room to work? Changing the angle of the straddle cable also makes a difference.
Put a lollipop stick between the rim and the pad, not a thin piece off metal, to get the right offset. As good as the tool you can buy. Also useful for hydraulic brakes when the wheel is out
I had a sponge feeling in my rear brake and i took it al of and cleaned it relubed the parts that needed it and still that sponge feeling (brake pads are installed correctly) and as i grabbed my rear brake i saw the frame flex out (i have an older scott boulder) but that is solved by a brake booster luckily!!
Great vid, very informative. Where did you get that cable tool from?
eBay!.
Cantilever brakes are the most terrifying type of brake I remember. Because it always gave me a broken wire.
You snapped cables with them?? Damn!
@@MonkeyShred I'm currently riding a SINGLE TREK 920, but the bike I rode before was a black spacialized hardrock bike with cantilever brakes. But strangely enough, the cable always broke when I used the brake, and no matter how many times I replaced it, the symptoms were the same. The problem was later solved by replacing it with aluminum alloy V-brakes. Unfortunately, the black bicycle in my memories was scrapped because the water in the frame froze, expanded, and burst due to carelessness in the winter.
Not convinced by the booster, think I would upgrade the brake themselves to better canti’s if necessary. Interested to know how it works out
Yeh, I mean in might work... it might not... Upgrading to V's or better canti's would obviously be a better option but I really don't want to break apart my STX RC groupset. It wouldn't be right.
Booster helps mostly with vbrakes, not cantis regardless of power cantis dont flex the frame as much due to their design forces, caliper brakes are easy on frame flex as well
I was waiting for the how-to on getting the perfect alignment of the brake on the rim. Never thought of actually putting some piece of metal at the back. I'll be having my coke next time.
an elastic band with a loop in it works really well. just slide it a few mm on to the toe end, adjust and simply remove the elastic after.
Canti s should have a bigger gap to avoid getting stones , gravel , or whatever stuck between pad and rim!
Upgrade cantis or v brakes ? Change the housings ! Go for Shimano SLR, immediate upgrade in smoothness and modulation !
V Brakes all the way
So what is better V brakes are cantilever brakes with busters are can you use the busters on V brakes I know the bike industry pushing disk but not everybody rides of a cliff riding for Red Bull
Discs are always the way forward. V brakes are meant to be more powerful than Cantilever. It depends how yours are set up though. I have canti's on a lot of my bikes with good pads and setup and they stop really well.
You think brake boosters will interfere with fenders?
I only found one brake booster , on which brake will be better to install it? In theory the front will flex more but the rear seems to be the best aesthetic reason.
Front, it does most of the braking
I don't bother with toe-in. No squeal on my factory tektro linear (V brakes) I do get crap in the pad though - so I service them.
I'd call that a brace instead of a booster.
they have been called boosters for decades now
@@crabtrap Yeah, but you don't call a strut tower bar a booster.
@@forevercomputing its a booster becuase of the way it equalizes the 'squeeze force' of the to arms which makes them more efficient (boosting preformance). Secondarily, it does add rigidity to the front fork legs(like car shock tower braces)....probably does not on the rear triangle.
Changing the pads is good. The most improvement you get if you shorten the cable triangle upwards the levers. There are different lengths to buy. Keep the Triangle as flat as possible (but don't touch the tire), so the breaking cable has more torque on the levers - if the cable is pulling from side (90') and not parallel to the levers. Geometrie/Physics.
I'm upgrading to Avid Ultimate VBrakes, on my Touring Bike (Surly). I want to combine with Brake booster, because they work fine. :-) But these Avids are so nice - the Brakebooster would ruine the nice look. But Brakebooster help a lot,too.
did you consider changing to v-brakes? Don't particularly like the looks of the booster.
Never on this bike! I wouldn't want to break up the STX RC group. Some things you just have to keep together.
OK. Good reason. Best of luck with the new setup then.
I'm hearing you on that. I just acquired a 1997ish Santa Cruz Heckler. The years of "upgrades" or "repairs" has sadly made it far from original. The plan now is to just rebuild it with a matching period correct wheelset, and plenty of period correct parts that somebody might have fitted, within a couple of years.
is it possible to convert cantilever to v-brakes? I assume you need to swap levers as well...
Yes, and no. V brakes and Canti's work on different pull rates. You can use different levers but the feel, modulation and power of the brakes will be affected. I believe there are little devices out there to "convert" the pull if you really want to keep canti levers.
MonkeyShred thanks! I don’ mind swapping the whole cantilever system for a whole v-brake system. My concern was about the frame (1993 Scott Sandoa) If it only would allow v-brakes I’d be happy. Thanks again.
Was there any improvement in braking performance?
Definitely. I think the pads helped the most. The brake booster... I'm still unsure.
boosters main job is to stop the frame flexing outwards when you brake hard, in turn the pad should be able to clamp the rim harder
ross bolwell pads yes. Booster no. Just get discs or XT V brakes
@@MonkeyShred does the lever feel improve with these brake booster?
I'm thinking about buying brake boosters und Jagwire compressionless housing to improve the spongy feeling of my levers.
Btw: Great video... like always :)
Does improove braking or not??
Should do!
If you have V brakes in the rear I recommend a booster as the frame is thinner and will flex. I have never used them in the front in the 25 years of using them.
Shimano cantilevers from that era are the absolute worst. Too bad you invested in good pads that won't work on V bakes. You won't get enough brake force to flex the frame without V brakes. Okay I will tell you the secret to those things: get a cable hanger and ditch that Shimano thing. Avid Tri Align or just the curled up steel thing with a cable clamp. Set the arms as wide as possible and the straddle hanger as low as possible. Lever will feal squishy but brakes will be powerful. Good luck.
Yeah, no… I’ve got plenty of bikes set up with cantilever brakes and they work great.
He got the pad direction wrong to wheel travel
These pads are labeled left and right with an arrow pointing to the front. It's pretty hard to get it wrong.
Shut up kid
@@ipunk1589 Oh baby. Are you ok?
put some glue stick on the rim surface...
I'm listening...