I’m nearly finished on my new bike build – just looking for a set of disc brakes for it now.

The bike is a hybrid style road thing with 700c wheels and 28mm tyres for road use.

I’m thinking of fitting some cable discs rather than hydraulic – for no other reasons than i think they may be a bit cheaper, a bit lighter, easier to fit and shorten the cables and i think the stopping power will be more than adequate for my skinny tyres.

Is there any reason not to go for cable discs and are there any others apart from avid bb7’s that i should be looking at?

Thanks
D

No and probably not.

Yes I find cable disc breaks are crap. I have Avid BB5’s on a cross bike and they just don’t work, even after hours of tinkering. If you can fit hydraulics go with them.

Biggest problem with cable discs is they just squeeze the disc from one side so they just don’t work that well, personally thats why I think there are not many on the market.

SHimano do a M495

I had them on a monstercross. They worked well, were easy to adjust and had good bite once the pads and the cables had bedded in. I swapped them over briefly for some BB7s and was very disappointed, so went back to them.

[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RpxHgq9dsPA/TnxfGulnm6I/AAAAAAAAAtE/0-svvnzLcKM/s400/IMAG0410.jpg[/img]

Gusset make a cable disc the moves both pads, which could work well but not had any experience or seen any reviews. Static pad cable discs are pretty crap at best.

bb7s work perfectly well if they’re well set up. yeah they’re not *as* efficient as a hydrolic disk, but they’re £40 an end! the static pad thing works fine, uses the flex in the disk to brake both sides of the disk. I’ve never had a problem with it.

Arguably there is a little difference in feel due to the cable stretching, but they work plenty good for a commuter

Rim brakes (which will be more than adequate) or hydros for my money. If you want light and cheap rim brakes will be plenty powerful, if you want no fiddle then hydros will be less maintanence.

They are good if set up properly
Clarks
Shimano
Avid

I have managed 2 weeks riding in Spains mountains using cable discs. They will be just as good as cheap or 2nd hand hyd brakesimo

Just learn how to set them up properly which can be fiddly and with all the salt on the roads could be problematic if you do not keep them clean which is just the same for hydraulics

I borrowed a rear bb7 in Sardinia this year as my rear Elixir had packed up.

In all honesty I couldn’t tell the difference between the bb7 & the Elixir’s (maybe a reflection of the elixir’s performance). The bb7 worked a treat and I was very impressed.

I’ve got one bike with a bb7 up front and a v brake at the back. In the dry they both work perfectly well but in the wet the bb7 is far better than the v brake it replaced and they are no more of a faff to set up and adjust than a cable rim brake. They may not have the power of hydros but they are in a different class to rim brakes in bad weather.

Another BB7 user here, as mentioned above spend a little time dialing in the set-up and they’ll reward you with good power and cheap, low maintenance stoppage.

Got bb7’s on my cross bike bloody awesome. Best buy for me. Go for it mate.

I’ve got an old Shimano on the front of one of my mountain bikes and it works a treat, just as good as hydraulics on the other bike I reckon.

Mr jones seems to like avid bb7s as do his desciples

BB7s on my winter bike/tourer and were on my 29er.

Very happy with them. On teh drop bar bike tehy are running normal shimano cables and outers and are still nice and sharp with a short lever throw. A bit of patience, albeit no more than with hydros, setting them up will pay dividends.

Seems like i might have to start looking for a set of bb7’s then.

For those that mentioned them – Rim brakes are definitely out as my wheels don’t have a braking surface.

Thanks for the replies so far – all very helpful

I’m amazed how good my bb5’s are on my cargo bike, even fully laden. I would definitely get bb5’s again.

BB7s on my main bike (a 456), I flipping (sorry swear filter) love’em. After years of pi$$ing around with bleeding hideous fluids, sticking pistons and other general faff I ditched hydro discs, fitted BB7s and have never looked back.

I also have a BB7 on the front of my CX/Road bike, and it to is the b*ll*cks.

hunterst – I’ll soon have a very nice pair of Avid Speed Dial 5 levers available if you’re after some for your setup

I am amazed people bother to come on these forums and critise BB7s – it just reflects badly on your technical abilities to set them up properly…

I am amazed people bother to come on these forums and critise BB7s – it just reflects badly on your technical abilities to set them up properly…

Me too, they’re a doddle to fit, a doddle to set up nicely and then they just keep working well.

Although it helps if you have a decent workstand, like that one from EBC 😉

TurnerGuy +1

There’s a lot of experienced riders who are using BB7s and there are good reasons which I won’t enumerate.

What causes poor performance with good quality cable disk brakes is usually quite simple, flex or compression.

Compression:

The performance of any cable brake is subject to the quality of the cable. You can buy the best cable brakes possible, combine them with poor quality cables, and you end up with crap brakes.

What happens when you pull on the brake is the outer cable compresses (the spongy feel) and good cables compress less than rubbish ones. So you have used up a heap of your lever travel just to compress the cable to the stage it is ready to apply the brake.

With crud cables this means you have to set your pads really close to the disk, so then you get the delights of rubbing brakes etc.

I have had good results with Jagwire and Avid cables. (I’ve nothing against Shimano cables, it’s just I haven’t used them in years.)

Flex:

This can be found in some brake levers. Once again you are using up cable pull to flex the lever to the point that the brake is ready to work, and again this means all your adjustments leave the pads too close to the disk. It is worth buying decent levers. Avid, Shimano, etc. If you can see your lever flex it’s too floppy.

If you are using road BB7s then of course you have the problem of using road levers. Nasty noodly things IMO, but you can make up for that by getting rid of all the compression in the outer cable.

This is done by replacing outer cable with rigid metal tubing. Avid make an expensive kit, or you can make your own like I did using aluminium tubing from B&Q – it’s cheap, and some skinny nylon or teflon tubing to act as a liner. You’ll obviously need some ordinary outer for the flexible bits as well.

Here’s mine:

You can see how the aluminium tubing has been curved to follow the line of the frame.

Thus if your BB7s are crap, blame your cables and levers first.

I have noticed there are 2 types of bb7 available – road and mtb.

Is the difference just in the levers supplied or is it more than that?

Although it helps if you have a decent workstand, like that one from EBC

I used to have loads of problems setting up my BB7s on a minoura RS5000 (same stand but better clamp) but then I bought a feedback stand and now setup is a doddle…

The road ones have more pad travel as road levers pull less cable (if that makes sense).

Assuming that you’re using normal (i.e. MTB, not road) style levers, you’ll need the MTB ones. And I don’t think they come with levers, possibly not even cables.

I can however sell you some lovely levers that are coming off my bike as I’m getting some lovelier ones 🙂

sam2391 – Member
Gusset make a cable disc the moves both pads, which could work well but not had any experience or seen any reviews.

I’ve got a set – not fitted to anything yet. Look ok, and certainly should be easy to centre.

bb7s and the ones stoner linked too are both fine

my only critism of bb7s is lack of modulation – they were very on off – but you learn to adjust how you grab them to suit !

my only critism of bb7s is lack of modulation – they were very on off – but you learn to adjust how you grab them to suit !

That’s where Speed Dial levers are great, as you can fine tune the amount of cable pull, and therefore the modulation.

That’s where Speed Dial levers are great, as you can fine tune the amount of cable pull, and therefore the modulation.

+1. SD7’s here and tons of modulation.

Epicyclo – what teflon tubing do you use and where from please?

@ IHN – thanks for the info re road/mtb
send me details/pics of the levers you have when you get a moment.

mailboxDOThuntersplaceATyahooDOTcoDOTuk

They’re like these, pic from interweb:

I’ll send you a pic of mine over the weekend, probably Sunday now though.

Epicyclo – what teflon tubing do you use and where from please?

+1

these are the only levers to have…

I’ve used road BB7s for about 8 years of all-season commuting. Now on my second set. They are good brakes, but the one criticism I have is that they don’t stand up to winter abuse well. So even if you maintain your cables well, the piston mechanism and pad adjustment can cause problems because the parts tend to corrode too easily

Used bb7’s for 11 years on and off on two bikes. Work well if time spent setting them up. Apart from cable lubing (cable oilers are a great addition) and occasional pad adjustment, need little maintenance. Performance per pound superb!

second the shimano M495
easy to set up, pads always return so no binding issues and as powerful as you need for dalby/stainburn type riding.

on one were doing them for under 20 quid, but sold out…

more maintainence (adjust the non moving pad) but apart from that, the only difference is feel compared to a cheap hydro.

the piston mechanism and pad adjustment can cause problems because the parts tend to corrode too easily

I presume it’s the salt they don’t like as mine are on a third winter of off road commuting, are never cleaned and are fine.

PTFE tubing from Airlines-Pneumatic

BTW try spraying silicon polish on the inside of the BB7 calliper for use on salty roads. Remove pads first 🙂

Had a BB7 for a while now. Never had any issues with power, even when I was 18 stone they had more than enough. The only problem with them is that they are a bit on/off, at least with shimano v-brake levers. I reckon people having problems with them either have glazed pads/disc or are using the discs that come with them as I’ve heard bad things about that disc. I’ve been using mine with a G2 cleansweep thing and it’s fine.