[bluronthetrails]

I bought a pair of Shimano STI Deore LX 7 spd/brake set. The guy I bought them from off eBay advertised them as only being cantilever brake compatible, not V-brake. That doesn't make sense. All the levers do is pull on the cable, now thats all they need to do, its just the cable and brake that made it canti or V-brake. Am I right or have I missed something crucial? I tested them on my bike with V-brakes and they worked perfectly fine. I hope I didn't misuse them.

 

[Speedub.Nate]

It's the amount of cable pulled for a given amount of lever squeeze that draws makes the distinction, but the line is blurry. I've measured a handful of canti and linear pull levers, and off the top of my head, the canti levers averaged out in the low 20's (mm of cable pulled when squeezing the lever to the bar) versus high 20's for the linear pull levers.

But I recall a set of Dia-Comp canti levers pulling more than some V levers, and if you throw Avid's Speed Dial into the mix, you can dial it right down into canti-land.

Point is this: try it and judge for yourself. You may end up having to set the pads a little closer to the rim than you'd like, but I honestly don't think you're endangering yourself with this setup. You may decide it's fine, you may want more cable pull, but at no point are the brakes going to "stop working" because you're using an old LX lever.