Mountain Bike Reviews Forum banner

V-brakes for ST M739 Shifters?

5K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  jkatracing 
#1 ·
Trying to upgrade my older bike from a cantilever to vbrakes. Bought a set of Shimano ST M739 3x8 XT Deore shift levers and was wondering if they work with Shimano V brakes. I know the pull length is different with vbrakes. Also, are vbrakes all the same? Meaning, should I buy a vintage m739 vbrakes or get something newer??
 
#2 ·
All V's are more or less the same, leverage wise.

Using canti levers with them will *work*?

But it feels really crummy, and your set up window for remotely functional is super narrow.

Problem Solvers used to offer the Travel Agent, a pulley that changed the leverage ratio, but they seem to have gone the way of the Dodo. Quick web search didn't turn up a viable alternative, but poking around, you should be able to scare a few up.

They were a tad fiddly, but once set up, worked like a charm, and felt great.
 
#3 ·
I'm looking at a set on eBay, and the pivot to anchor distance looks like V brake spec to me.

I'm reaching way back to my bike shop days here, but I believe 8 speed and the V brakes came out around 95 or so in XT and XTR, and were scarce for a little while. My Zaskar LE frameset came from a bike one of our companion stores ordered and stripped to build an XTR bike for a customer, and I remember building bikes for our more hardcore customers with XT Vbrakes around that year.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
 
#4 ·
XT 739 is V-brake compatible, the previous 737 model was canti brake.

Just don't buy anything described as a mini v-brake. they are some weird bastard child that is halfway between V and canti leverage, anything else should be fine.

Although the XT 739 V-brakes are notorious for loose pivots. So maybe avoid those unless they are new, or you can find the shim/rebuild kit for them.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top