I'm thinking about getting a second hand road bike for my daughter, but it comes with fairly cheap cable disk brakes but I prefer to ride with and maintain hydraulic brakes.
I'm quite confident with MTB shifters and brakes (repairing, swapping over etc) but I've not worked on road (Shimano) parts.
How much of a faff / how easy is it for a home mechanic to swap out the combined brakes and shifters system from a cable brake disc system to a cable based gear shifter and hydraulic brakes?
I would be looking to get the brakes second hand or at a decent discount and sell on the cable based ones, so hopefully the cost won't be too bad (although looking now, the list price is v high).
It might be the case that getting the right bike would be easier overall, but she does like the colour scheme of the one with cable brakes, and as we all know, that's fairly important!
Unless the bike has internal routing (through the bars) it's no different to MTB stuff. It uses the same callipers (unless they're flat mount), hoses etc. The bike would have to be 11sp already as you can only get 11sp hydros in shimano.
Thanks for the insight Daffy - I'll check if the target bike has 11 speed system
The bike would have to be 11sp already as you can only get 11sp hydros in shimano.
Tiagra hydraulic BR-RS405 are 10 speed. However you would need a specific RD-4700 ten speed mech to work with those shifters. Earlier 10 speed stuff is not compatible.
If you're happy with:
- removing and replacing bar tape
- removing and replace brake lever/sti units and brake calipers
- removing and replacing gear cables
- setting up gears
- shortening hose and bleeding disc brakes
You should be fine. I've probably missed a minor detail, but they're likely to be the main jobs you'll be carrying out.
I'm 100kgs and have shimano cable disc brakes on my PX London Road, only once have I had an issue with them and that was because of old crap pads versus super steep fast decent (although they were fine when used in the Pyrenees), I now use organic pads on them and they've been great since. Oh, I also changed to compressionless cable outers which increased the braking power.
Put some decent cable disc brake calipers on it and they'll be fine for someone I would hope is significantly lighter than me!!
The bike would have to be 11sp already as you can only get 11sp hydros in shimano.
My bike is 11sp shifters + mech. 10sp cassette because MTB wheels are 10 speed. First shift goes nowhere. Works great.
Totally random point to add, but I had called bike fit the other week, and the fitter pointed out that my old 105 hydraulic hoods were 2cm longer than normal 105 cable brake hoods, due to the reservoir. He fitted a 2cm shorter stem and suddenly I wasn't feeling as stretched out, and the bike became a much better fit.
Just a point to bear in mind depending on how the set up goes when you swap over.
If you're happy with MTB stuff then the only real difference is that the cables/hoses are probably under the tape so you need to take at least the top half of the tape off.
The shifters are held on by screwing onto a collar that slides onto the ends of the bars. The new shifters might use the same collar, but if not you'll need to take the bottom half of the tape off too, so I'd probably just replace the tape.
Are you sure her hands will fit the hydraulic shifters. A lot of work to find that cable shifters are a better fit.