Guys,
Having read the exchanges on the reletive virtues of?Campag side-pulls vs the rest for the last couple of days, here's my two cents worth.
"Back in the day" when men were men and we all wore hairnets, basically no-one - except for the select few; could actually afford Campag brakes (at least when they were first marketed in the UK). I clearly remember too that this even extended to the cash ranks where I think the Holdsworth Pro team were the first to use them - and exclusively in the UK pro peleton for some time too...
This is one of the reasons why old lags like me with long memories?still lust after the classic orange and blue Holdworth Pro with full Campag rig...
However (long pause) the rest of us peons had to make do with Universals, GBs, Mafacs (though these were less common in the UK bunch by the early 70's) and of course Weinmann centre and side pulls.
I used the latter two Weinmann models?almost exclusively in time trialling (side pulls - preferably drilled to extinction?as per Derek Cottington and Alf Engers) road racing (undrilled side-pulls) and cyclo cross (centre pulls) - simply because they were common and v.cheap to buy - and I have to say they never let me down once. I never found either config' difficult to set-up and still don't.
The side-pulls were very elegant, the centre-pulls very, very?ugly but both polished up nicely and with regular adjustment and lubrication served very well...
The 'clincher' for me is (and was)?that in the v.early 1970s, John Atkins - one of my few heroes and arguably the best 'Cross rider the UK ever produced, raced on Weinmann C/pulls, as demonstrated here:-
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
Most of the rest of the UK Pro 'Crossers were using Mafac Driver cantis at the time - and though John probably was of course contractually obliged to use the Weinmanns - if they were good enough for him, they were certainly good enough for me!
Ian Briggs
LUTON, Bedfordshire. UK.