I’ve got Shimano br-cx77 (the ultegra level) cable disc brakes on my cx bike, they’re both set up in accordance with the instruction manual and with compressionless outers and clarks premium inners with the OE pads on shimano discs.

The strange thing is the rear is far more positive and bites far better than the front.

The brakes have done nearly 200km of riding over the last 3 weeks and they’ve not been exposed to any contamination.

Any clues?

Different cable tension?

Also in my experience mech brakes take a bit of tinkering to get just right, there is a knack, and eventually you’ll get the ‘feel’ for it.

Guess some fettling is required

Yeh, I have some low end tektro mech disk brakes on my mountain bike, I’ve managed to get them working very effectively, I have no idea about your model but…
it’s any help for future, I tend to:

Screw the static pad right back so its out of the way
Loosen the bracket on the outside caliper/pad
Insert a train ticket or similar between outer pad and disk
Hold the caliper/pad on but quite lightly against the disk
Tighten back up
Wind static pad back inboard until it prevents wheel from spinning freely
Back it off a tiny bit until wheel spins acceptably

This works well for me, I get a tiny tiny bit of rub, but great bite.

If you have excess leaver pull after that then maybe pull a bit more cable through at the calipers, they should then bite a lot more enthusiastically.

One thing to note it cable systems do not self adjust like hydraulic systems, so as the pads wear, yyo may need to fettle them as needed.

Bedding in/contamination

^also a good point, especially if you tend to drag the brakes, try to brake a bit harder and later rather than softly braking for long periods or the pads can become ‘glazed’..this can be fixed by removing the pads and roughing them up with a bit of sand paper.

Disk brakes require a slightly different technique to rim brakes in this respect. They also need to be warmed up a tad when setting off from cold before they become really effective.

I have also discovered that organic compound pads are better in my view, they wear out a bit quicker than metallic /sintered pads, but are kinder on the disk and seem to work better for me.

Organic pads from superstar are my choice as they work well and are cheap enough that I don’t mind replacing them marginally more often.

Also with mech disks, I tiny bit of rub is normal, especially if it’s a QR hub, if the wheel and disk is less than 99.9% straight or I’d there’s any slight wear in the hub bearings, you’ll get a tiny bit of rub no matter what you do, if you want to keep the pads as close as possible to the discs when not braking.

You can move the pads away from the disk, but that will have a negative effect on the leaver action /feel as the pad will have to travel further before biting the disks..thats where personal preference and tinkering comes in… I’m happy to have a teeny bit of rub for the extra performance.

1/2 an hour tinkering and they’re now way better, can even pull skidz and endoz

My BB7s took a fair bit of tinkering to get good performance out of them too. I found it best to ignore the instructions and find something on online- there’s some really good blogs out there, I’ll try and find the one I used

This is the one I used

Organic pads from superstar are my choice as they work well and are cheap enough that I don’t mind replacing them marginally more often.

I’d agree with this, on my cx / road disks the wear rate is nowhere near as bad as the mtb and the organic pads make for better stopping and less noise. Not sure the wear difference is all that noticeable either, though I’m more road than offroad in the foul weather