Early Club Tour rims

[PH]

I was only aware of one model of Tektro brake levers that were long pull for drop bars. 

I think we're going down an unnecessary rabbit hole here, there's at least three brands of drop bar long pull levers, but that's irrelevant as the OP has straight bars and there's countless short pull levers for those.  Anything pre V brakes for a start, then when fast hybrids became fashionable all the manufacturers reintroduced levers to work with caliper brakes, SJS list at least half a dozen.

[AdrianStone]

I do indeed have the wrong brake/shifters on flat bars, they are Shimano ST-EF35-8 and ST-ET35L,

I’m not surprised that braking performance was poor with V brake specific levers.  I would make it a priority to fit full size V brake callipers both front and rear before I rode that bike much further.

Decent V brakes aren’t expensive and there’s a good supply on the secondhand market. The cheapest options generally use the frame mounting boss as a pivot bearing. Paying a little more will get you internal pivot bearing bushes and better brake shoes with replaceable pad option.

Thank you - that was what I was trying to do, but on checking the brake bosses on the forks, they are @67mm centre to centre, from my reading around I think any V-brake needs something closer to 80mm apart, I assume they would fit after a fashion, but the arms not be parallel to the forks?

I'm going to have to rethink everything, it might just be easier to remove the combined brake/shifters and fit separate brake levers and shifters, again nothing I know about apart other than it's a triple front chain ring and 8 gears at the back.

Again, thank you all for the advice, it does seem to be a mine field and I seem to have bought a 'pig in a poke'

[martinf]

Thank you - that was what I was trying to do, but on checking the brake bosses on the forks, they are @67mm centre to centre, from my reading around I think any V-brake needs something closer to 80mm apart, I assume they would fit after a fashion, but the arms not be parallel to the forks?

With the brake pads and holders I use there is quite a lot of scope for adjustment by changing the order of the concave washers on the pad holder. See attached image file.

I generally use standard brake pads, they have the same stack of washers. But that image shows "thinline" pads that might work better with relatively narrow forks. Link to Thinline pads here :

https://www.koolstop.eu/rim-brake-pads/cantilever-v-brake/thinline-threaded/t2-thinline-salmon-ks-tltsa-re-335/

[PH]

Thank you - that was what I was trying to do, but on checking the brake bosses on the forks, they are @67mm centre to centre, from my reading around I think any V-brake needs something closer to 80mm apart, I assume they would fit after a fashion, but the arms not be parallel to the forks?

That's generally considered too close, you can sometimes get them to fit, but you won't get good braking,

it might just be easier to remove the combined brake/shifters and fit separate brake levers and shifters

That's what I'd do, it needn't be expensive. You could probably find some secondhand.

[B cereus]

I sympathise with your dilemma. Your problems arise from the previous owner’s botched conversion. The bike probably previously had drops with bar end shifters and drop bar levers. If the vendor still has the bar end shifters you could claim them and mount them on thumb mounts. You would need to buy the thumb mounts and a pair of short pull flat bar levers.

There are other ways around your problem but firstly I think I’d be inclined to try V brakes. It’s the simplest option and well worth a try. The spacing on the rear will likely be OK and on the front, as Martin suggests, swapping around the spherical washers will gain you extra millimetres, it might even work without the need for the rather expensive Thinline pads.

Club Tours of that vintage were also available with flat bars and the same Cantilever brakes that you have. So that option would certainly work. but would need both new flat bar short pull levers and new shifters.