Demand for a Hydraulic Drop-Bar Brake Lever?

Macavity,

the idea behind this is to actually have something available, rather than a mythical item from the past which theoretically does the job, but you can't get hold of 😕

Cheers, Rich

I'm surprised Shimano hasn't got going with the hydro thing
Then they'd have the disc-brake and electronic shifting side of things cornered. Campag and SRAM would be in the sh!t then.

Actually, Campagnolo had an electronic system ready to go before Shimano did; for reasons unclear it's not been brought to market yet. SRAM are alleged to have electronic Red in the works for 2012.

One of the advantages of electronic shifting would be that all the clockwork for indexing would be taken away from the brake levers; this would leave plenty of space for hydraulics, as switches don't take up much space. Perhaps the brake manufacturers will offer aftermarket levers, or make their calipers compatible with eg. Shimano levers?

Andy

As samuri said, it's not about power, a purpose built road/CX disc brake could be amazingly small and light in use but the main gains would be:

a)The chance to build lighter rims that don't need a brake surface, and don't wear out.
b) For cyclo cross the increased mud clearance around the tyres

I'd love some for CX

"the idea behind this is to actually have something available, rather than a mythical item from the past which theoretically does the job, but you can't get hold of "
Fair enough but,
sometimes there is a reason why things do not catch on.

I think it could just be that previous attempts were a bit ahead of their time.

Has it not been done with a Hope c2?

closed resevoir works any which wayu up, and on the sport lever ones, the actual workings is seperate from the bar clamp, so you could machine/bodge a specific clamp, and use them?

bit on the porky side though!
i would use avid BBs with 140mm disks if i was that way inclined.

Road brakes, even well set up ones, are incredibly shady in icy wet conditions. I'd love discs on my winter bike.

IIRC TRP are doing a set of road caliper brakes with the hydro gubbins in the stem, they use that bellows thing rather than pistons as well.

I think Shimano have instigated the push for disks with the UCI for cross, can't see it being massive in cross unless there's a huge reduction in weight of disk brakes and an awful lot of rame development.

Conversely there's a huge market for commuters, tourers and everyone else not going eye balls out for an hour.

I know people moan about cantilevers on cross bikes but I guess the reason they've remained popular at the top level for year is that they're light, also there's not a huge amount of real braking that seems to go on in top level racing a bit of slowing yes, but actual hard braking not a lot.

That makes sense. Guess that's why cross forks seems so twangy when you put decent brakes on them.

I much prefer the feel of hydro, and i've grown to hate rim brakes 🙂

i have though about bastardising a set of C2's, but a remote resevoir suystem would look superb 🙂

a bit of slowing yes, but actual hard braking not a lot.

that'll be the canti's 😉

A hydraulic sti for the new 11spd alfine – ultimate back country drop bar tourer product or ultimate niche product?

i'd love hydraulic disks on my road bike too. its no carbon fibre racing machine though, and has full mudguards and often carries heavy panniers.

tried cable discs and gave up, worst of both worlds IMO. I was constantly adjusting them in the winter.

Seems like there is some potential demand for the right product.

I'll continue to work on my ideas, and see if I can get anything which anyone actually likes 😆

Development will ultimately be hampered by me being in India, and my milling machine being in the UK 😥

Cheers, Rich

the lack of them is the reason i have a flat bar on my pomp. i'd like some. 🙂

Could you not look at a way making a pair of cable actuated remote master cylinders look “Factory”? perhaps buried in a little aero shaped composite housing on the top tube just behind the stem?
Doesn’t limit you on lever choice and could be made to look very swish I reckon…

I think as a product it would have a limited life, the big boys won’t be far from releasing a fully functioning road Hydraulic brake/shifter of some sort, but as a because I can and it will work exercise I think it’s a great idea…

Disk brakes have never been about power unless you're some crazy downhiller rad extreme dude.

Disk brakes provide you with consistency no matter what the conditions and much more refined modulation in those conditions. They also give you a massive leverage benefit, ride all day (especially on rocky downhills on the drops) with rim brakes and your arms and hands will soon see a need for a disk brake.

You can lock a wheel up using something as bad as a canti, it's not about the power.

Sure it is. You can bearly lock a wheel with cantis and it gives you hand cramps after a while. I did an alpine trip with HS33s and although it was fine power-wise it was still fairly tiring on the fingers, but with DH4s I have all the power I need with little lever input. To me its about consistency AND power. Each to his own though. On a road bike there's just no need, my cable rim brakes do all I need wet or dry and can lock either wheel wet or dry, and with nice teflon liners they feel almost as nice as hydro.

I will take a couple of sets and I guarantee you will not struggle to find a market for them (unless Shimano does come out with some…) do a search for 'drop bar' over on the mtbr forums and you will be surprised at the number of people riding drops on mountain bikes.

Don't know if you've seen this

Sounds like the stress on the fork leg is a problem on road bikes, so they went for dual (tiny) discs, maybe you can find some info on the levers they use.

And if you're worried about not having enough tread for discs then just whack these on 🙂

ooOOoo – Member

Sounds like the stress on the fork leg is a problem on road bikes, so they went for dual (tiny) discs, maybe you can find some info on the levers they use.

I don't believe that for a moment. You can already get perfectly good carbon road forks with one disc…

or

I think the trick is to combine something like this:
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/first-look-ashima-prototype-hydraulic-road-brake-24694
where they hide the reservoir inside the stem (a slightly neater solution but the same basic idea as TJ posted early on in this thread)

with a regular STI unit.

then match it to a tiny disc brake on the frame/forks.

The main problem with all this is getting it past the UCI (until that happens it'll never catch on it road racing regardless of how many regular punters want it) and then getting it accepted by a traditionally very conservative group of people. Plus it introduces yet one more bloody "standard" for road wheels and frames.

It can be done to work with STi/Ergo. I have nearly done it but its so mark one that I'm not showing. Not a total fix but runs Ergos with gear shifts and hydraulic brakes.
Wanted some very compact hydraulic levers, cheap. For the mark 2 version.

I'd be interested in a set … for monster-cross purposes 😈

those dual disks look cool as anything.
(they'd look even better on a downhiller)

Right, after taking my STI's off the road bike the other night, and some extensive measuring and modelling, I'm pretty sure that it's doable using a standard Shimano rubber hood cover. Need to do some measuring of some Hope piston assemblies and others bits, but it's looking promising, and not as complex as I originally thought. Reservoir can sit quite high too, purple bit is the diaphragm seal.

Bit more polished, obviously missing a few bits though.

Bit step from functioning SolidWorks model to working part though 😆

Cheers, Rich

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-001/FAIL-122.html

Macavity – in that top pic, the aluminium lug as fractured as well. No idea which came first, obv.

Using the DC19's druidh references above on the road – more than 6 months of daily commuting with BB7's and they're sweet.

those kinesis and orbea forks are a lot heavier than a top road or even cross fork though.

That's true – the kinesis forks are ~400g, which compared to a full carbon road fork is a lump….. but compared to the >700g of 700c P2's that they replaced they are positively feather-lite!

If the market is there, I'm sure the weight will come down – much as it did with the original carbon road forks.

kinesis forks are 680g…

I'm sure the weight will come down, especially as it's p1ss easy to get race bikes below the stupid UCI limit anyway

DT Swiss are doing full carbon mtb forks @ 375g (26") – I can imagine there'd be a bit to come off that for cross use;

http://www.bikerumor.com/2010/04/20/new-magnesium-suspension-forks-damping-tech-and-a-rigid-carbon-fork-from-dt-swiss/%5B/url%5D

Sorry – yes, you are right – and the P2's are around 1kg, though….

rich, any news yet?

I must admit that has very much been on the back burner, lots of higher priorities at the moment, work being the main one I’m afraid.

I did take a mini lever apart to measure all of the internals recently, but haven’t got round to incorporating the correct dimensions into my SolidWorks model.

Most likely will remain a pipe dream 🙁

Sorry, Rich

Mount normal but compact mtb levers as close to the stem as possible. Run normal drop bars cables undertape and through clamp on stop to the lever. It works. the biggest probem is that mtb lever clamps are a touch smaller than road bars but it can be done. I made a mk 1 version but never had bike suitable for its use.

Fair enough but, sometimes there is a reason why things do not catch on.

This is a well known logical fallacy called the fallacy of non anticipation and supposes that everything worth doing has been done or said…

I say go for it Mr Turboferret, it has definite interest.