Deltas - not as bad as you think

[964Cup]

Despite the tricky setup delta brakes were ridden by many pros, for many years. Common sense says that their performance could not have been that bad.

You've missed the point, it wasn't the performance that was the original problem.

Jon.

I'm not sure kgt has missed the point entirely. Yes, the problem with the originals was a combination of corrosion and the failure of the pinch bolt (which is, admittedly, quite a serious failure in a brake...) but Campagnolo stuck with the design for years and refined it continuously.

Nonetheless the reputation remains, and one of the most vocal critics was Jobst Brandt, who held that the parallelogram had "no place in a brake design". I can understand if people worried they would fail, but not why they have a reputation for being poor brakes in the stopping sense when they're otherwise not broken. My own experience (of last gen, fully-refined versions) is that they perform better than the Monoplaners in terms both of modulation and ultimate stopping power.