I replaced the cane creek canti’s that came on the Castro Valley commuter with these Paul Touring Cantis. As you can see from this pic, these things did not hold up well to the PGH rain and road salt. It’s a tough life for the commuter brakes.
Now the Paul’s take a bit of time to set up, really no more time than any other canti. It’s just been a while since I set up canti’s.
They include Koolstop pads, but admittedly I like cartidge style pads more. When I wear these pads out I will have to mess with toe in all over again. Well at least I honed those skills back in the early days of mtn bikes 🙂 I will replace them with cartridge pads when the time comes. Not a big deal…
Speaking of set up, you have to adjust spring tension with a 15mm wrench and a 5mm allen key. Its actually really easy to set up, probably less than 1 minute per wheel.
You might notice this looks just like the IRD Cafam, that I had on my old cross bike. Those brakes were great but I sold them along with that old frame. These actually feel a bit more solid than the Cafams, and with better modulation. That said, the cafams are 2/3rds the cost.
At this point I have no trouble recommending these brakes. They are very powerful, but have tons of modulation. They are not just on or off, you can really control the brakes. I even was able to pull an endo with a pannier on the back…
You can check them out at Paul’s Site. Lickbike.com had then on sale for $74/pair.