sjanzeir

I daily-drove an air-cooled bug for three or four years back when I was a mechanic in a previous life and yes, it was a terrible car, but not because of reliability or any lack of fun driving it. The floor boards were rusted through (natch!) and the rudimentary electrical system was iffy, but both of these issues - and many more - were easy and cheap fixes. I even got the heater to work!

cyccommute 

Try again. Yes, they pull more cable but that has nothing to do with why they are call “linear pull”. Wikipedia does a good job of describing why they are called “linear pull” or “direct pull”

It makes no sense to call the brake a “linear pull” based on the lever since the lever pulls in the same way as a center pull brake like a cantilever does. The difference is only in the amount of pull.

For further evidence that the lever isn’t why it is call “linear pull”, consider that you can put a travel agent on a linear pull brake to make it work with long pull brakes by putting a circle in the cable. We also don’t call mechanical disc brakes “linear” even though mountain bike versions use long pull levers. Further, many brakes come with the ability to change the pull from long to short so that they can be used with either linear or cantilever (or other short pull) brakes. Most inexpensive brake levers are made with mold marks for short pull and long pull, although they are usually only drilled for long pull brakes.

vonfilm 

I recently replaced some cheap ProMax V brakes that I could never get adjusted properly with Shimano Deore V brakes for less than $50.00.
I believe these to be far the best value V brakes that one can buy new.

Jeff Neese

Correct - that's what I said. It has to do with the cable pull/mechanical advantage of the lever.

That is what I was responding to. It is wrong - it has nothing to do with the physical orientation of the cable with regard to the the brakes and whether anything is horizontal or vertical. As you learned when you Googled it, it's about cable pull and mechanical advantage (leverage) of the levers.

Sure we do. As in "I need to find linear pull brake levers to go with these disc brakes." Direct pull or long pull are two other names for the same thing.

cyccommute 

I have looked all over on Google and can find nothing that says linear brakes have a 1:1 pull. In fact, there are lots to articles out there about the lower mechanical advantage of linear brakes because of the need to pull more cable.

Now you are just being silly. I’ve never heard anyone (who knew what they were talking about) ask for “linear pull brake levers” for disc brakes. Long pull, yes, but not “linear pull”. Mechanical discs can be made with arms so that they can be used with short pull or long pull levers. The only reason early ones used long pull levers was because that’s what most people have transitioned to when mountain bikes went from cantilevers to linear pull brakes.

Jeff Neese

OK, sure. You're arguing semantics - "linear pull" refers to the brakes, while "long pull" refers to the levers. From this article: "Linear-pull brakes require "long-pull" brake levers." https://www.centurycycles.com/tips/t...ake-pg1303.htm

But I think I could walk into just about any bike store and ask for linear-pull brake levers, and they would understand. Especially since there are only two kinds, and the other is universally called "short pull". And also there is no such thing as linear-pull brakes that use anything but long-pull levers. The two (brakes and levers) have to match.

My original point was that it has nothing to do with horizontal or vertical orientation of cables, brake arms, levers, or anything. It's about the cable pull and mechanical advantage, not the physical orientation in space as you had originally described.

sjanzeir

Jeff Neese - you're confused about a lot of things here. The fact that they're called "linear pull" brakes has nothing to do with the length of the the V-brake arms (the ones down by the rims.) Both "regular" (105-108mm, sometimes longer) V-brakes and so-called "mini" V-brakes (around 85mm) are "linear pull" brakes. The "linearity" comes from the fact that the cable and cable housing actuate a given V-brake by "directly" pulling the brake arms together and squeezing - or pinching, if you will - the rim. Hence the other name for V-brakes: "direct pull" brakes, meaning no intermediate cable between the main cable and the brake arms like the one cantilever brakes have.

And none of the above has anything to do with the way a typical flat-handlebar brake lever works. Which is why I could (and I did) have two different bikes that used identical brake levers, with one running rim V-brakes and the other running mechanical disk brakes. Even though the levers applied the braking action through a liver on the caliper that pivoted around an axis, absolutely no one would've called the levers on the bike with disk brakes "arc pull!"

Which is why, just as there are long-pull and short-pull V-brakes, there are also long-pull and short-pull mechanical disk brake calipers; this was necessary for the industry's transmission from rim brakes - with V-brakes having become the most ubiquitous type of rim brake outside of road bikes - and the exploding popularity of entry-level (with no shortage of premium) mechanical disk brakes. What needed to be matched is the amount of pull at the lever (long vs. short) with that of brake being used (long-pull or short-pull, regardless of it being a rim V-brake or a mechanical disk brake caliper.) That's why there are "long-pull" levers (in that the blade's pivot is farther away towards the handlebar from the cable barrel anchor) and "short-pull" levers (the two are much closer to each other.) SRAM's/Avid's FR-5 brake levers - and the kajillion clones/knockoffs simplified things for both manufacturers and consumers by being "medium-pull" brake levers that worked well (whether equally so or not is up for debate) with both long- and short-pull brakes - no matter what type they are.

Rolla

So which is it?

sjanzeir

Both statements you highlighted are correct. It's just that they came in two different - but related - contexts.

Rolla

Regardless of context, I'm skeptical that both are correct. I'm not sure that either are.

big john

Retired car mechanic here. Last 30 years spent as a diagnostic technician at new car dealers, mostly GM. Electric car certified for 10 years and diesel certified, too.
I diagnosed thousands of cars and trucks and I can assure you there is no machine which diagnoses cars. What we do have is data displayed on a laptop or hand held scan tool, on older cars. Also, we have access to technical assistance from factory supported sources.

I think the biggest advantage to working on the same vehicles is learning the tendencies of a model can make diagnosing the next one go smoother. Remember, most electronic issues are intermittent. Getting an electronic failure to repeat while you are working on it is sometimes impossible.

sjanzeir

All the more reason to eliminate them altogether.

Jeff Neese

I'm not confused, and I agree with most of what you're saying (although again, some of this is semantics). It's about the amount of pull at the lever, and matching that to the brakes. It's the cable pull and mechanical advantage (leverage). Something like Travel Agents simply change the cable pull, and in so doing change the mechanical advantage to be compatible with long-pull brakes.

What I was clarifying is that it has nothing to do with the physical orientation, horizontal or vertical, of the cable with regard to the brakes. It also has nothing to do with the brake performance being "linear" over the life of the brake pads, but someone else picked up on that one.

sjanzeir

No. How much or how little cable the lever pulls is not the reason why V-brakes are called "linear pull" brakes. It's the physical orientation of the cable down at the actual V-brake arms. The only thing you clarified is just how deeply confused you are about the icon of simplicity that is the good old V-brake.

Lombard

I see you are in Saudi Arabia which means you may have never suffered with the garbage that came out of Detroit, USA in the 1970's and 80's - the reason our auto industry almost collapsed........twice. Not to mention rust is probably non-existent where you are. In the Northeast USA, that car would be a pile of brown powder by now.

big john

I'm not against simpler cars but I don't want a carburetor or contact point ignition. Computers have given us cars with over 400 horsepower and better than 20mpg, among other things. In the US we have fuel economy and emission standards which could not be met without modern tech.

Also, many people want Bluetooth and push button starting and built in gps, rain sense wipers, along with traction and yaw control, etc. We have cars with 30 computers on board and that isn't going away.

Jeff Neese

Well, go ahead and try your V-brakes or MTB mechanical disk brakes with short-pull levers, and tell us how well it works. (Hint: not very well.) Both kinds of brakes require the same amount of cable pull and thus the same brake levers can be used, regardless of which direction the cable is oriented or how it attaches to the brakes. You can use "linear pull" levers with mechanical disk brakes, which have a different setup with regard to the orientation of the cable.

sjanzeir

Jeez, what makes you think that?

big john

That's a GMC Typhoon. Came out in 1992. Fun car to drive. Clint Eastwood had 5 of them at one point, I worked on some of his.

big john

From Wiki: And since the arms move the same distance that the cable moves with regard to its housing, the design is also called "linear-pull"

sjanzeir

Incorrect. Obviously, your confusion persists.

See pertinent point made in earlier post.

sjanzeir

And where were you when I could've used your expertise to fix this piece crap that I owned for 11 months and drove for three days, and that bankrupted me and nearly destroyed my marriage?

Lombard

Last time I checked, 1992 wasn't in the 1970's and 80's.

cxwrench

I've always thought it was the orientation of the cable across the top of the brake arms, but I've been been working in shops since a little before V-brakes actually came out. I guess it would be more correct to say lateral pull...or horizontal pull. I do remember being told to only use V brake compatible levers at the time because they had greater cable pull but less leverage as the brake arms themselves were longer and thus more powerful/had greater leverage.

big john

Sorry I couldn't be there but I was in the Los Angeles area.