I am quite keen to find some CX brakes that actually slow me down occasionally. Any recommendations? Don’t want to spend a packet btw.

I think your last sentence answers your own question. Tektro.

Are the Planet X Frogs Bollox any good?

I stuck cheap Tektro BMX Vs on mine. Much more power, and yet to find any disadvantage tbh- folks say the mud clearance is bad but the forks are more restrictive on mine. I haven’t used it in really bad mud to test, mind (I’m not a real cyclocrosser)

They’ll wear the rims faster mind. But that’s because they actually create friction.

Would v’s work on standard roadie lever/shifters (105)?. I thought v brake levers pulled a lot more cable than the more traditional setup.

They’ll wear the rims faster mind. But that’s because they actually create friction.

Therefore my rims will last forever! Yay!

you need mini-v’s which will cope with the reduced lever pull or some noodleator things to adjust the cable pull.

I have an old set of xtr Vees on the back of mine with a widget, called something like accentuator (?), that gives enough pull to use them with road brake levers. Then the choice is all yours with cheap Vees.

I have a mechanical Avid disk up front. other than the occasional squeak and rub its a great brake.

I had the PX Frogs Bollox on my commuter (single-cross), and they were awful. I don’t know whether it was the brakes themselves or the levers (Dia Comp) or even the cables (cheap), but they were verging on dangerous as they hardly slowed me down at all.

I switched over to –

– Tektro CR520 Cantis
– Cane Creek SCR-5 levers
– New cables

And the difference is amazing.

tektro720 work for me.
Stiff enough to lock wheels up.
When mud is that bad!! .. The mud clogs everywhere & not just by brakes & top of forks.

If you not racing cx, then maybe disk brakes are better option?

There’s CX-specific Vs, TRP CX9 for recent shimano road levers or CX8.4 for older ones (and I think also for Campy and SRAM)

I have 5600 105s, but didn’t want to pay £80 for my brakes, so I got some of the Tektro BMX equivalents (TRP are posh Tektro). I think it’s 926ALs I ended up using but there’s a few options. No need for a Problem Solver or similiar with these- the lever throw’s quite long though. I did have to add noodle cable adjusters though as neither levers nor caliper has them. You could possibly find a decent setup without but the way I like them means it’s neccessary to spin out the adjuster a little to remove the wheel.

2 nice things- one is that they’re cheap obviously, £12 an end. But also, they’re not choosy about pads, so no extra expense there either.

Lots of useful stuff there. Thanks for the info.

Tektro 926Al mini v is all you need to know…

I’ve had many CX/canti brakes and mini v’s blow them all out of the water

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=34580

These work really well

TRP

Or if you can live with lower clearances these have amazing stopping power

TRP2

mtb v-brakes with travel agents – great braking and I had absolutely no issues with them in the year before I got discs.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/problem-solvers-travel-agent/

TRP CX9’s are awesome.