BTW my Brum’s front brakes work really well and squeal the tire with ease , , they almost work too well…. writing checks the forks can’t cash. 😯

IMHO Vincent’s brakes did not work nearly as well as my Scotts.

“BRIAN MARSHALL”]It’s the rising pulley that halves the applied braking effort. A force of say 40 pounds pulling the pulley up in its slot applies 20 pounds to each brake. But the same force applied to the ‘wiffle tree’ type twin-pull lever goes to both brakes.

Hmmm. The pulley is there to ensure both cables have the same equal force applied, but other than that, it’s the same principle as as the centre-pull brakes on my old pushbike, ie, one single cable pulling two to pull on the brakes. Nothing’s for nothing in engineering, and division of the applied force (at the handlebar lever) must happen however the initial pull is achieved.
Think I’ll have to sleep on this one and let the old brain box work… 😉

Thanks for that. At the moment, as I’m still running in the brakes (having had them relined by the excellent Saftek somewhere oop North) plus nylon-lined cables on there too, the brakes aren’t too bad.
They’re never going to be in the stoppies league, but having owned a ’36 Velo with a front drum the size of a jam jar lid, and a 600-odd pound Indian with the front drum braking area smaller than a Triumph 3TA, I try and anticipate (not always possible, obviously!) rather than rely on old braking systems.
I’ll see how it goes.