It comes with V-brakes I would guess which have much better leverage and stopping power. Caliper brakes when they end up with long arms from the frame to the rim do not work very well. Callipers work well with very tight clearance on 700c road bikes and really short arms and the tiny contact patch of the tire (very limited traction). They have never worked even reasonably well on BMX bikes which have much better traction and long distance between the rim and the mounting hole in the frame.