V-pull vs Cantilever brakes?

[Catrin]

My Gunnar fitting is Friday, and Waterford will have a preliminary design before then :) With that in mind, my fitter contacted me today with a couple of questions that he needs answered Monday so that all is ready for my fitting.

My Sport will have flat-bars, and the brakes will be either cantilevers or v-pull and I need to decide which way to go. My beloved LHT has cantilevers, I do not have any experience with un-modulated v-pull brakes. I HATED the brakes on my Trek 7.6. My fitter tells me that I would have a very different experience with v-pull brakes without the modulation that Trek uses.

Would you choose v-pull over cantilevers or the reverse? Why? I am also doing some internet searching to help me make my mind up. I am leaning to the v-pull right now, but I've no experience to back it up.

Thanks!

[lunacycles]

They're called v-brakes, at least last I heard (but that means little these days), and they are extremely stoppy and simpler to adjust/maintain than most cantilever brakes. If you are running a flat bar, I can't see why you wouldn't want them, as what restricts their usage on a lot of bikes is that people have road brake levers (which are challenging to make work with v-brakes due to cable pull issues). If your frame has a brake bridge in the rear(with a cable stop) brazed to it, it will go un-utilized if you use v-brakes, which may be an aesthetic consideration. If you are sticking with flat bars, I'd recommend them over canti's.

[KnottedYet]

V-pulls are a lot easier to manage with a minimum of experience. I've got cantis on 2 of my bikes, and I must admit that I miss the user-friendliness of my ol' reliable V-pulls.

ETA: My Waterford has a brake bridge, which is used by the canti. It's a very cute little thing, very sexy. I wouldn't mind even if it were unused. Waterford/Gunnar makes pretty stuff. My Surly uses a long removeable cable hanger-thingummie instead. http://surlybikes.com/parts/cable_hanger/ I don't have my v-pull bike handy to compare.

[Catrin]

Thank you, this is very helpful. I hadn't realized that I was using the wrong name so I appreciated that information :) It does sound like the v-brakes are the way to go for me, thanks! I have been reading on the internet and it really does seem like almost everyone prefers v-brakes over cantilevers for the very reasons that Knotted gave.