The Vintage Brakes Thread

[Peachy!]

forget the bushes! Enough of the bushes!

The arms flex because they are weak and I am strong!

I have to sort of agree with the big cheesy one, I had a beautiful set of Mafic Racers on my ‘61 Claud Super Coureur and although I was happy with having to pre-empt any braking requirements, when my lad took the bike on as his winter ride he really hated them, particularly after one incident where he shot over a crossroads (in the wet) near our home. Thankfully there wasn’t any traffic but it shook him up.
Wanting to replace them with something more capable but still from the 60’s I cleaned up a set of Universal Super 68 side pulls, absolutely stunning performance (in comparison to the Mafics)

 

[vcballbat]

Une Colnago.."Zut Alors"

 

[jim haseltine]

I have to sort of agree with the big cheesy one, I had a beautiful set of Mafic Racers on my ‘61 Claud Super Coureur and although I was happy with having to pre-empt any braking requirements, when my lad took the bike on as his winter ride he really hated them, particularly after one incident where he shot over a crossroads (in the wet) near our home. Thankfully there wasn’t any traffic but it shook him up.
Wanting to replace them with something more capable but still from the 60’s I cleaned up a set of Universal Super 68 side pulls, absolutely stunning performance (in comparison to the Mafics)
View attachment 581506

That wouldn't have been the brakes flexing though - Mafac brake blocks were next to useless in wet weather, even if you were used to riding them you'd get caught out from time to time.

 

[mdvineng]

I had brake caliper flex with weinmann 999, so I increased the toe in on the brake blocks using shims. Result was better braking but one cold winters day cycling home from work and braking hard for the T junction resulted in a ping and me head butting a passing Cortina The alloy couldn't take the applied braking forces and the extra twisting forces from the increased toe in and just sheared off at the pivot. A lucky end to loss of brakes.

 

[dirttorpedo]

dont you need a 'vintage headset' thread for that?


Hatta Swam, Tange, better value than Campagnolo

LGF hates Mafacs but wants to like them.. or maybe it's the other way around? You need a big picture of Poulidor and/or Anquetil on the workshop wall, LGF, to cast a benign influence over your Mafac-fettling..

You can understand with what relief the pros all moved to Campag side pulls as the sixties waned.. One (long)
bolt instead of three shorter ones, not to mention the extra gubbins that holds Mafac blocks to the stirrups,
and those pesky cable hangers. Three or four extra linkages/interfaces to go wrong.

But then we ain't pros- we're hobbyist retroistas who supposedly take delight in returning the fine-tuning
to this outdated stuff. If it's too easy, what's the point?

Can't you just replace the existing spacer (there should be one) with the cable hanger, and store the redundant spacer in an untidy drawer so that you won't be able to find it when you decide the pros of this Mafac malarkey are being outweighed by the cons?

LGF - I would like a new but vintage looking headset ideally.

Torqueless - That's what I thought initially, but found that the existing vintage Tange headset has no spacer and there is not enough threads on the fork to add one. I've measured and the current headset seems to be around 40mm so I probably need something around 35mm. Unfortunately the most common 1" threaded headset for sale around here is the Ritchey model which has that horrible plastic top.

 

[mdvineng]

Tange levin is 33mm stack

 

[Woz]

The OP did say "wade in". Concerning vintage brakes, I reckon it's something to do with the evolution in time. Somehow, in the dark depths, the original designs of caliper brakes where already whittled down to nothing light weight piddly things. Maybe something to do with an improvement of not having any brakes at all made flexy brakes still OK.

In my mind, Mafac were one of the first to take braking actually serious. By design and/or material choice.

All that said, concerning vintage calipers, Campagnolo monoplaners deserve a mention. Flex? What flex?

 

[mdvineng]

Good brakes were actually dangerous back in the old days, as the road surfaces were either loose stones, mud or horse crap and so easy to lock up the wheels. Soft gentle brakes were better.

 

[Peachy!]

Good brakes were actually dangerous back in the old days, as the road surfaces were either loose stones, mud or horse crap and so easy to lock up the wheels. Soft gentle brakes were better.

My exact argument against disc brakes on MTB’s I just don’t see the point.

 

[Woz]

Agree. Back then, it was all so different.

Thing is today, especially for a commuter or something urban, there are so many untold surprises due to the volume of buzy bodies. Personally, good - and foremost - predictable and repeatable anchors is high on the requirement list.

A bit off-topic, but I've been amazed at how carbon rims solved one problem but created another in the pro-road scene; grabby uncontrollable braking causing peloten pile ups, and - Nibali comes to mind - can't get round an hair-pin corner. Think there was an episode in the womans Olympics or Worlds where it was a bit rainy, you just couldn't believe what you were seeing; like watching skittles falling. Even chrome rims dried off pre-corners would have been better.