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Singlespeed roadrat with drops and Smart Sam cross tyres- general runabout / dogsbody / quick blast bike.
Riding it 50/50 road and fire roads / mild singletrack. Great bike but getting sick of faffing with the mini V brakes after every muddy ride.
Are there any other disc options which I should be considering other than Avid BB7s or Tektro Lyras? I've heard that the Lyras are lighter but a pain to set up.
Any views on performance of these?
Road bb7s are excellent. Never used any others though.
CRC were doing road BB5's a bit cheaper than BB7's a while back
The shimano R505 calipers work with road levers. Not tried them, but may go down that route in the near future (See below).
I currently use a set of old Deore mechnical MTB calipers (M515?) that I have modified to reduce the amount of required cable pull which is a cheap-as-chips set up. Having used these for 4 years, I fancy improving things further, so may get some R505 calipers, or get some proper reduced travel arms for the Deore brakes machined up.
BB5 worked great for me on my pompy.
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plus, because I was doing all my braking on the front disk, the rear pads barely wore at all.
BB7/5 is the way to go. Essentially the say though the 5's have a bit less easy pad adjustment - which is not really a big issue for road use.
BB7's, BB5's are less adjustable and use their own style of pads whereas the BB7's share pads with the Juicy brakes.
Cane Creek used to make drop levers to work with 'V' brakes that will mean you can use any mechanical discs - although BB7's are the best of the lot.
I've got road BB7s with ordinary dropbar levers on my UK bike, and on my bike in Oz I have BB5s with Cane Creek V brake dropbar levers.
Both work well. Prefer BB7s for adjustment.
Both feel spongier than a conventional MTB lever, but braking doesn't appear to suffer.
Another vote for BB7 road calipers. Got them on my Major Jake and the work great
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I've got the Lyra's on my Road Rat, they seem to be made pretty well and definitely work, but I haven't really had the bike long enough to discover any problems.