Forum menu
I'm doing a bit of work to an old Kona of mine and I'm sticking with a V-brake for the rear.
It's got an old XT V brake with parallelogram, not sure what vintage. The pads are a horrible mess.
I was going to junk them and buy some new Deores or similar, but I notice that the parallelogram appears to now be out of favour. So why's that then?
Didn't they use to suffer from wear? I'm sure I had a XT V and it turned very sloppy and squealed like a bitch.
^^^
What breadcrumb says
breadcrumb +2 -parallelogram pivots would wear, get a little bit slack and induce squealing. iirc lx ones lasted a bit longer than xt before that set in. But if yours feel ok you might as well fit new pads and see how you get on. When they work they are allegedly easier to get power from than single pivot brakes. At worst you will find they do squeal and you have to get a whole new brake, and then you will have some spare pads for it.
Probably the fact there's nearly no call for high end V brakes anymore.
I'm still running XTR's with Kool Stop pads on the summer race bikes.
The linkage wear wasn't so much of a problem on the back. Having the parallelogram made setting up the pads so much easier.
Some models of XT v brakes used to squeal like stuck pigs from new. I always say Avid for v brakes and Shimano for disc and you can't go wrong