genejockey 

I realize this has probably been done to death, BUT - I've been trying to 'fix' the braking on my recently rebuilt 1982 Lotus Supreme. It has Dura Ace EX (7200 series) single pivot brakes and non-aero levers. All my previous adult experience with road bike brakes has been with bikes newer than 1989, so aero levers and almost all dual pivot brakes. Thus, I'm used to doing most riding, and braking from the hoods. I've struggled with the Lotus, feeling like the braking was just awful, like I have to wrap 3 or 4 fingers around the lever to have much effect. I had been using NOS Dura Ace EX pads - which may be too old by a couple decades - then I swapped them for lightly used Dura Ace pads from about 10 years ago (long story there, but boring as hell!) and while those were better, they still weren't what I'd call 'good'. Pretty good from the drops, frightening from the hoods.

By contrast, I have another bike, a Schwinn Circuit from 1989 with full Shimano Sante kit, with the last generation of Shimano single pivot calipers and aero levers, and its brakes are excellent from hoods or drops.

So then I do a little poking around and I see someone here saying that brake levers BITD were not designed to be used from the hoods, and one should primarily brake from the drops. Is that the consensus? I'm happy to re-learn riding a little for this bike, which has been a labor of love for me (i.e. an obsession), but I want to know if this is what I should expect.

Thanks for reading, and here's some C&V bike porn for your trouble....

Narhay

The aero levers do have a bit of an additional mechanical advantage. The newer pads do help but this is where I find the best braking comes from:

Dead true rims with pads as close to rim as possible without rubbing.
Clean rims with degreaser.
New cables and good quality lined housings
New brake pads, something like kool stop in salmon is my preferred pad.

If these don't allow you to have great braking then perhaps an upgrade to dual pivot caliper brakes may be in order. Sometimes ones grip strength isn't what it used to be, or perhaps needs conditioning. Newer ergo levers and dual pivots should allow one to lock up wheels with less effort.

Bad Lag

Something is wrong.

To start with, get some brand new pads. Do nothing else until that is done.

Lube (grease) the cables unless they are Teflon lined and maybe even then.

Do you have small hands and cannot reach the levers from the hoods?

I have no trouble stopping from the hoods using either Campagnolo brakes or Dura Ace.

P.S. - The levers on the blue bike go to the "wrong" caliper. Switch the cables.

genejockey 

New housing, new cables, greased.

I ordered some Kool Stop pads, but they didn't fit these calipers. But they DID fit the 7403 DA calipers on another bike, so I swapped the pads from that bike onto the Lotus. Those pads performed excellently on the other bike. I ordered new Kool Stops that should fit, which should arrive this week. One finger stops from the drops are no problem, but from the hoods I just don't have the same leverage.

And the levers on the blue bike are set up the same as the red bike, and every other bike I own - Left = front, right = rear. The cables cross, which might not be obvious in a side shot.

Eric F 

Are the pads toed-in a bit? I've found this to be an important detail for getting the best braking performance...along with all the other things. Scuffing the braking surface of the pads with some sandpaper or a fine file can also be helpful. Fresh, clean rubber is a good thing.

Jeff Wills

As above: install new pads that haven't been sitting around hardening.

pcb 

It's an optical delusion. Paging Dr. M. C. Escher......

Sorry to say I have little else to add, since it's been said. Try it with new not-NOS Kool Stop pads fer sure.

FWIW, folks managed to stop bikes OK in the dark days before dual-pivot calipers ruled the roost. That said, dual-pivots rule the roost for a reason, namely the cycling world in general finds them to be the better stoppers.

Also realize your D-A 7200 EX calipers don't have Shimano's SLR ("Shimano Linear Response") balanced-spring setup, like your Sante rig does. SLR dials down the spring tension in the calipers and adds springs to the levers, which gives smoother brake application with less hand force. That does make for more effective braking, especially improving braking from the hoods. So even with perfect setup, your 7200 EX will require more hand force, and feel a little more primitive, than your Sante.

Your bikes look very dialed in, so I'm guessing caliper adjustment isn't an issue, but just so it's said, one does want to make sure the caliper arms aren't too tight/loose.

Also, again, just for completeness, ensure cable casing cuts are square/de-burred, and make sure the post-trimmed end openings are clear.

If the arm/lever sockets allow use of housing caps, use 'em. Often caps won't fit the sockets in the older stuff, and making sure there's no bend/pressure at the housing ends is both important and difficult.

FWIW Part 2, although non-aero brake cabling is pretty straightforward, you will feel improvement from higher-end cables/casing.

Guess it turns out I did have some crap to say after all.....

genejockey 

The rims have had a good wipe-down with isopropanol, and the pads got a good sanding before installation. I worked on the toe-in carefully, because at first one of the fronts was SO toed in that the pad never got flat onto the rim!

I'm looking forward to the new Kool Stops, because I can use the original wheel guides (or whatever you call those triangular things below the pads) for a more 'vintage' look. But stopping > looking. And the Kool Stops have concave washers so I can adjust the toe-in without bending the calipers.

I pretty much rolled the dice on the NOS Dura Ace EX pads. Sometime you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

With the newer Dura Ace pads, braking from the drops is nearly as good as the Sante brakes, but the Sante's are so much better from the hoods. Looking at the location of the pivots for the levers on each, I think that has a lot to do with it. The 7200 levers also don't feel like they were meant to be heavily used from the hoods - the curve, the angle, the drillium. They feel much more natural from the drops.

If you look 3" above the stem, you can see where they cross. It's just hard to see against the vegetation behind it. (I spent a lot of effort setting the cable lengths up so the arcs were the same height above the bar and the crossing point was centered over the stem.)

Bad Lag

Oops! My bad, I see it now. Just trying to help, not that it mattered, either way. I added that at the end, mostly for wicked fun.

randyjawa 

The above is a really good answer, in my opinion, but a couple of things might be added for consideration.

Hubs must also be in good shape and properly adjusted. Also, the pads do not have to be as close to the rim as possible. Why is that..?

I am old and suffer from arthurites in both hands, meaning that the further my fingers have to reach the more my grip strength is diminished. With that in mind, I have learned that a bit of clearance between pads and rim allows the lever to be pulled closer to the brake mount body with less hand/finger pressure. I am not sure that I explained that properly but for me, tight initial clearance makes it harder for me to effect good braking. My strength weakens as my fingers increase in extension. With more brake pad to rim clearance, the initial hand/finger pressure is considerably less and when the actual pad contact occurs my fingers are capable of applying more pressure to the levers. This holds true when I use most aero levers too.

I set all of my bikes up with more pad to rim clearance these days and hard as I might pull, the levers never touch the brake mount body. If they do touch, decrease the pad to rim clearance as required until they don't.

Finally, for now, toe-in can also be an issue if not proper. Too little equals diminished braking performance and more noise. Too much means less pad to rim area of contact and diminished performance.

SurferRosa

This. ^ I'm even using the original pads on two bikes. The calipers have been fully overhauled. The cables/housing are all fairly new and their length is minimal. The rim surfaces are perfect, and the wheels are true.

And don't be afraid to htfu.

Bad Lag

What does this mean?

SurferRosa

Use your hand and wrist muscles.

rccardr 

Another thing to consider if you want to maintain the non-aero look but improve braking is to find a set of Shimano 105 1050 brakes. They were the first SLR levers introduced, bigger in Europe than the US. Look great, work better from the hoods than any other non-aero lever I’ve ever had the pleasure of gripping. Look and you’ll find them, often new.

Shimano also made non-aero 6400 series levers, but they were gray and wouldn’t match up well with the rest of your components.

genejockey 

Thanks for the suggestions, folks! I guess part of it is being used to more modern brakes, and levers, which allow me to practically stand the bike on its front wheel with 2 fingers from the hoods. I'm spoiled!

Andy_K 

Like you, I'm a brake-from-the-hoods kind of guy. I also am really used to dual pivot brakes. I learned to brake from the drops coming down the Cypress descent at California Eroica a couple of years ago. The bike had Campy Nuovo Record side pull brakes, which are pretty good, but definitely not designed to be operated primarily from the hoods. They worked well enough for casual riding, but about 200 feet down Cypress (which, if you haven't done it, is a horrific gravel descent with lots of switchbacks) I realized that I simply didn't have the muscle endurance in my wrists to get to the bottom safely. Now, normally, I wouldn't try to learn a new riding position while riding down an already frightening hill, but in this case I really had no other option (besides maybe walking if I had been able to get the bike stopped). So I went to the drops, put my belly on the saddle and got down the hill safely. The point of this story is that the power when using these brakes from the drops was night-and-day compared to the hoods. You probably have an idea of that from trying it on your bike, but until you've done it in a situation where you desperately need more stopping power it may not quite imprint on your mind the same way.

tl;dr -- Practice braking from the drops

The other thing you may notice is that a lot of the people on this forum who like side pull brakes have a strong dislike for modern dual pivot brakes. They don't like how hard these brakes grab with just a little input. This is instructive because it tells you that traditional side pull braking systems are meant to be squeezed hard -- generally harder than you can comfortably achieve with two fingers from the hoods with vintage levers. The brakes aren't weaker, as such, they just have drastically different modulation -- they require more hard force to reach their full stopping power -- and if you aren't used to it, it can seem like they're lacking in power. It sounds like there are some things you can do to improve the braking experience with your current setup, but ultimately you'll probably also need to make a mental adjustment.

SurferRosa

If you're trying to reduce speed from a steep descent, it really helps to sit up and use the height of your torso to become less aerodynamic. For me, this position, with my hands on the hoods, is much more effective than being down in the drops, regardless of my caliper's performance.

But my stems are not real tall in the steerer. So I guess, ymmv.

tendency

I've always been able to lock up my sidepull single caliper brakes (be they dura ace 74xx or Suntour Superbe/Pro) with one or at most two fingers, enjoy the superior modulation compared to dual pivot and as an added bonus they weigh less. Dual pivot? Meh..

genejockey 

That's what I've been thinking. In fact that's how I did it the last ride on the Lotus last week - a 39 miler with significant ups and downs but nothing really technical. There is one short, straight, fast descent with a stop sign at the bottom, but you're crossing the top of a T, so not really a problem to roll it. I got up to about 36 mph and waited till really late to brake, but did it from the drops. Stopped without issue. So, drops >> hoods.

If only the drops weren't so far away! BUT I'm committed to keeping this bike as close to period-correct as possible, with it's ridiculously short 80mm stem (on a 57cm bike? Madness!) and long reach/deep drop bars.

Andy_K 

The Cypress descent I mentioned was (at least for me) all about controlling speed and keeping it low. I was generally looking for around 10 mph in the gravel section because scrubbing a lot of speed just before a corner wasn't possible, so aerodynamic drag was much less of a factor. Instead, it was all about pumping the brakes a lot to keep the speed low. Obviously, the limiting factor, especially on a gravel road, is the traction of the tires and even braking from the hoods I had to be carefully not to brake too hard and go into a skid, but with the constant hard braking I quickly found my forearms starting to cramp when braking from the hoods. From the drops, it was no problem.

Andy_K 

From the hoods? I guess it depends on how long and strong your fingers are. I can't lock the wheels on good pavement from the hoods with side pulls. I've got short fingers and not very remarkable grip strength.

bikemig 

I think you get better braking from the drops with old school levers and single pivot brakes regardless of grip strength which is one of the questions the OP asked. That said, you generally can modulate speed from the tops unless it is a serious downhill.

genejockey 

This is why I like the idea of Eroica California but wouldn't actually ride it. I'm a chicken on descents that are PAVED, riding with disk brakes, so the idea of steep gravel descents with dodgy 80s single pivots? Nuh-uh.

cbrstar

You probably know these tricks so forgive me if I am being redundant.

They make a tool called a "3rd Hand". Which basically holds the pads against the rim so you can pull and tighten the cable more. And Park makes a even better version called the 4th hand which tightens everything at once. But if you don't have a 3rd hand and you are careful you can use a C-clamp to hold the break pads down.
Now the problem is one side is going to rub against the rim, and you will need to center it. And there's a few videos that show how to do this. If the brake doesn't snap open upon release then the cable needs lube or replacing.

tendency

Yes, from the hoods. Then again I have large hands and long fingers so I reckon I get good leverage.