• Hydraulic brakes
• Caliper brakes
• Center-pull ("traditional") cantilever brakes
• Side-pull cantilever brakes ("V-brakes")
• Disk brakes
• Additional brake levers
• No brakes
• More information

First, let me offer a bit more theory: Brake and brake lever should be designed together as a system. This is obvious for hydraulic brakes, but it also holds for cable-actuated brakes. Each brake lever pulls a certain amount of cable during its travel, and this amount of cable pull must move the brake anough to stop the bike. The design of the brake, however, determines how much the brake pads move per amount of cable travel. The technical term is mechanical advantage, and Sheldon Brown has plenty of information on this on his site.

So if you have a bike with drop bars and want to find a way to stop it safely, here's what you can do. All approaches can be boiled down to three strategies: Increase the cable-pull at the lever, reduce the cable-pull needed by the brake, or switch to hydraulic brakes.

Remember to include cable adjusters in your system. MTB-style brake levers have those built in, but drop bar levers don't. Some tandem frames have built-in cable adjusters for the rear brake, but you'll still need to add one for the front. Use cable stops with a built-in adjuster (if you are using center-pull brakes), a V-brake noodle or a cam-device with an adjuster, or buy in-line adjusters like the ones sold by DaVinci.

• The Magura HS-77 was a hydraulic brake designed for road frames. It needs a frame designed for short-reach brakes. It is not made anymore, but according to Martin Schäfer at Magura, they still have a few sets sitting around. Be aware that they only offer clearance for tires up to 23mm wide (I prefer to use 25mm tires on racing tandems). Edco used to make an integrated brake-/shift-lever, the IGP (Integrated Gearshift Powerbrake) for these brakes. Both were part of the EDCO 'Competition' gruppo in the mid-90's. If you are lucky you can still find pair, and if you are rich you may be able to afford them, but you'd still be limited to a 7- or 8-speed drivetrain. (Thanks to Peter Esselborn from Luftpumpe in Darmstadt for info on EDCO-levers and the pics!)
• The Magura HS-66 is a combination of drop-bar levers with the brake calipers of the regular HS-22. These work great if you have a frame with cantilever braze-ons. Add Magura brake booster plates (not included with the HS-66), and you have the best tandem brake available. The EDCO IGP should also fit these brakes. Warning: If your frame or fork have tight wheel clearance you may not be able to mount the brake without modifying the mounting hardware!
• Hydraulic disk brakes (see below)

• Use any road bike lever (including Shimano STI or Campagnolo Ergopower integrated brake-/shift-levers) with a short-reach caliper brake. This will stop your bike (even tandem) very well, and it will give any road tandem the perfect racy look. You do need a frame designed for this, though, and this setup will not offer enough clearance for wide tires (probably no more than 28mm) or fenders. It certainly won't work in the mud. Stay away from newer Shimano brakes (9-speed gruppos), though, as they are too light and too flexible even for heavy single bikers. The pre-'97 Dura Ace (BR-7403) would be the ideal high-cost solution. Any other dual pivot brake from a 7- or 8-speed gruppo will do just as well, even the cheap RSX/Sora model. Campagnolo has not taken the gramm-hunt to the extreme as much as Shimano has, and thus even their latest brakes work well (except for the 2001 Record and Chorus single pivot rear brake - tandems have more weight on the rear and thus need stronger rear brakes than singles). The latest Mavic SSC calipers are also reported to be stiffer than Shimano's.

• Use any road bike lever with wide-profile cantilever brakes. Non-aero levers work better as they pull more cable. This is the cheapest of the good solutions! You will need to read Sheldon's articles on cantilever adjustment and mechanical advantage to achieve good results. The problem with this combination is that most drop bar levers (including STI and Ergo) pull less cable than most MTB-style levers. Thus you will need to set up the transverse cable rather high and/or use a wide cable yoke, such as the one offered by Shimano (if your frame is too small to allow setting the transverse cable high enough). Wide-profile cantis have been out of fashion for a while. You could use old (pre 1992) Shimano Deore XT brakes (BR-M730 or BR-M732), the good old Dia-Compe 986 (very light, but harder to adjust) or the new Avid Shorty 15 C, or go for weird-looking cyclocross brakes such as the Empella Froglegs, the SRP Mr. Grumpy or Paul Neo-Retro (all copies of the traditional Mafac brake). If you have one of the few Campagnolo-equipped tandems you will want to hunt around for old Campy cantilevers from their MTB gruppos (again stay away from the low-profile Record OR brakes). Note: One of you two might have to quit their job for this very time-consuming search (or email Andy@ADSmith.org.uk - he still has some).
• Use a drop-bar lever specifically designed for cantilever brakes. Such a lever is offered under the name Dia-Compe 287. It pulls more cable than regular drop bar levers. This will give you a bit more freedom when setting up the transverse cable. Dia-Compe also makes a dual cable-version (usually referred to as 287 Tandem) if you want to control two brakes with one lever (though I don't think this is a good idea). As far as I know, this is the only canti-specific drop bar lever in production, though Campy once supplied such a lever with their Croce d'Aune tandem gruppo or Themis gruppo.
• Convert your low-profile cantis to direct-pull brakes using a World Class V-Daptor or Caramba V-Cam as suggested by Sheldon Brown. This will not work with fat tires or fenders.

• Dia-Compe makes the only drop-bar lever specifically designed for V-brakes, the 287-V. They offer excellent braking. Theoretically, this should be the next-best solution (following hydraulics) for a tandem's rear brake, as the increased cable pull will lessen the problem the loooong stretchy cable run creates.
• Strange Brakes (see here for more info) actually don't look strange, and they are reported to work very well with any regular drop-bar lever. Contact Strange Cycles' owner/designer Shawn Place directly for more details. This is probably the best solution if you want to use STI or Ergo-levers and don't like to use 'outdated' wide-profile cantis. Strange Brakes, which have been made since 1992, look like the IRD Widget and the Paul Crosstop 3 from the early to mid 90s, the difference being that IRD is out of business and Paul doesn't make the Crosstop anymore.
• Tektro makes a side-pull brake, the Mini-V, which demands less cable pull because its arms are shorter. Of course, this means that it may not work with fat tires and/or fenders.
• If you have a pair of regular V-brakes with fairly thick arms at home, like the original Shimano Deore LX (BR-M600), you could make your own Mini-V by shortening its arms like I did on my road tandem. Note: I will not warrantee your workmanship! (I had thought that I came up with this approach myself, but I recently had to realize that Charlie Myer had done the same two years earlier.)
• Several manufacturers offer devices which amplify the cable-pull of your existing brake levers. Some are mounted in-line, while others bolt on to the brake. The earlier in the cable run the better, as more cable travel means less stretch. Inline devices include the Ibis Love-Unit (not made anymore) and the Sidetrack BPB (Brake Power Booster - also known as the Comtek C-Ted). Adaptors mounted to the brake are the World Class V-Daptor, the QBP Travel Agent, the Comtek C-Ted II or the Caramba V-Cam. As the V-Daptor and the V-Cam are mounted to the cable fixing bolt, they can only be used with brakes on which this bolt is at the top of the brake arm (e.g. Shimano Deore, but not XTR). They can also interfere with your rear rack mounts. The Travel Agent replaces the "noodle" cable guide, and it works with any V-brake. Except for the BPB and the C-Ted II, all of these devices use small pulleys. These have been reported to lead to premature failure of the brake cable, so check these often. Supposedly, the Love-Unit and the Travel Agent, both of which have a rather sharp bend where the cable moves from a smaller pulley to a larger one, are worst in this respect. Ibis discontinued the Love-Unit because they were afraid of liability problems. Using special braided cables can solve the problem, but at the same time greatly increases cable stretch - very bad!

• Use any cable-operated disk with either the Dia-Compe 287-V lever or an inline cable-pull amplification device (see above), as cable-operated disks are usually designed to work with V-brake levers. Look here on how I fitted a disk to my frame with a home-made adaptor. Note that the development of disk brakes for bicycles is still in an early phase and that most cable-actuated disks may not be heat-resitant enough for a loaded tandem team!
• Use the Formula hydraulic disk brake with the cable-actuated master cylinder made specifically for Santana. For info see the page of their European distributor Wolfgang Haas.
• Hope makes excellent disk brakes, and they make a cable-actuated master cyclinder called the 'Remote Reservoir' that mounts next to the stem. I have seen it on a Swiss racing tandem (ridden by Raphael Ioset and Beat Howald, participants of the 2000 Paralympics) in a tandem road race in early 2000, and it is reported to give excellent braking. If you have trouble getting your hands on Hope products, try Singletrack Bikes, a British mail order firm.

• If you have Magura hydraulic brakes (HS 66) you can add additional levers anywhere along the brake line. Use a pair of HS 33 (MTB) levers at the flat section of the bars.
• If you use cable actuated brakes, the Dutch cyclocross specialists at Empella offer secondary levers for you. See left for a pic and follow this link to the page of their German distributor.

You can copy this solution with any lever designed for flat bars and some creative engineering.

More information:
I have neither invented any new devices to solve this problem, nor have I come up with new ways to use existing material. I have only compiled the information from the following sources:

• Alex Wetmore's tech page
• Sheldon Brown's article on cantilever geometry and mechanical advantage
• Sheldon's article on cantilever adjustment
• His article on brakes for tandems
• The NVV (Napa Valley Velo/Echolon Wines Team) tips on brakes for cyclocross bikes
• Keith Bontrager's rant about V-brakes
• A pic of a well set up cantilever brake with explanations
• What the German Tandem e-mail list has to say on brakes (German)
• My page on how to make a rear disk brake adaptor for your frame
• My disk-brake FAQ
• Dirk Bettge's page with calculations and graphs showing why tandems are so hard on brakes (German).