I’m going to be building a FS bike (based on an old Blur) in my spare time over the coming months.

Avid Mech disk brakes always get a good report, and the price seems fair. Are hydraulics seriously better? I would have thought cable disk brakes are easier to set up yourself (over fluids/bubbles etc) over hydraulics.

Taking BB7 and juicy7s as an example (had both longterm)
v.low maintenance = cable
nicer feel = hydro
overall power is comparable

I’ve heard a lot of good things about BB7s – do you suffer much from cable stretch with them?

Depends on the cables!

Avid Juicy Ultimate levers and Gore rideon cables can feel as smooth as hydro Juicy (Ultimates). Also as powerful.

Like the feeling that I can do emergency work on them at trail head if I need.

Also like the fact I can run larger gaps between the pistons and rotors with the speed-dial on the lever compensating so I don’t loose power. When the conditions are muddy and wet I don’t get the constant grinding that hydros give you – except maybe with the newer shimanos that run a bigger gap.

Had two sets of hydros, now got BB7s on both bikes.

Hydraulics aren’t harder/easier, just different. It’s really just about learning something new, not about something you already do being harder.

Apart from the efficiency advantage of hydraulics, they also have the advantage of automatically adjusting for pad wear, so the feel and performance of the brake is constant throughout the life of the pads. I would argue that maintenance of the caliper is easier and quicker on a hydraulic brake than on a mechanical one. If you think of bleeding as being the equivalent to changing cables, then I might also argue that hydraulics have another advantage. I can bleed and refit my Hopes in less time than it would take me to replace a cable set and set-up mechanical calipers and, depending on use, a hydraulic brake can go for two or three seasons without needing to be bled.

I prefer properly setup BB7s to my Marta SLs or Avid Juicy Ultimates.

Quality cables are a necessity for BB7s if you want to get the best out of them.

One bonus with BB7s is if you take your front wheel out a lot to transport your bike, you don’t have to remember to stick a spacer in the calliper to prevent those oops moments when you remove the bike and squeeze the front brake by accident 🙂

No need for special tools, bleeding gear, or overpriced hydraulic fluid either, just a new inner cable every so often and an outer more rarely.

The only problem is its quite easy to lock up the rear wheel using BB7.

My wife used 160mm discs could not seem to help doing it all the time. (but she is very light and I dont think she really understood modulation no matter how much I explained) But I have also found them quite easy to lock up on loose loamy downhills no matter how I set up the lever.

I do agree with the comment that maintenance is very very easy on BB7 you just turn the pad adjuster occansionally.

I’d also agree with this statement

“Also like the fact I can run larger gaps between the pistons and rotors with the speed-dial on the lever compensating so I don’t loose power. When the conditions are muddy and wet I don’t get the constant grinding that hydros give you – except maybe with the newer shimanos that run a bigger gap.”

However saying that I’ve swapped over to hydralics on all my bikes as they are lighter and the modulation is better.

I have 2 bikes with BB7s and one with Avid Elixirs. Performance is similar enough not to worry about. For me, the cables have the advantage of trailside bodging if you’re in the wilds and something goes wrong. Easier to carry a spare brake cable than a hose.

When Magura come out with a hydro as good as the HS33s I will change – I want:

1. No auto pad adjustment and adjustable bite position
2. decent gap to rotors with adjustable leverage
3. mineral oil, not dot
4. two piece caliper, not one piece like juicy ultimates which need a compressed air gun to get the other piston out for servicing.
5. No squealing – I only get squaling now straight after the rotors get wet and then only 2-3 brakes worth. Squealing is something I def do not want as I come round a corner and meet a horse.

The goal of my bike is to let me ride it and then require 10 minutes or so cleaning and only occasional maintenance as it detracts from ride time. Some people like the maintenance and fiddling around – I’ve done that and am bored with it.

I don’t find any real lose of modulation compared to when I ran HS33s, and those are like hydro discs with a 26 inch rotor 🙂 But I only really do XC and some singletrack runs round Surrey, not big downhill or anything, so only have 160mm rotors.

I guess the major deciding factor for me will be money. Whichever I find a good deal on, I will no doubt purchase!

BB7s aren’t cheap for a decent setup though.

1. No auto pad adjustment and adjustable bite position
2. decent gap to rotors with adjustable leverage
3. mineral oil, not dot
4. two piece caliper, not one piece like juicy ultimates which need a compressed air gun to get the other piston out for servicing.
5. No squealing – I only get squaling now straight after the rotors get wet and then only 2-3 brakes worth. Squealing is something I def do not want as I come round a corner and meet a horse.

1. NO auto pad adjutment?!?! Why would you want to do it manually FFS? 😕
2. Not needed. What is 0.5mm exra gap going to achieve anyway? Discs clear in 10 yards. More fiddly knobs = More to break. 😉
3. Shimano or Magura
4. Why? I’ve never had a caliper apart. My 2006 Louise FRs have been cleaned occasionally and that’s it. You simply don’t need to take the pistons out for servicing. Pump them 1/2 way out, clean with toothbrush, add a dab of copper grease or brake fluid to lube the seals, job jobbed. 🙂
5. Pad choice.

🙂

I’ve used cable discs and I can’t believe anyone would want to go back to them after some decent hydraulics….. WAAAAAAAAAY too much faff setting them up, changing cables, adjusting them. There’s a reason there’s not many available any more apart from on low-end bikes. 🙂

I didn’t like my bb7’s in winter as I was forever stopping mid-ride (peak district ride) to adjust pad position to compensate for wear. Some descents I had to stop half way down (stopping was tricky given the brakes were not very effective any more) as the levers were back to the bars.

If you’re disciplined, they’re ok. Once the mechanism starts to corrode though, they are a nightmare.

Overall I found them way more faff than any hydraulic disc set up I’ve had.

2. Not needed. What is 0.5mm exra gap going to achieve anyway? Discs clear in 10 yards. More fiddly knobs = More to break.

look back at a singletrack thread about one of the muddy swinley races and how people were chewing through brakes before having to give up. One of the few that finished attributed it to the extra gap in his shimanos.

1. NO auto pad adjutment?!?! Why would you want to do it manually FFS

p1ssed off with hydros deciding to run as close to the rotors as possible even though I set them up with more of a gap.

cables do have the advantage that they don’t over heat on long descents ( anyone who says ‘stay off the brakes’ ought to go to verbier riding, where if you stay off the brakes for any length of time you’re approaching a switchback at 30mph ), but their characteristics do change as the pads wear, which means you don’t always get the braking effect you want.
i found i was adjusting the pad wear on mine in morzine probably after 2 rounds of descending, on average, iirc.
they’re also ok if you’re using the bike enough. bb7s nearly had me over the bars once after i wheeled my bike out after not using it for a while, wanted to just check my speed before rolling out freely on a techy descent, but the brakes didn’t let go because the cables were sticky. ok – poor maintenance on my part, but it’s never an issue on my hydros, and i use primaeval hayes 9s.

My previous previous bike came with cable disks. Absolute ****. I took the Vs off my commuter and used them until I could aford some hydraulic ones.
Have HS33s on the commuter now (no disc mounts) Would never go back to cable again. I’m with PP on this.

Whereas I have some HFX 9 in the garage waiting for me to take a sledge hammer to them as they were so sh1t.

And I was a happy HS33 user, used both the first version and the EVOs and still have on my commuter, and I am happy with BB7s on both my mtbs.

What cables and rotors were you unhappy guys running?

2. Not needed. What is 0.5mm exra gap going to achieve anyway? Discs clear in 10 yards. More fiddly knobs = More to break.

hmmm no your wrong ….

0.5mm makes a world of difference … wore out a set of pads in 4 laps on my xts at puffer – as per TJs suggestion of hopes having more clearance i took my hopes out – barely touched the pads in the remainder!

i love my BB7s – they are on my fat bike now 😀

BB7s are awesome. My Juicy 5s are on their way out, will probably change to the BB7s for a while as I hate bleeding brakes and the faff that comes with hydraulics. I found that the BB7 had just as much wheel-locking power as the J5, just doesn’t have as nice a lever feel. I could do big 1 finger endo’s with it back when I was about 18 stone 😆

**** even the reputibly crap deore cables on my missus bike are bob on /….

could insert a quality gag about being an engineer but i wont 😉

i think it depends on riding style and how much faffing with bikes you like to do.
set up right then i don’t think you’ll have a problem with either.

i’ve owned bb5 and bb7 (get the bb7 if you want cable disks) but prefer my hydro disc brakes for my main bike for various trail riding (pedalling fast through singletrack, steep hills etc…) i bleed them once a year and pad swaps are hassle free.
my other bike is for lighter trail riding (mainly flat trails at slow speeds with minimal descents) and about town so it has cantilever brakes. vbrakes would be less hassle and abit more power but they do me fine.

you have a blur so you’re probably going to want to give it some stick when you hit the singletrack so i would plum for hydro discs. as for which brand then it’s personal preference.
i mean bb7s are quite expensive for what they are. i’ve sold my set of saint hydro discs for less than a set of bb7s

£170 Avid Juicy Ultimate levers and Gore ride-ons solve the lever feel issue…

You need to run decent rotors as well, not the roundagons that come with the BB7s.

look back at a singletrack thread about one of the muddy swinley races and how people were chewing through brakes before having to give up. One of the few that finished attributed it to the extra gap in his shimanos.

Mate, I’ve got Shimano brakes and there’s bugger all difference!

wore out a set of pads in 4 laps on my xts at puffer – as per TJs suggestion of hopes having more clearance i took my hopes out – barely touched the pads in the remainder!

Hope pads last a long time anyway. Becasue they’re sintered. Probably part of the reason above as well. Let me guess: Sintered pads again?

When you’re slopping around in Swinley (5 miles from my home, I know how it eats pads) type mud a tiny bit of clearence will do diddly squat. After all, when does most of the wear take place d’ya think? Not when you brake by any chance, is it?
It could be argued that a bigger gap will allow bigger particles in, creating more wear……. 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, BB5/7s etc are good brakes. But a decent set of hydraulics are as good or better and far less faff. 🙂

I might get a feeler gauge out tonight and see exactly how much gap there is on varoious brakes……

Chosen-hubs make a floating mech disk brake called the Winzip.

It gets rebranded as Gussett and Kooka amongst others.

I got a set for evaluation but didn’t have time before the ‘Puffer to try them so stuck with the BB7s.

Their big selling point is that the calliper floats so that the pads are evenly spaced, and from the rotors perspective move simultaneously, ie you don’t get the active piston bending the rotor onto the static brake pad as in the BB series. For the mud enthusiasts, they also have the ability to have the clearance adjusted.

Lots of apparent pluses, but need testing. They’re quite cheap so if they don’t work out I won’t be disappointed.

For a trouble free brakes drum brakes are hard to beat. Nearly took a set to the ‘Puffer but couldn’t be arsed changing my spike tyres again.

+2 for pp.cables, your all mad 😯

I bet those Winzips will be good when braking as you come out of the bottom of a run down a big bomb hole, when you are experiencing a lot of compression…

im not a moron …..
sintered in both brakes ….

both set up central

you can hear shimano scraping as you roll along in mud

hope(race x2) only have the occasional scuff when the forks flex

oh and dont complain to me when your seals in shimano wear and you cant get replacements …..

never had a seal failure on my bb7s

TurnerGuy – Member
I bet those Winzips will be good when braking as you come out of the bottom of a run down a big bomb hole, when you are experiencing a lot of compression…

I’ve got more serious problems than brakes if I get compression on my forks 🙂

(rigid)

Do you have some experience with the Winzips?

I tried a set of Clarks cable discs a while ago. They were totally useless. chucked them in the bin they were so bad.

I listened to a HiFi unit once, it sounded crap – I checked it in the bin…

I drove a car once and that was crap so I walk everywhere now…

I was trying to think of a joke about the Winzips as that is the name of a well-known compression utility on Windows – Coming out of a bomb-hole was all I could think off 🙁

TurnerGuy – Member
…I was trying to think of a joke about the Winzips…

Light goes on 💡 Got it.

I knew there was something bugging me about the name – but I’ve been on Macs for so long now that the concept of things failing randomly is a distant memory. 🙂

do things fail more consistently on Macs then?
🙂
:ducks:

TurnerGuy, don’t smash those hayes up – i’ll have ’em if you don’t want them?
what was the problem?

2004 model – apparently they suffered a lot from rubbing pistons – my friend had the problem, I had it, the guy in evans said he saw loads like it. I used to bleed them down regularly but the pistons would still try to make love to the rotors. It also wasn’t helped by some manitou skareb forks I had, a bit flexy…

My mate would leave his bike upside down overnight with credit cards in the gaps before anything important, but it didn’t work.

You can have them if you want…

I’ve been on Macs for so long now that the concept of things failing randomly is a distant memory.

hehe.. to fuel the “mac vs pc” fire a bit, my mates iMac’s HDD and Superdrive both randomly failed the other night. HDD is fairly nackered and he lost a LOT of work, and now needs to buy an external optical drive as it appears the bus that the superdrive connects to is also buggered!

Del – Member
do things fail more consistently on Macs then?

Yup, every 10 years without fail IME

To be fair about the Hayes mech brakes, their hydraulics were equally dire. My daughter once had to deliberately crash into a tree to stop when her new Hayes failed completely on a descent. They got binned too.

I’ve only used BB7s on a road bike, and am happy with the dreadful ( 🙄 ) shimanos on my mtbs, but if I buy more brakes for off road use they will likely be mechanical.

Even with basic shimano cables the feel is great and I don’t seem to corrode/clag-up cables like many. OK you have to adjust them but it’s no biggie.

I listened to a HiFi unit once, it sounded crap – I checked it in the bin…

I drove a car once and that was crap so I walk everywhere now…

They were truly awful brakes and very poorly made. The rotor mounting bolts were made out of some sort of metal alloyed with butter and weren’t even a recognisable size (I couldn’t find a single allen key that would fit properly). The callipers had a notchy feel to them and the rotors themselves weighed a ton and would have possibly only been useful if I sharpened their edges so I could use them as novelty oversized ninja throwing stars.

Fair enough, they didn’t cost me much but I did ultimately feel that the bin was the only place they were fit for.

as it goes one set of hayes are running on roundagon rotors too…
i am clearly doomed 🙂

Bigdave you’re missing his point – you were talking about clarks cables, whereas the cable in question here are BB7’s. Ie you’re talking about a Fiat 126 and we are talking about a Escort Cosworth.

BB7’s are ace, I’ve gotten rid of Heyes, deore and juicy 7’s and replaced them all with BB7’s (and kept the roundagon rotors too).

Stunned anyone has to adjust the BB7’s as much as some of the claims on here (and the locking up problem), I presume you all have the hands of a gorilla? 😉 I with the soft caress of a lover adjust my pads once in a blue moon and leave the skids to kids…

Go for BB7’s as the BB5’s only have 1 pad adjuster.