TiHabanero

For the past month or so I have been using a bike with roller cam brakes. I have set up many sets of these as I worked in a bike shop for 40 years, but never actually owned and operated them on a consistent basis. I find they are very easy to set up and work exceptionally well, better than canti's or linear pull. I am using them with drop bars and Exage brake levers. Modulation is very, very good, and stopping power is very, very good. Why did they never catch on? Because some idiots mounted them under the chain stays? Weight? What?

ofajen

Good question. Sheldon Brown wrote that they are more difficult to set up than cantilever brakes and make for more difficult wheel changes. I have no experience, and it sounds like you didn’t find them harder to set up.

I have a late 80s MTB, so of course it has a rear U-brake. I don’t find them hard to set up nor are wheel changes much harder, but they are inferior for single speed because the shift in position on the rear drop out translates to a shift of the brake pad relative to the rim. So you pretty much have to reset the brake pads if you change a gear.

Otto

jolly_codger

I had them on two bikes (Bridgestone MB-1 and an MB-2) and (1) they were a PITA to set up properly (I truly admire your wrenching skills if you had no problems setting them up and they work decently) & (2) ride/race in wet conditions and they caught every last bit of mud leading to no braking. Both of my bike with them were replaced with U-brakes as soon as they came on the market. After so many years in this sport/hobby I see roller-cams under the umbrella of a lot of bike-related things: There will be people who love them and there will be people who loathe them (e.g. internal cable routing, oval chainrings, threaded headsets, etc.)
Happy Holidays to you and I hope 2024 brings you safe & happy times on your bike(s)!
John

CrimsonEclipse

More moving parts.

Kapusta

Are you talking about centerpull rollercam brakes? Where the brake mounting bosses are higher than for cantis?

aces2splash

The u brake took over the roller cam style brake. It had less moving parts thus it was easier to maintain.

bboy314

Not much insight to add here, except to say that I’m also a big fan of roller cams!

Russ Roth

If its the same exage levers I used to have, they had a quick release button built into the brake lever that would allow the brake to open up easily. With a regular set of canti levers I could see the brakes being a real pain to get the wheel out.

big john

With regular cantis you can install an in-line quick release between the cable stop on the frame and the straddle cable. Or, you can pull the straddle cable out of one side. I've had 5 bikes with cantis and cantis suck.

ofajen

Never had the levers, just got most of a bike for $50 some years back and it had the U-brake arms. I’m using ordinary Tektro levers. The U-brake straddle cable can be released by squeezing the pads to the rim and pulling out one end of the cable from the end of the brake arm. Similar to many cantilever brakes, like the Tektros on the front wheel of this bike.

Otto

TiHabanero

bboy314, looks like the rollers on your brakes are plastic. Mine have brass rollers which were supplied by Suntour to replace the plastic rollers back in the day. I just received a set of Kool-stop red pads for another bike. How do you like them on the roller cam brakes?

cyccommute 

I think they were never popular for much the same reason U-brakes fell out of favor. The studs on the frame were different from cantilever which meant that the bike had to be built for roller cams and the roller cam couldn’t be added to an existing bike. The reason linear brakes caught on was that they were backwards compatible.

And, no, cantilevers don’t “suck”. I have 3 current bikes with cantilevers…one of set on a traditional heavy loaded touring bike… and they work very well, thank you very much!

Kapusta

If I am reading the info in this thread correctly, and Cantis were already established, then I can see why bike manufacturers would be hesitant to change the brake mount bosses and commit to a new brake standard unless there was a really big good reason to do so.

TiHabanero

Kapusta, that makes a lot of sense, but I wonder if bike companies really care about that kind of thing as proprietary parts on lots of bikes out there exist. Especially the mini suspension headset/stems and seat post/frames that are popular right now.
Perhaps it was weight or cost? What ever it is, it's a shame they didn't stick around.

bboy314

Someday I plan to upgrade to the brass rollers. One of my plastic ones is cracked, though they work fine. Kool stops are generally my preferred rim brake pads. I’m using the salmon cantilever pads on these and they work great, with proper set up.

mstateglfr 

I read this question and immediately flip it to- why would they have caught on?
They look cool, but I have never used any that I think work inherently better than a set of $20 entry Level tektro brakes.

Trakhak

Pros:

Effort at the lever is easily adjusted to taste, unlike cantilevers. Lots of brakes have been described as requiring only one finger on the lever for full stopping power---it's actually true for roller cams. All that's needed is an adjustable wrench and an Allen key. (Loosen the Allen bolt, twist the spring fitting a few degrees with the adjustable wrench until the pads are centered, tighten the Allen bolt.)

Once you've figured out how to set them up, adjustment for brake pad positioning is easy, too.

If you move the brakes from one bike to another, all you need to accommodate narrower or wider stays or forks is a different width plate between the rollers. (Suntour made those plates in two widths.)

They're probably the most overbuilt bike brakes ever designed. I can't imagine any way they could become damaged, short of shearing the frame's braze-on fittings.

Cons:

Roller cams are bit heavier than cantilevers.

They are, of course, incompatible with frames designed for cantilevers.

If you do have to switch them to another roller cam bike with different clearances (which is a pretty unlikely scenario all these decades later), you probably will be unable to find wider or narrower plates.

The rear roller cam is easily fouled with mud. After the brakes had been on the market long enough for people to complain about that problem, Suntour came out with a triangular leather cover with straps that folded around the rollers and below the plate and fastened on the back with Velcro. (In our shop, we called them "sweaters.") Anyone who has roller cams could, of course, rig up one up from scrap leather, cloth, etc.

mstateglfr 

The last bike I set up with roller cams was a couple years ago. Both brakes set up quickly and easily. The design of the brakes is fun in a 'it's unique since it isn't used' sort of way. But I just never noticed the braking to be better or worse than cantilever. And I can get 1 ginger braking from cheap stamped vbrakes...if that was something I want.

Not trying to argue, and your well thought out response is genuinely appreciated, I just still come back tonot asking why they didn't catch on, but rather why would they have caught on?
I do think that they got a bit of a rough reputation because they were trendy to slap under the chainstays where they didn't work great once muddy and were difficult to clean. Right or wrong, reputation and wives tales go a long way in how cycling tech is perceived(crack n fail).

cyccommute 

That applies to most but not all cantilevers. There are a number of cantilevers that use nut type tension adjusters like the roller cams did. Paul still uses them but there are many other examples from back in the day. Shimano, of which there are far too many examples, made bad cantilevers that gave cantilevers the bad name they gained.

GamblerGORD53

LOL. They have more metal than my DRUM brake. Which has ZERO faults or adjustments, easy to dismount the wheel, zero rim wear and goes 35,000 miles.

Frkl

Dia Compe cantis, many of them, at least, used to have this type of tension adjustment, although the tension plate and flats were behind the canti arm, requiring the use of a cone wrench.

My 987s are one of my favorite brake.

With these questions of why or why not a technical alternative was adopted, the technical attributes of the thing are just part of the equation. Also have to think about bikes as a mass market, mass produced product. Do the technical benefits outweigh the hit to production efficiency and bottom line?

For instance, I think the method Shimano adopted of pin in whole with tension screw was about mass product and ease of set up. It's clearly technically inferior to the Dia Compe method in terms if adjustability. But They realized most consumers don't need, want or care about the adjustment, or even realize adjustment is possible, while a factory worker on a bike assembly line, or a mechanic setting up a new bike in a shop, is way more efficient and quick with the simpler system.

And then they added the presized link cables, which again, offer less adjustment and are never ideal. You can almost always get it better with a traditional straddle cable--but the links were efficient and good enough for most people. And way faster on the production end of things.

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burnthesheep

The Tririg aero front brakes for triathlon bikes are made this way. You can still buy them new as of today that I know of.