Hi all,

I’m currently running Avid BB5 road disc brakes and I’m not overly impressed with the performance.

Having some budget shimano cable discs on another (mountain) bike, and I’m quite happy with them, so was wondering how shimano’s budget road brakes are.

Also, they’re only £35 which is tempting…

Anyone got any experiences?

Cheers,
Keith

If they’re anything like the r505 brakes on my Portland then they’re not so impressive TBH. In the dry they’re alright, but not in any way better than the Campag dual pivot brakes on my road bike, in the wet then they do slow down quicker than rim brakes but there seems to be a long wait for them to start working. The main advantage to me is that you don’t get the grey rim paste that rim brakes produce. They’re also quite sensitive to set up of the pads as it’s a single action brake and a slight turn of the pad adjusters seems to go almost instantly between grating and tingling to pulling the levers back to the bars.

yeah sorry, those are the ones. BR-R505 is the model number…

TBH the mountain calipers are similarly sensetive to adjustment, but once working they’ve been fine for ages now…

I rode 3000 commuting miles with them last year, so they’re not that bad, just not the performance increase that some might suggest. Would probably be good for big long wet descents in the Alps or Pyrenees 😕

I have BR-R505 on my croix du fer and BB5 on my pompetamine.

I find the BB5s better

I like BR-R515’s on my Cross bike…

Based on my own experience, apart from the usual concerns of pad and rotor (I’m on RT66’s and standard Shimano pads) tyre choice and brake setup (cable tension, lever pull etc) have a massive impact. If your contact patch can’t take any more friction then you’re not going to stop any quicker, you might jsut have more control of it. Road calipers probably supply enough stop for 700x>22 in good conditions, so for more traditional 700c tyre sizes you’re looking at brakes that are easier to live wth than more powerful.

Mine are running a 700×32 Raze and I have them set to pretty much lock the wheel at half pull – this gives me modulation a plenty and good stopping.

Ridden for the last year and no complaints… no shortage of Stop and easy to adjust as pads wear – but you may need two sizes of allen key. I actually bought a new multitool as my old one didn’t do 1.5mm.

I’d have no problem buying more of these 🙂

If your contact patch can’t take any more friction then you’re not going to stop any quicker, you might jsut have more control of it. Road calipers probably supply enough stop for 700x>22 in good conditions, so for more traditional 700c tyre sizes you’re looking at brakes that are easier to live wth than more powerful.

I don’t really understand what this means.

i think he means if you’re on skinny tyres in the dry you don’t need much brake. i don’t think that’s correct, but there you go. 😉
OP, i’d look at the setup of the bb5s. they don’t offer the convenience of adjustment that bb7s have, but you should be able to get good performance from them without too much trouble. good cables, with square cut ends, and quality end caps, then setup the calipers well, and you should be good. if you have barrel adjusters on the cables wind these all the way in, then set the cable length so the arm at the caliper moves as soon as the lever is pulled. don’t adjust for pad wear on the cable as this reduces mechanical advantage ( advancing the arm through it’s travel ). compensate for wear using the adjuster on the caliper that moves the pad inwards. adjust the caliper to accommodate inboard pad wear as required.
HTH.