Question about bike brakes

[Jacob]

Dual pivot callipers are good if the geometry is right.
Essential tip with rim brakes is to take the shoes out at intervals and wash them in hot soapy water to get rid of embedded grit. They work better and rim wear is reduced.
It became routine for us as a lot of our local rides involve gritty trails - High Peak, Tissington, Monsal etc

 

[Jake]

I only bicycle occasionally now, but I used to ride everywhere in my 20s-30s. For most of it, on a Kona with the OE cantis replaced with Magura rim brakes. Then got a Chas Roberts built up, they persuaded me to fit disks rather than maggies. I still have it, it seems fine now, but I was most unimpressed when I picked it up with the Kona still fresh in mind - the geometry was slacker but also the braking was notably worse. Times have moved on a lot and I'm sure disk brakes are much better now than then (and tbh the Hope 4 pots stop a considerably heavier me just fine now - but by different standards of expectation).

 

[Tris]

I'm possibly repeating a few things here but there's been a lot of noise and daft suggestions so difficult for you to filter it all out.
Firstly you'll never get good braking with chromed steel rims, especially in the wet. And cheap long-reach brake calipers are rarely of a good design, so you're not going to achieve much, and it's not worth throwing money at this. Better brake blocks could help but only marginally.
Unless you have sentimental feelings for the bike, I advise you to sell it and get something with decent brakes. Any hybrid bike will have alloy rims that brake better, and most will have cantilever or V-brakes. You'll easily pick something up for around £50 on ebay if you know how to find a bargain.
As for the suggestions about retrofitting disk brakes, complete nonsense. The only good suggestion so far was to get cantilever brake bosses brazed onto the frame and fit V-brakes as they don't require any cable stops. You might be able to use your existing brake levers and even cables, but the cost of getting the bosses brazed on plus two pairs of V-brakes will be over £50 and it'll look messy with the resulting paint damage. So it's really best to replace the bike if decent braking is a concern.
You mentioned something about mudguards....that's irrelevant, you'll not be able to fit shorter reach calipers as it's dependant on the bolt to rim distance, which cannot be changed. The chromed steel rims really are your enemy here. And they're horribly heavy and slow as well.
Good luck.

Thank you for the practical suggestions, in this instance the bike is my wife's. It is only ever likely to be used in dry weather to potter a few miles on local lanes. The aim was to make it safe for that which I have started to do. As it's a 1980s three speed it's more about the aesthetic than performance
Thanks again
Tris

 

[Fergie 307]

Tris
bottom line is the bike was sold as a ladies, bimble about town at maybe 12mph bike. If that's what you intend to use it for them chrome rims and so on not wiithstanding, the brakes should be fine. Just make sure you get the correct blocks to suit the rims. We sold hundreds of bikes with these brakes back in the day, I don't recall the town being littered with the bodies of people who had crashed into stuff because the brakes didn't work, or customers queuing up to complain about them. I'm afraid as is often the case on here a simple question morphs into people talking all sorts, much of which has nothing to do with the original question.

 

[johnny]

I still have a 1978 Holdsworth pro with Campag SR, and a skunk works Carlton from 76.

two of my favourite frames from back then . I had a couple of Carlton frames that were made prior to the Raleigh take over, and a black Holdsworth frame used in the very last Milk Race along with a jersey. I was bike obsessed back then