Whats the reason CX bikes have mech disk not hydro?

Typically this is what I’ve seen specced if its disks

Hydro shifters are very new

Rong, my TCX has SRAM hydro …

Mine has hydro

Are you new to cycling?

Hydro discs are brand new tech and haven’t been out for long enough to have ironed out all the bugs; http://singletrackworld.com/2013/12/sram-road-hydraulic-brake-recall-stop-use-immediately/

Most disc bikes at peel park were hydro.

Not since the SRAM recall they won’t be!!!

Whats the reason CX bikes have mech disk not hydro?

Well to actually answer the question.

Because Mountain bikes have traditionally had separate brakes and gear shifters (apart from the shimano dual control setup) making hydraulics very simple choice. Obviously road STi shifters are all in one unit. The gear shifters are required to simultaneously pull brakes and shift gears. This must pose a bit of headache for the designers to get all the working bits in really quite a small space…obviously SRAM have been bitten in the ass by testing it’s gruppo on the consumer again :-/

You can get around this by using a cable to hydro converter unit like Hope make…or simpler/cheaper just use the traditional brake cable to pull road disc calipers.

simple answer, cable discs are far cheaper than hydraulics at the moment

ah that explains it 12fifty.. I naively assumed CX bikes had a more MTB style gear/brake setup…

The point of a CX bike is wilful rubbishness. Disc brakes being better than cantis goes against the whole ethos of the thing. And hydros being better than cables, well that’s just a step too far mate. Next thing you know, you’ll be fitting tyres that grip, to go with your brakes that work, and where will we be then?

Have a look at Youtube to see whats what.
CX is about racing on fairly flat courses, typically parks and fields. Many people feel that as stopping isn’t the biggest priorities brakes are not an issue and simplicity is paramount. As brakes change I bet course do as well. Attitudes gradually are as well.
Avoid confusion with those who call riding a drop bar bike off road. CX is racing, anything else is using a CX type bike for leisure riding. Now at this point we start to see a greater desire to use discs, especially by those who have moved from mountain bikes which have flat bars and separate shifters and brakes which facilitates hydraulic brakes.
The piss taking above about SRAM is that they introduced hydraulic brakes that were combined with their road shifters. Sadly they have just been recalled for a “safety2 issue. Shimano also do that sort of thing but the brakes are combined with their electronic shifters and cost the earth.
the simple answer is that until this year no one made hydraulic disc brakes for drop bars unless you used the Hope or TRP converters.

Its not too pricey if you’re running singlespeed… (or bar end shifters or something)
http://www.tritoncycles.co.uk/components-c9/disc-brakes-c58/trp-hylex-road-bike-disc-brake-p1191

Sram only recalling brakes over a certain number when supplier changed processes, numbers before that are fine.

Mine are fine and are actually very good.

Sram only recalling brakes over a certain number when supplier changed processes, numbers before that are fine.

Mine are fine and are actually very good.

Think you’ll find they’ve extended that to all hydraulic cx/road brakes now.. That’s going to cost them a few quid!

Surprised that combined brakes with hydro discs on CX and road bikes still seems to be a revelation. Have the manufacturers just been slow to pick up the baton on this one due to technical issues or reluctance to move onto hydro discs out of some fear of progress?

(apart from UCI issues surrounding CX bikes)

A number of reasons:

1) Lack of hydro combined brake/gear levers
Currently, you only have a choice of SRAM (11 speed mechanical) or Shimano (11 speed electronic). Shimano are not yet in the market to actually purchase, and SRAM have faced recalls because of seals in the levers and have had a troubled start. If you want to run anything other than 11 speed, you can’t use hydros. If you want to run anything other than mechanical SRAM or electronic Shimano, you can’t use hydros. Of course, there are cable-activated hydro brakes on the market, but they are quite cumbersome, and do somewhat defeat the object since there is still cable stretch and housing compression to factor in.

2) Cost and ease of transition
At the point at which mountain bikes made the switch from rim brakes to disc brakes, most riders were using separate brake and gear levers. On the road/CX, most riders on the contrary run combined levers. Therefore, in order to make the transition easier using as much existing kit as possible, there are more mechanical brakes available for the road. For manufacturers, a simple cam replacement (like BB7) will make your current mechanical disc brakes suitable for road lever pull ratios, making the whole thing more economical.

3) What is necessary
Mountain bike brakes need to very quick to bring the bike to a complete halt. They have to cope with constant start/stop behaviour. On the whole (emergencies aside), road and CX brakes are there to modulate speed. Yes, I know that they need to stop you completely on ocassion, but in the main, their function is about scrubbing off speed, not completely bringing you to a halt. Therefore, mechanical disc brakes are sufficient for the job. There is no issue with boiling hydro fluid (apparently because of smaller rotors and longer ‘brake-drag’ descents heat build up is worse on the road) with mechanical brakes which might also hint at their popularity.

4) Cable routing
After years on the outside of the frame, cable routing has gone back internal on a number of road bikes with the advent of aero frames, electronic shifting, and general fashion. This makes fitting hydraulic lines a pain.

I think ultimately that points 1 and 2 are the most relevant here. Given a blank sheet of paper and no current rim brakes, road disc brakes would be hydro from the start. I have just bought 2 road and 1 CX disc bikes and all use mechanicals (BB7 SLs) because I want to run Campagnolo. However, if there was a hryo option from Campagnolo to choose from, I would have gone for that instead from a performance perspective.

Both manufacturers and riders have been slow to pick up road disc brakes. Since so many road and CX trends start in racing, and the UCI have not (yet) approved discs on the road, they probably won’t start to adopt discs in huge numbers just yet. At the end of the day, they don’t call it the bike industry[/u] for nothing. And if manufacturers can see demand from customers in sufficient numbers, they will produce intergrated hydro disc brakes for the road. Unfortunately recalls of both SRAM and Shimano road disc brakes (both hydro and mechanical) have not exactly given the concept a bumper launch from a PR perspective.

Great post above. I forget which bike but i saw recently on the interwebz a bike with hydraulic discs where the brake cable ran almost all the way to the brake mount, where there was an arm actuating a hydraulic lever actuating the brake caliper itself. As per comments above about cable stretch and housing compression that is the worst of both worlds surely? I assumed it was some kind of late april fool. 😕

[edit]
Found it. Although in fairness to TRP the reviewer didn’t find cable stretch a problem with their posh cables and said overall they were pretty good.

TRP Hy-Rd are great. I’ve only heard good things from other owners too.
I think its the best solution out there at the moment until the big players can get things right.

Perhap it isn’t the place but I thought I’d share the latest information I have on the SRAM Hydraulic Road/CX brake saga.

I wrote to Stan Day via the newly created SRAM website regarding the recall. I explained how unhappy I am, to stop using the brakes means to stop cycling, to stop cycling means no CX this season unless I revert back to the use of my BB7 brakes which were always ok just not as good as the new units which replaced them. I could do this but I’d need to buy the shifters which I have just sold on ebay etc etc.

Obviously my email was highlighting my unhappiness and stressed the need for answers, this is their (SRAM) reply:

Thank you for your email. We understand your frustration with the current state of our Hydro Recall. We decided to quickly get notice out to the Cyclocross community and beyond to stop using the product and to issue a full recall. Safety was our primary concern. We are working alongside the US CPSC and other global product safety organizations to register this as an official recall, and to abide by local laws and regulations.

In the meantime, we understand you have a races to attend, and riding to do. We can offer a temporary stop gap of disc mechanical product, until a final resolution is found on the hydro product consumers own. Please know this is not full resolution, just something to help get you back on your bicycle in the interim as we work with the CPSC and other global product safety organizations. This mechanical product can be fulfilled through our standard warranty process. We facilitate all of our warranties and service evaluations via local bicycle dealers at your original point of purchase. Please bring your SRAM Hydro product and your original proof of purchase to the bike dealer you’ve bought it through, and they will be able to contact our affiliate distributor service center in your area for evaluation and replacement.

Please know that as we are working on this issue, we will offer updates as soon as they become available on our brake recall website. Please be sure to sign up for updates on the brake recall website, if you have not done so already: http://sramroadhydraulicbrakerecall.com/register/

I replied asking whether or not SRAM understand that new brakes mean new levers which means new shifters, I’ve not received a response as yet. It appears Stan Day is too busy recording a video. I then called the retailer who supplied the Hydraulic disc brakes which I installed, they replied by saying:

We have not been informed of any replacement items which we are to free-issue, if you needed replacement brakes we’d happily sell the required equipment but at the time of writing SRAM have not made contact with us or the distributors regarding any units which we can give you to get you on out on your bike.

So….this is all I know….this looks to be a lengthy process with SRAM showing very little in the way of an understanding as to just how to remedy the matter in the short term.

bb7s on my cross bike are great with 160 mm rotors. IMO theres not a lot of need for anything more powerful/ more modulation.

Lighter would be great.

So….this is all I know….this looks to be a lengthy process with SRAM showing very little in the way of an understanding as to just how to remedy the matter in the short term.

To be fair to SRAM, they’re dealing with 19,000 sets of brakes all over the world, about 5000 of which are with customers (the rest being with dealers, distributors and bike manufacturers).

It’s screwed everything up massively – bike companies will have to re-spec and re-price potentially thousands of bikes, they’ll have printed thousands of catalogues which are now effectively wrong.

With respect, I’d say that SRAM probably have several thousand of these emails, they’re doing their best but your case is no more or less urgent than anyone else’s.

they are solving the problem for the day -imminent- when the road world finally accepts disks brakes on road bikes.

There’s now the TRP Spyre mechanical at half the weight of those – also subject to a recall, but my understanding is they already have a fix and are replacing recalled brakes.

I was told by Giant to not worry and until they fail then bring the bike in, they’ve mentioned that I should stop riding as per srams message but conceed that I will not and that if they fail I am entitled to warranty claims anyway.
I will only expect a change of brakes for a like 4 like product and nowt else, no mechanical equivalent, nadda.

It looks like it’s only concerning those that ride in sub zero temps and thats the only conditions thay have been able to replicate the failures in, which means me, here in blighty, has some time to go play and get dirty.

I will keep an eye on the brakes, but as said my serial numbers don’t match the latest batch and therefore should be fine, I will have a lot of fun in the meantime folks..

Have a fancy CX Xmas.. 😀

Hmmmm….I am not sure we should be all that sympathetic re. the position SRAM now find themselves in.

While I am in no way drawing a parallel we have learned before that gaskets, O-rings etc can change in characteristics with an increase or drop in temperature, we need only look to the Challenger disaster to see evidence of such an oversight and just what the implications can be.

When designing, testing and producing brakes for the market place I’d like to think the manufacturers have done their homework. When blasting down Greenhow Hill I have my life in the hands of those engineers who are meant to not only push the boundaries of technology but also ensure their products are safe for public use.

In this instance in the rush to get a product out there it seems to me that SRAM have been negligent. Failure of any bicycle component can often result in injury, I’d say brakes are pretty high up the list in terms of their safety rating and therefore perhaps they should receive more attention than a rear mech’ for example. I appreciate that SRAM have taken the action required and it takes bottle to admit that their product isn’t safe for use however in doing so it implies their RandD was not complete, in short, there are 2500+ test dummies out there who have been told to stop using their bikes on safety grounds.

For the record, should you now use the brakes and be involved in an accident upon failure of the brakes then legally it is the rider who is to accept all blame and not the manufacturer who has communicated the reacll in accordance with the idustry guidelines.

I agree, this is a choice we can each make, but be aware of the implications of making the decision.

Anyway, I digress, my contrubution is merely to highlight the fact that no solution appears to be forthcoming in the short term and no, I don’t think I need to be fair to SRAM. They have messed up, it impacts upon my riding and my finances, I’m just a number but I am furious, sure the problem impacts upon many, but my frustration is aimed specifically at SRAM. For SRAM customer services to suggest I call the retailer and ask for some mechanical brakes without SRAM contacting retailers first or thinking about the implications of changing brakes over is nothing short of rediculous. They simply don’t appear to be helping themselves.

Hy-rd are good. Hydraulic self adjustment with conventional (cheaper) shifters. Best of both worlds at the moment. Happy user here, after 10 years of road BB7s.

I will keep an eye on the brakes, but as said my serial numbers don’t match the latest batch and therefore should be fine, I will have a lot of fun in the meantime folks..

You realise it’s now a blanket recall though? No limited serial number runs, just every hydro brake they’ve sold. They’re not gonna do that lightly, I’d not still want to use them.

I do but they’ve been checked once before and ok’d. I’m happy to continue, I don’t ride in sub zero and I’m not about to give up my bike.

Thanks for the concern though. 😉

SRAM suggest the matter came to light in sub-zero temperatures however the issue is not limited to these temperatures only.

BTW all you Disc braked crossers
TRP have recalls
Also Shimano on the Mechanical brakes
Stick with rim brakes and obey rule #5 🙂