Quoth marc garcia:
>Well I've been riding my raleigh competition and
>international alot lately. The competition was set up
>with Universal 61 centerpulls and the international
>with the apropriate weinmanns, 610's. Both were given
>some modern brake blocks, I forget the brand, but to
>me the difference in performance is very noticeable. I
>never really cared for centerpulls, switching them out
>for sidepulls whenever I could, but I had always
>simply dealt with either weinmann or dia-compe
>calipers.
>
>By far I think the universal brakes provide much more
>stopping power and modulation. Any opinions would be
>greatly appreciated. I was going to put some weinmanns
>on the competition just to make it correct but now I'm
>not so sure.
I think you're correct about this. The original Universal brake levers had a lower mechanical advantage than most contemporary levers, and they made it up in the calipers. Using the Universal calipers with more mainstream levers (or better yet, modern "aero" levers from Campagnolo, Shimano or Tektro/Cane Creek) results in quite good braking.
Sheldon "Universal" Brown
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| the game happily, untroubled by the certainty |
| of the outcome. --Robert A. Heinlein |
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