Decided to swap some wheels around, and will need some new rotors as a result.
I'm tempted by some of those Alligator Aries or Ashima brake rotors, but they would seem to be significantly lighter than the standard Shimano XT ones. I'm no XC whippet, at about 14st. I'm concerned that lightweight means less material, which means more likely to bend/warp/snap when doing an emergency stop leading up to that terrifying 3cm drop off 🙂
Anyone out there got any experience of these rotors?
light and look good, but down on power IME.
Which ones were they? The normal ones with the coloured spokes, or the all-gold Ti Ni ones?
Yup I've been using the Alligator rotors for a while now. They've stood up to my hamfisted braking on long Welsh descents on a fully loaded bike quite a few times so they're ok in my book.
light and look good, but down on power IME.
+1, I found that when I swaped 160/140 hope rotors for 180/160 aligators the power wen't up, but not to the usual level. On the other hand you could run one (or even two) size(s) up and still have lighter disks.
I ran 160/140mm aligator windcutters on an XC bike and I'm 15 stone, it was like being back on V's! On the other hand being so small they ran so hot that a single set of pads lasted me all winter, and the summmer, and into the next winter!
Down a little bit on power compared to oem rotors with my formula's and gobble a tiny bit under hard braking but going to try them with BB7's on another build...They aint half light tho 🙂
Yup I've been using the Alligator rotors for a while now. They've stood up to my hamfisted braking on long Welsh descents on a fully loaded bike quite a few times so they're ok in my book.
Same as this - no noticable reduction in power IME. Also an easy, and relatively cheap, weight saving.
and gobble a tiny bit under hard braking
This +1 as well, aires work perfectly with my hope X2's, but were un-useable with Avid elixirs. Windcutters might work better as they've smaller 'waves' on the rotor.
HOw much weight will you save - not much.
HOw much difference to your speed will it make - **** all.
Why worry about it?
my front one is about to be retired. must be 3 years old & thousands of miles on it.
have bought the same again to replace.
33% weight saving over the XT ones. Concerned it will result in failure. Why worry about it? My face is ugly enough without it being scraped along a rocky trail... 🙂
I tried kcnc Razors which are similar to the Ashimas.Decent weight saving at 90g less than my XT rotors but had some kind of compatibility issue with mine on the front ,which resulted in it catching then destroying the pads,so reverted back to XT rotors.
May have been down to a sticky piston but not wanted to try again.Sent them back and got my money back.
I had some on my race wheels. So I only used for racing. I found they tended to be more sticky ie braking felt less smooth, maybe the gobble effect mentioned above.
But the main problem I found is they seems to warp not much just slightly. The front went first and then the back. I found this very annoying so went back to hope floating rotors.