Giving the better half’s bike a spruce ready for the summer but the brakes are bobbins* TBH.
The brakes are cheapo Dia-Compe (remember them) and have never been very good in the all the time she’s had the bike (1999). Even with new inners and outers there seems to be some ‘slop’ in the system – I don’t think I’m that bad a tinkerer but they’re never ‘right’.
The grab screws on the levers don’t adjust the travel in the levers enough so looking for a set that need less pull on the levers before they bite.
Any recommendations?

*polite term for shite 😉

Any chance of fitting a front disk? It’ll be much better and more confidence inspiring. If not the parallel push shimanos are about as good they get.

can’t go wrong with deore xt – especially at £44 for a set

http://www.merlincycles.com/set-of-shimano-t780-xt-v-brakes-44556.html

Pink ones.

Seriously though – my hybrid came with Tektro V brakes and I can’t believe how good they are. Not far off disk power, and they can’t have cost much.

V brakes need V-brake specific levers mind.

Eh, cheapo canti or V diacompes from the 90’s

Got a new set of Diacompe MX2 V’s and levers couple of years ago, been brilliant, stock pads where a bit soft and mushy, after burning through them grabbed some cartridge pads and instant gain in performance. Well good for the money.

Shimano still do V’s as do Avid, maybe Cane Creek, Diacompe, some BMX race sets from Gusset and KCNC but they are trick/flash race sets.

The old XTR ones crop up second hand, allright as long as the bushes aren’t worn out on the linkage

Also some very cheap promax sets for about £20

acehtn – they are V brakes at the mo.
Was going to look out for some decent used ones – a full set inc levers.
Bike doesn’t get used off road or very often so don’t want to buy new as gets quite pricey – they just need to be better than what’s there now.

If they are V brakes currently then they should be plenty good enough – you have some other problem I reckon.