I know, I know cyclo cross brakes are meant to be rubbish, they're for racing etc but I don't race. I do use my cross bike on local mtb trails however and don't want to start putting a disc brake fork etc on the front, any tips to get bit more from the brakes? shimanos with ultegra levers on pretty bog standard rims

ta

disc brake on the front. (and back, preferably)

🙂

All the usual cable brake tricks.

Really tidy cable routing – re-cable and trim the outers just-so and especially avoid tight turns.

Clean cables (if you re-cable they will be clean anyway) Dura-Ace/XTR are really good.

Clean brake bosses, grease and re-mount cantis.

Set straddle wire nice and low, so you get a 90 degree angle on the canti arm.

Edit: get the blocks hitting the rim spot-on – completely flat but toe first and smack in the middle of the braking surface.

You don't need disks, but cable brakes always did need constant fuss.

Clean the rims and blocks, or fit new blocks of the softest variety.

koolstop pads is the first thing, brake setup e.g position of yoke and straddle wire is key, then if that fails try a different brake 😉

I have newish Tektro ones which "apparently" are good brakes by CX standards. Still crap though 😀

I have tektro cr520 and koolstop pads and I thought they were kinda ok till I rode a road bike and realised how good road calipers are now (apologies to my brother for the big skid I did on his tyre)

Considering mini V's as I dont race around muddy fields on it

Straddle wire is the biggest influence on how well Cantis work – it's a reducing rate linkage as it gets pulled up.

What are the calipers? Canti's can be set up to work well despite what is said.

Funny I did the same thing. I rented a campag equipped road bike on holiday and was shocked how good the brakes were compared to my CR720s 😆

cheers guys, I might have a look at stripping it down today if i have time, def due some TLC and i think when i taped up the hoods way back when i had some sort of issue with the cable outer that i should probably revisit.

MIDDLEBURN Cable Oilers

Mine are cack too, i'd forgotten how much attention they need compared to the discs on my mtb (yes i know an obvious statement).

I think some cables and blocks are needed for mine, done over a 1000 miles on them though 😆

Has anyone tried these?
http://www.rodbikes.com/articles/bigsqueeze.html

Trillium Big Squeeze™

ive got some tektro oryx cheapies with coolstop pads and duraace cables they work a treat

Its all about the straddle cable – throw away that stupid shimano spring and just put an old fashioned straddle cable on instead. Then play around with height/ length etc until you discover the sweet spot where you can get all the power you want.

Personally, I would avoid mini v's – raced on them and they were more hassle than normal canti's and weren't much better in terms of stopping power.

Gore cables are where it's at for cantis. They are so smooth and give a lot more power, that and good blocks. I use froggleg with Gore cable and swissstop blocks, all the power I need at 80kg.

damn, I was hoping mini Vee's might be better and cure the death shudder too

I swapped my Shimano ones for CR520s and the improvement was significant enough for me to not worry about braking anymore.