After watching hours of Bikefarmer on YouTube while recovering from Surgery this week I’ve decided I need my own build project as well as my son’s mtb (work in progress). I found a new old stock 1994ish Dawes Galaxy in my size which I’ve purchased with a view to building a bulletproof winter beater / commuter that is relatively nice to ride.

Now I know cantis are a bit crap but I feel it would be sacrilege to put V brakes on this thing.

I’ve used Dia Compe DC980s in the past which were decent enough, but does the forum have any hot tips for great performance cantis that can be had cheap on eBay?

I don't have the answer but I remember a lot of information on the cycling UK technical forum (that might be UK Cycling) l understand that big improvements can be made by changing the angle of the straddle wire etc

Cantis can work well but can suffer from judder or noise on the front that's mainly related to flex in the fork, flex between where the brake pivots are Vs the cable hanger. A fork crown mounted hanger helps, as does one of these (SJS have them - https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/brakes/tekt ... er-brakes/)


The Tektro Oryx in the pic are ok, the 720s are wider-armed and a bit more powerful.

I know you said no V brakes, but I found tektro mini 'V's to be pretty good power wise, and crucially, easy to set up.

Trick with cantis is to set them so that the angle between straddle cable and a line between the pivot and where the straddle cable attaches to the canti approaches 90 degrees when the pads hit the rim.

Cheers all. Mini Vs would be the sensible option but they look so ugly….

Any pics of the galaxy? You happy with it? I see loads of old boys just grinding out miles around my village and i always wonder how far/where are they off to? Are they onto something with the old bikes or have they just never tried anything else?

Sorry for the OT

It’s not arrived yet Rob but happy to share some build pics if anyone is interested.

There’s a reasonable chance it won’t fit me so it may be a short lived project!

Mavic doesn't make those ceramic coated rims anymore?

They were the tits!

Back in the day. Where everything was(n't) better.
No wonder I crashed so often
not my fault, always the bike!

Good grief. I entered the rabbit hole.

https://www.velosaloon.com/products/new ... -1990s-nos

Not the ones we rode, our's where much wider, but close.
Funny how my 8 year old carbon rims are nearly the same weight (420 g regular and 470 g rear in a heavy duty version for the big bike), despite being taller (29") and wider (i30 mm).
Extrapolating from how often I damaged the mavic rims and the carbon rims, latter are about 1000x as strong.

Sorry... as you were. Sounds like a fun project

Nice rims. I’ve actually picked up a good condition pair of mavic T221 rims laced to decent-ish shimano hubs. I’m dreading going back to clinchers but they were £45!