Submitted by
Harry
a Weekend Warrior
from Scotland
Date Reviewed: April 17, 2011
Strengths: Great stopping power and modulation. Child's play to set up, never need adjusting. Plenty of clearance.
Weaknesses: Straddle carrier supplied is crap, replace with tektro or velo orange pulley. Expensive.
Bottom Line:
Best brakes I've ever used. Easy set up and only adjustment required is occasional removal of slack in straddle wire to make up for pad wear, apart from this I've not touched them in over a thousand miles. Plenty of stopping power and control, work great with STI levers. Loads of adjustability. Cannot understand why some people don't get on with them.
Similar Products Used: Shimano v brakes and Campy sidepulls
Bike Setup: Custom built audax/light tourer. Shimano Ultegra STI levers.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Sizzler
a Cross Country Rider
from OR
Date Reviewed: April 9, 2011
Strengths: Besides being lightweight and good looking, these brakes have excellent stopping power, great modulation, and perform better than linear / v brakes.
Weaknesses: They can be difficult to set up properly and often require adjustment.
Bottom Line:
Before you go grabbing a set of these off the bay, you should know that to get these dialed in properly requires time and patience, and even then they often require fine tuning and adjustment. However, the trade off is that when they are set up, the braking is far better than v and linear type brakes. In fact, these brakes consistently outperform all my disc brake riding partners. I have been extremely happy with them, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a more powerful alternative to v brakes.
Similar Products Used: XTR and XT V-Brakes, Avid Single Digit 7 Linear Brakes.
Bike Setup: SS
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Submitted by
stokedonspokes
a Racer
from San Francisco CA
Date Reviewed: October 23, 2009
Strengths: great brakes when set, excellent mud clearance and stopping power
Weaknesses: setup kinda painful
Bottom Line:
outperform the avids and shi(t)manos i've used. touring brake in the rear is excellent for dismounts required in cross (sorry i know this is technically a mtb forum, but cross is mtbs bizarre much older uncle). don't know what everyone's complaining about, the setup is abit weird but doesn't require the frame pins. and cantis are wayyyy better than V-brakes for nasty conditions.
Bike Setup: scott cx bike. run a paul neo retro front, and a touring rear
Overall Rating:
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Submitted by
nrdbomber
a Cross Country Rider
from Livermore, CA
Date Reviewed: September 14, 2008
Strengths: The brakes are some of the strongest, I have ever used. And they are uber adjustable!!
Weaknesses: I haved't found any yet
Bottom Line:
These are the best brakes I have ever used, and I love how adjustable they are...and the super ease of set-up was amazing!! I am really amazed about all of the negative feed back on these brakes.
Weaknesses: Limited ajustability. Worst customer service period!!!!!
Bottom Line:
Bought touring brakes, levers, and moon units. Brakes didn't work on frame. Called them and PAUL said to "file" them- absurd!!! Get ra to send back Sat in Chico for 3 weeks no refund- no calls or emails returned just sent back
HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Not hard to set up, but had 3 different directions on website very little vertical pad ajustability and too much slop in brakes and lever
Buy some Shimano's PAUL and see how brakes should be made
Strengths: makes a good paper weight. wait, i've just offended paper weights...
Weaknesses: set-up
Bottom Line:
terrible setup and adjustment. 3 hands are required, 1 to hold the 4mm key, 2 to hold the 5mm, and 3 to hold the 15mm cone wrench. yep, you read that right: a cone wrench. in an attempt to be different for the sake of being different, paul violates the simple principle of form following function. take a bow, chico man, you just won first prize for the worst product ever conceived.
Similar Products Used: my feet just like fred flinstone
Bike Setup: a diamond frame with two wheels. who cares.
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Submitted by
Joe P
a Cross Country Rider
from Portland
Date Reviewed: August 15, 2005
Strengths: Im reviewing the MotoBMX brakes. These brakes are sweet. They allowed me to convert my singlespeed mt bike into a 700cc wheeled fixed gear. When I had a question about the set up I called Paul Components and actually spoke with Paul. Super nice brakes and great customer service.
Weaknesses: They look too good. I fear that someone will steal them off my bike.
Bottom Line:
If you are looking to run 700cc rims on your mt bike you need this brake. The pads adjust up and down the brake arms to allow for the higher braking area of the 700cc rims. I am using bull horn bars with a cane creek cross brake lever and the power and modulation are spot on. The brakes came with Kool Stop brake pads which were nice but I prefer the ritchey all weather pads. These brakes were easy to set up and look great. In a little over a year of use the finish looks as good as new. This is an innovative brake from a great company.
Bike Setup: 2004 Redline Monocog Fixed Gear Conversion. Redline Frame & Fork. 700CC wheels. 42 X 18 drivetrain. Paul MotoBMX front brake.
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Submitted by
Jeff
a Cross Country Rider
from Nokomis, FL USA
Date Reviewed: September 2, 2004
Strengths: Clean design, quality parts, lightweight, works
Weaknesses: I would prefer a Phil Woods finish
Bottom Line:
These brakes are fine. Reasonably easy to setup (Avids are better) and they work fine. I am using the Touring model for my needs. My only complaint is the so so finish but they are as good as any of the other "high end" options out there. If Paul would take a page from the Phil Wood school of quality they could really kick some ass.
Similar Products Used: Shimano, Avids, Spooky, old stuff like Graftons
Bike Setup: Rivendell Allrounder
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Submitted by
monica
a Cross Country Rider
from boston, ma, usa
Date Reviewed: May 27, 2003
Strengths: light and beautiful
Weaknesses: none
Bottom Line:
i don't know what these people a fussing about, may be a different model.
i have a neo retro and a touring brake. they are very straight forth to setup. it's not difficult, a wrench, an allen wrench and some sense will do.
i've used them with cantilever mtb brake levers, with cantilever road brake levers and with STIs, they brake.
the front one, the neo retro, is currently rattling my fork back and forth and i'm seeking advice from paul on how to avoid this. the ordeal seems to be with the braking force, and the brake pad.
all said, they are light, they look good, they stop.
Similar Products Used: tektro (880s?) / v-brakes / mech disc
Bike Setup: cross
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
elaine ostrander
a Cross Country Rider
from mazama, wa
Date Reviewed: March 30, 2001
Strengths: None
Bottom Line:
Paul, what are you smoking down there in Chico? These touring cantis suck. The springs don't seat, the adjusting nuts are just plain wrong, and we won't even mention the o-rings (Paul, do you even know how o-rings are supposed to work?) If you like overpriced non-functioning eye-catchers, buy them. If you want brakes for your ride, buy something else. Paul brakes are an absolute and utter piece of crap.
Submitted by
Petri Ukura
a weekend warrior
from Finland
Date Reviewed: September 7, 1998
Bottom Line:
These brakes are better than most v-brakes. I use these brakes in rear in my bicycle, good feeling and enought power. But to my next bike I'm gonna buy Hope disk brakes. I don't think that they are so hard too adjust, easier than most, but wtb speedmasters are the easiest cantilever brakes to adjust. I know, Ihave them in front. And I think that the wtb speedmasters are the best cantis there are, buy them insted of these if you can.
They are damn hard to adjust. The brake pad alignments, the spring tension and the angle tat they are fixed to the frame.But once it's tuned in properly, it's very powerful and the feel and modulation is great!Have the arms installed to the frame such tat it's horizontal to the ground when in a free position. Then determine where to clamp the cable to the arm by clutching the brake lever and then align the brake pads by clamping the brake pads to the rims with a coin or watsoever equilavent. Once it's done, you can adjust the spring tension so tat the arms are both in the same angle.As for the construction of the linear brakes, the mechanisms are quite simple and look quite strong and nice. And it's light.2 stars for installation, 5 stars for construction, 3 stars for price and 5 stars for braking power/modulation/feel. I'll round it off to 4 stars.
Submitted by
Enrique Lazaro
a weekend warrior
from Tempe Az
Date Reviewed: March 5, 1998
Bottom Line:
GARBAGE. I bought a pair of crosstops about 2 years ago and they gave me so many problems. I'm replacing them with xtr v's as soon as I can. Don't waste the money by going full-on custom, and if you do, make sure that the custom components you're buying are compatible with your frame.
When I bought these, I was really into that whole chi-chi thing. That was a couple of years ago. Now I'm running straight Shimano. One very expensive lesson I learned was that all of that overpriced, anodized, overblown crap doesn't work any better than the stuff Shimano puts out. When setup correctly the Paul's worked just fine, but so do LX or even STX brakes. I had a set of Stoplight MC's and just wasn't impressed. When you pay $80/per you expect some huge jump in performance, but that just wasn't the case. The price could almost be justified if they were enormously light, but they're not even that. Anyway, the workmanship on the set that I had was aweful. The threads for all the bolts were just @#$ up. I think the tap that they used was getting worn, but when they preassembled the parts and noticed the screws were going in a bit tight, they just didn't give a crap. The O-rings that supposedly seal the pivots are a total joke. Just watch them fall out after every ride. If you're looking to build a roof rack ornament then get these brakes anodized rasta. If you're looking to build a serious trail bike go with LX/XT/XTR. Like the guy said below: F-U Paul, I'd like a refund.
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