I was looking at some of those fancy hydraulic brakes just out of interest earlier since i’ve not been paying much attention to mountain biking stuff recently and noticed a lot of hydraulic brakes get mixed reviews. I haven’t had a single problem with the BB7’s so far and i’ve been running the same set since 2007! I even have a spare caliper in the toolbox waiting just in case.

Is anyone else resisting the temptation to “upgrade” to hydraulics or am i still the only guy riding around the Peak District with cable disc brakes?

I had BB7s until not very long ago, when I bought some new XTs. To be honest, I probably should have saved my money.

Have BB7s on the CX commuter. 4,000 miles with no problems, still on original pads, certainly can’t see why hydraulics would be worth the upgrade.

On my MTB, suspect I’d stick to hydraulics as that what comes with most bikes and groupsets. When I build up Jnrs first disc brake nine he may get BB7s or similar.

Two sets

have gone back to bb7 from hayes. took them to the alps on my 5 last time i went and they were great. ride all day. ‘click’, ‘click’, oil the chain, clean the wiper seals, good to go.

I use bb7s and I find them to be perfect for my commutter bike. Fit and forget (almost)

I think when you run a 25mm Tyre on tarmac better brakes won’t make that much difference. You have such little contact on the road that any more just skids.

got em on mine and the wifes bike..love em.
only brake to better them is a shimano saint…which is a bit of a overkill for most folk.

The nice thing about BB7s is they just keep on working the same. And if you want to upgrade, simply get better cables.

I’ve had a lot of fancy expensive hydraulics and I’ll take BB7s over them any day.

Another happy BB7 user here. Got a set on my road bike, another set earmarked for the Puffin, a spare set in the spares box and one on the front of my hack bike.

Two bikes, 2 sets, speed dial levers, big rotors, perfect.

3 bikes,all on BB7’s.

they work.

I had BB7s until not very long ago, when I bought some new XTs. To be honest, I probably should have saved my money.

damn, I have just bought some XTs to try instead of my BB7, and since I got them I keep seeing comments like these, and about the Xts squealing and the seals dying, etc.

Otherwise I had BB7s on two bikes, both with Avid Ultimate levers and gore cabling. Pretty much the same feel at the levers as the new XT, I haven’t ridden te XTs as their were no olives in the box so I will have to wait to shorten the cables.

Now expecting to regret the purchase, but at least I didn’t buy XTRs.

I’ve got BB7s on my Croix de Fer and they’re good on there with Tektro levers, but I much prefer the lever feel and bite of my XT’s fitted to my hardtail.

Never ridden hydro brakes, but can’t imagine anything working much better than the BB7s. Can’t see me ever changing, can’t fault em.

Got a set on my Krampus. At first I though they were crap but it turned out to be the pads. Stuck some Superstar sintered in them and the feel just like my Hydraulics on my other bikes.

Hmmm, the ones I’ve got used to be pretty good, but now they feel very worn. Wondering about replacing them with something like SLX or XT….

Yes, BB7s times 3 and a couple of kids bikes running on BB5s. Could never get my head round the hassle and expense of hydraulics for the sort of stuff I do.

Had ’em for years. great brakes.
They don’t like years of commuting up ’em though.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/8fmtHa]brake-worn[/url] by Jon Wyatt, on Flickr

So it’s not just me then. Interesting that a few people mentioned upgrading to XT’s because I’d been thinking about going that way too. It just seems to make sense given that Shimano xt got good reviews and xt stuff usually just works. When Lapierre came onto the market with the Zesty I demo’d one with Formula brakes and they were horrid; such a wooden on/off feeling and no way to adjust the lever. The bite point was right at the beginning of the stroke, as though the reservoirs were full to bursting so I had to take my fingers off the bars to pull the brake which meant holding on was difficult, and then I’d brake too much and almost go flying!

I couldn’t live without lever reach/bite point/modulation adjust.

Are any hydraulic brakes reliable?

of course, most hydraulics are reliable, it’s that when things do go wrong, sorting it out tends to be a bit more involved. bear in mind you’re asking this question on a thread full of bb7 users!
i ran hayes brakes across a few bikes for a few years, with, in reality, not that many problems. sometimes you’d get a brake binding after changing the pads out, but nothing too much to deal with.
what pushed me back to bb7s was bleeding the rear brake on my 5 before an alps trip. when pushing back the pistons there must have been some ‘feature’ on the side of of of them, that damaged a seal, and also popped the reservoir. there wasn’t much coming back from it and it took me a while to work out what was going on, with two faults to find. the bb7s were in the parts bin, and i just figured that if i replaced the hydraulic, i’d have to thread it through the swing arm, and i’d have to bleed another hydro brake. the bb7s just seemed like a straightforward solution.
properly setup with good cables i think they’re great.
i still look at the bling hydros and wonder, but for the riding i do, i just don’t think there’s any point in me changing, for gains which at best are likely to be rather nebulous.

bomberman – Member
…Are any hydraulic brakes reliable?

Yes, for a while….

I’ve got them on my Vaya..

They are about perfect on that..

What I got when I upgraded from 203/180 BB7s to new 180/180 XT:

a) A really big, clunky, over engineered lever clamp that makes it tricky to comfortably arrange brakes/shifters/dropper lever on the bars
b) An ugly lever/reservoir unit in general
c) A bit of a palaver shortening the hose (partly my fault though)
d) The opportunity to buy a bleed kit to sort c)
e) A bit of a palaver when using d) (it’s not hard, but it’s a palaver)
f) Howling front disc (possibly caused by e), but I doubt it as discs and pads were kept about 5′ away whilst the bleeding was happening)
g) Slightly more powerful brakes, probably.
h) Slightly lighter brakes, probably.
i) About £140 less in my bank account

I’m not sure g) and h) outweigh the rest.

It looks like I’m.sticking with them then.

I run them on my cross bike, they’re absolutely brilliant unlike the awful Shimano XTs I have on a couple of other bikes which are also fine and subjectively have better feel and power.

Here’s the thing, out in the real world, as opposed to the land of black and white thinking which is STW, it’s entirely possible for both BB7s and Shimano XTs and indeed other brakes both/all good in the same way that liking coffee doesn’t mean tea is irredeemably awful.

I’m just waiting for the bit where someone argues that well set up cantilevers are as good as fee-brakes, which in turn, when set up properly are as good as disc brakes, so cantis are in fact as good as disc brakes as demonstrated by top cross riders using them for racing 😉

I’m sure that, in there somewhere, there’s a point

The point is that actually BB7s and Shimano XTs are both perfectly good brakes. Particularly if you have some basic mechanical competence… 😐

I considered them for my ss/hack build, but you can get brand new deore hydraulics for £65 delivered, they come with a spare olive, a bleed block, and a cutting guide to shorten the hoses. The ‘bleed kit’, which is just a posh funnel with a thread on the bottom, is about £4, and £5 or so for a little bottle of oil that will last ages.

FWIW, I had never messed with hydraulic brakes before, but it was honestly a piece of piss, you can bleed them in 2 minutes, lever is adjustable, and for me (for now at least), they just work.

Only crap thing is my front won’t stop squealing, which I think I’m going to have to put down to contamination, my own fault, the caliper isn’t leaking 😳

Ah, gotcha.

Yeah, you’re probably right, I can only go from personal experience of two sets of hydro brakes (Mono Minis and XT), both of which necessitated palaver, and four (five?) sets of BB7s, none of which did.

I’d say setting up BB7s is a bit fussy to start off with, the Avid multi-plane washer system is pointless, pad-changing is fiddly in that uniquely rubbish Avid way and winding the pads in regularly is slightly irksome, but basically they’re decent cable brakes. I have around five sets of Shimano hydraulics on the go and they’re all been flawless bar the odd sticky piston and Deores are an absolute bargain. They’re both good brakes ime.

what inners, outers do you guys recommend?

I still use BB7s

Jagwire compressionless outer (or the nashbar version)

Agree with Samurai – they crumble after a winters commuting. The inner plate on both front and rear of mine have corroded into place. Not been able to move ’em. The bolts and washers rust and crumble too when exposed to winter road conditions (also had this with some Juicy 5’s on a commuter hack bike). The surface of the callipers (coating) seems to crumble as well.

But, they still work, and are easy to strip down and clean (apart from the frozen solid inner plate). Be careful with the tiny ball-bearings is all I’ll say. Spent a good few hours scouring the garage floor once..!

Interested to hear about improvements with new cables. Got the stock ones that came with the bike and they feel a bit “gritty” in movement, rather than smooth. Tried a pull of someone else’s in the bike shed and they were buttery smooth compared to mine.

edhornby – Member
what inners, outers do you guys recommend?

Any cable brake can be dramatically improved by careful attention to the cables and levers. Get rigid levers that don’t flex and use rigid cable outers and then all your cable movement goes into operating the actual brake rather than taking up flex and compression.

Even cantis can be good when set up properly. 🙂

I use cheap aluminium tubing from B&Q for the bits of outer that don’t need to be flexible, and for liner I use small diameter teflon tubing I get from an air tools (as in compressors) supplier.

This gives a very solid feel at the lever. I think it rivals a good hydraulic, but that’s my opinion.

I’m running a gore ride-on cable on the front which has lasted 7 years and a Shimano for the rear. It was a Gore on the rear too until I changed frames and needed a longer cable. They’re quite expensive though and hard to find but they’re awesome cables.

I agree that probably most hydraulics work well but they have the odd quirk like a mate of mine had the XTs and loved them but we went to.Wales one time and it was -5°C and his brakes just stopped working. They are more complicated by design what with the fluid but cars have been like that for years I suppose. Its just my BB7S are so reliable I can’t help thinking that no brake is as hassle free. Deores do get very good word of mouth though. Maybe the only reason people seem to complain about XT more is that they paid more for them in the first place? Either way I’m not made of money so I think I’ll use what little spare cash I have to upgrade my drive train instead.

I use cheap aluminium tubing from B&Q for the bits of outer that don’t need to be flexible, and for liner I use small diameter teflon tubing I get from an air tools (as in compressors) supplier.

tell me more, got any links?

Have you “manipulated” the ali tubing to fit the frame and just have standard outers from the lever to take up steering slack/flex? What do you use at the join?

Edit this tubing?

Edit 2, looks like you’re using cable adjusters at the join, but whats going on between the adjuster and the first cable stop on this pic?

I am interested in this too !

I have a set of BB7s (very happy with them) and I was going to fit another set on the next build.
Then I saw the TRP Spyre brakes ( non hydro ),and I am now very tempted to try them.
I like the idea of the twin pistons for easier setting up and adjustment.

Anyone using them ?

I have them on my Krampus and CX bike. I see no reason to change. Way less faff than hydraulic and faultless in use.

Switched to Hy-Rds this year after 10 years of BB7s on my commuting bike.
As noted above the BB7s don’t stand up to winter commuting very well. The self adjustment on the Hy-Rds makes them easier to set up and keep in trim, and I find the braking more effective.