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I used to think Vs were realy good brakes before disks but just returned from a ride with the dog and after the demise of my frame I used an old marin with narrow bars long stem and V brakes . it was horrible stopping distance twice as far , uncomfortable riding position and the rear sus bobbing nicely .
cant wait to get a hardtail up and running again with brakes that will stop on request , Paddy the dog would also prefer the quicker stopping
that way he gets to pee on the bit he first sniffed not 2 feet further away and a sore neck .
anyone still use the brakes of doom vs
Got xt vs on the back of my hack..liking them as it goes.
[b]trout wrote:[/b]
Paddy the dog would also prefer the quicker stopping
that way he gets to pee on the bit he first sniffed not 2 feet further away and a sore neck .
Hahahaha, this really, really tickled me!! Nice one, thats put a smile on my face this evening!! 😀
Nowt wrong with a properly set up set of V's provided you're not riding through deep gloop.
i'm running xt brakes on my killer v and they work a treat until it gets muddy
I still run Vee's on my hacker, unbranded and pretty good when the rims are clean. They came of an early 00's Speccy Enduro that was swiftly upgraded to Hope disks.
I remember getting a set of the first XT Vees to replace a set of Dia Compe 986 cantilevers. I couldn't believe what an improvement Vees were.
Yup, I have V brakes on my bike - I haven't ridden a bike with disc brakes so I don't know any different.
Built a bike up for my ex GF the other week, using some Deore V brakes and some Dia Compe V brake levers (can't remember the number, but they were quite long). Also used some proper cartridge style pads rather than the crappy ones Deore's come with, in a softish compound.
Set them up, then took it down the road, and nearly went straight over the bars first time I pulled the front brake lever! Kinda shocked me to say the least, considering I'm used to very powerful disc brakes these days...
Of course, ride the V brakes through the mud and water, and the stopping distances will multiply by 10 almost instantly! Or use them at any speed and they will fade a hell of a lot worse than discs do...
Still, for slow speed "stick in the spokes" instant stopping power, they can still be quite effective!
v brakes fade a lot *less* than disks, surely? I've never had a problem stoppying on v's, even when cacked up, but they did stop the wheel turning sometimes (when not on) due to that, and the pads wore out pretty quick
I always found I snapped cables regularly with Vs. Preferred HS33s. Still use them, but prefer my discs now. Still think HS33s have the nicest lever feel.
another V brake user here. Like `dawson have never ridden a bike with discs yet. Probably will see the light one day, but for now V's do the job. have ridden the black run in Llandegla on them and many miles in the grimy peak district. Not killed myself yet......
if you spend most of your life on tarmac - as i suspect most mountain bike(r)s do - then discs will be superior simply because the friction between road : tyre is greater and you can make use of their stopping power. but if you're off-road, friction between ground : tyre will ALWAYS be the limiting factor in braking, and you simply can't make use of the retardation provided by discs. in fact, 'v's' make waaaay more sense.
but who cares? you go play with your brake bleeds, pad setup, warped discs, and i'll go riding...
people with discs are just MX wanabee's 🙂
V's on my commuter/occasional off roader - fine as long as it's not wet.
RO
do you actually ride a bike ?
not only do i ride one, it takes me interesting places too. just finished a painful but fun weekend riding from da lat - mui ne - sai gon. all roads, i admit, but fun nevertheless. this weekend it's off road in plei ku.
it's an old kona cindercone from about 2002 with lots of light bits and a nice new p2 fork. i spent most of the ride fending off the advances of two riders of something garish with discs, a carbon frame and suspension hung all over it who wanted to swap bikes, 'cos they coveted my kona...
but, hey, i bet you mountain bike a lot in the lakes huh? you NEED your discs there. for posing.
*s*****
What you on about RO, there aren't many upgrades to a bike where i can notice a difference. The change from V's to Hydraulic disc's however was a huge improvement.
Some of the benefits of disc brakes:
More progressive, better feel, once set up hardly ever need to touch them, pad life 10x that of v's, no rim wear issues, less effort so one finger braking much easier, warped/damaged rims do not effect braking, mud/water has minimal effect on performance.. i could go on!!!
More importantly why on earth would most of us spend more time on tarmac with our mountainbikes. I would say that over 95% of the all the riding i have ever done on my MTB has been dirt!
I used to be a V-brake defender. I thought pretty much like ro. Then I bought a new bike, and Vs weren't an option. Discs are more powerful, more controllable, and these days the weight difference is small. I can't agree with s_i_w abot the pad life though - I used to spend about £4.50 a year on V brake pads, discs are costing me nearer £80. I am assuming that my rims will last longer though, which should even things out a bit.
I'm thinking that ro uses v's and rigid etc becuase it easier for parts by the sound of where he's riding. His attitude stinks though.
i do not stink!!! oh, ok, maybe just a little.
yes, you're correct, reliability is a big issue out here. when things break (brake?) you're on your own, no-one will bother to help you out.
perhaps if i lived in a civilized land i too would be seduced by shiny bits and glossy carbon and rotating discs. but here, 'simple makes sense'. and, truth to tell, it probably does in your land too, which was the point i was trying to make 🙂
Well speaking from first hand experience frid/sat/ sun riding in the lakes and scotland 95% offroad on a disk braked bike ( I am a Fat knacker ) and tuesday the canal towpath with the dog on the horrible bike with Vs the stopping distance was hugely different .
dog runs along side on one of those extending leads so he stops I have 5 mtres to stop so not to yank his neck disks and reaction time is doable
Vs and reaction time not so doable
"if you spend most of your life on tarmac - as i suspect most mountain bike(r)s do"
Surely people have a road bike for that sort of thing? I know I do.
a) dogs near bikes or runners are the Spawn Of The Devil and deserve to be run over.
b) tubby people should not be on mountain bikes. It's Just Wrong.
c) 'v' brakes should only be used by people who know how to set them up and use them, which automatically excludes 97.4% of the mountain biking population.
d) if you simply MUST have a dog, train it to run beside you not in front of you. it's a pack animal, it will learn this quickly. it's also kinder to the rest of us.
e) ceramic rims.
f) learn to anticipate the actions of your pooch.
I used to mash through a set of V-brake pads in one ride if it was mucky out. I've had the same pads in my disc brakes for literally YEARS now, and had them bled once. They work fine, and I reckon they've paid for themselves in terms of money saved on pads and cables.
pretty good when the rims are clean.
about sums it up for me. Given that most mountainbikers (well, northern europeans at least) ride in some mud and wet, rims are rarely clean and vs don't tend to apply enough pressure to clean them. Hydro stops do but then you're chucking away the weight advantage of Vs.
We were discussing disc brakes last night after our ride and I came to the conclusion that I'd sooner give up suspension than disc brakes. close call though.
I probably never use my disks as hard as they could be used, so v-brakes are equally good for me.
Or so I thought.
The first 24 hour race I did was with Vs. By the end of the race the rims were junk because the course was muddy.
Disks are the answer to that problem.
Still running Vs on one frame, Idid a couple of laps of a XC loop before a race at the weekend. Half way through my third lap the rear shoes had gone leaving me with a 70/30 bias towards the front brake. No way was I doing the descents on that! About 20km for the mud to destroy them!!!
ro while it is quite clear you are trolling and we should not rise to the bait .
Just go away
which bit of " dog runs along side " did you not understand
Successful troll Ro, but wrong of course. Well, maybe a grain of truth, but only a fool would say Vees are better. I do like the dig regarding people having disks just to look like MXers - that's a general disease inflicting MTBers.
Disk at the front and v at the back for me at the moment. Upgrading to a disk at the front last year was as big a revelation as getting forks that actually work. I would upgrade to disks all round but that would mean a new frame or having the frame modified and the Rohloff would have to go back to Germany to be altered so it would end up costing rather a lot. I've got ceramic rims which still show little wear after a lot of use but as I commute off road all year round they are rarely clean which I'm sure would make a big difference. I use ceramic specific pads which seem to last well but I think I'll try something a bit softer when they need changing.
I rode my '93 Team Marin at the weekend for the first time in about a year ( as I bought a Yeti ASR). It has cantis and to be honest I didn't really notice a difference in braking.
It might be because we rode a regular loop which I know well so don't need to brake much but I did notice the grinding sound of mud on the rim compared to riding with discs.
I forgot how much I love riding this bike so it's going to get a lap or 2 at Mayhem this year I think.
Ultimately riding is riding, you need to adapt to what you're on and make the best of it. I cleared riding a bridge which I'd never done on the Marin before - it's not about the bike but the rider.
I still use canti's on a couple of my bikes