I was building up a crosser for a friend. He brought me a tub of parts and a frame and told me to go to it.

When I got to the brakes, I only found a set of mtn v-brakes, Tektros to be exact. Full sized, exactly what you see on mtn bikes.

I always wondered if it would work, I had always heard that they would not...

Out of curiosity, I mounted the V's, ran the cables from an 8speed STI and guess what..?

They work. Almost work too good. On the stand, I just saw that with minimal travel, the wheels stopped fine.

Out in the back yard, they worked too good. With just a bit of pulling, I almost locked up the front wheel and endo'ed. I put a bit more slack in the cable to allow a bit more feathering...

What's up with that? I thought V's had to use a certain design in the V-levers to allow for the right amount of travel?

My disclaimer: I don't recommend V's on crossers, too much mud. Just found it interesting that they workded so well.

I've been using that setup on my Bike Friday. It took some adjusting to get the right brake tension but it works great. The lever doesn't bottom out

Define "works".
Working, and working properly are two different things.

Define "works".
Working, and working properly are two different things.

Much stronger with less lever action than canti's. Will I switch my canti's? Maybe not, but my V-brake equipted Litespeed mtn/CX bike has travel agents with this set up. Think I will remove the agents and go without them.

Much stronger with less lever action than canti's. Will I switch my canti's? Maybe not, but my V-brake equipted Litespeed mtn/CX bike has travel agents with this set up. Think I will remove the agents and go without them.

Yep, Works and in a panic stop situation without the lever bottoming out on the bar.

You answered your own question, my friend. The problem is not with the power, but with the pad clearance. You have to set the pad pretty close to the rim when using a high leverage (low cable pull) road lever with linear-pull brakes. This makes mud clearance an issue, as compared to a canti. The pads will end up rubbing quite a bit.

In addition to pad clearance, the problem with v-brakes with road levers is that there is very little modulation. It's much too easy to lock up the brakes when you run v-brakes without a travel agent and on cyclocross bikes it's pretty much about modulating speed. Hence you have people running low profile cantilevers like SRP, mafacs, empella frog legs, etc which have even less stopping power than normal cantilevers. These brakes have better clearance but even lower power than modern cantilever brakes. Road levers and v-brakes work, but they just tend to be too grabby without enough clearance.

Yup. It 'works', but it works like a light switch. ON/OFF with nearly nothing in between. I've been down that road myself several years ago. And was sooooo much happier when I switched back to a set of Pauls cantis.