On 2018-04-28 14:47, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 7:17:42 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-04-27 18:35, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 4:18:58 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-04-27 15:11, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 2:10:07 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-04-27 10:57, jbeattie wrote:

[...]



Decades of racing and riding on single and dual pivot rim
brakes in the rain and never once pussyfooted except to avoid
traction loss. I've never crashed in the rain because of
brake failure (and I've crashed many times in the rain),
although I had one close-call involving some bad cantis on
STI levers, but then again, I had an even scarier incident
with mis-adjusted cable discs. My crashes were all due to
traction loss.


One of my really nasty crashes happened when the front brake
cable snapped. It was almost new. That just does not happen
with hydraulic disc brakes. I had the choice of wiping out with
major road rash or chancing it into the vegetation. In either
case I'd have been toast if there had been oncoming traffic.

A catastrophic failure can happen in any system. Breaking a new
cable is a catastrophic failure. It shouldn't happen (it's never
happened to me in maybe 300K miles of riding).


I had it happen half a dozen times. My sister had it happen at
least twice. Two of those incidences caused accidents, a 3rd almost
did (blowing through a non 4-way downhill stop sign but nobody
came). These were all good quality cables bought at reputable bike
shops, not department store merchandise.

Something is horribly wrong. I've never snapped a new brake cable or
even broken an old one. Shift cable, yes -- STI levers with the hard
bends can be rough on those little cables.


I and my sister were by far not the only ones over there (Germany) that
happened to.

OTOH I can remember ever breaking a shifter cable. That wouldn't be an
emergency. I always have a screw driver in my tool kit so could set it
into a suitable position.

[...]


... I switch between disc and direct mount caliper
brakes on the weekends and find that braking is great on
both.


Thanks for the hint about the Koolstop pads. They just
came. Ebay tracking is a nice "mail is here" alert. It came
early today.

They fit like a glove. I wonder why they now flare the
trailing edge inwards towards the rim. It would make the
pad want to skew. Maybe I'll grind that off.

No. It's meant to wipe the rim before the pad fully engages.
It is exactly what you want for dirt and wet weather
performance.


Let's see. I could almost bet that pointy tip will be worn
away after a few hundred miles.

Depends on the 100 miles, but yes, it's not going to last
forever. My disc pads last about one-quarter the time of my rim
brake pads.


Time to upgrade the disc brakes? Mine last about the same and that
is comparing a road environment for the rim pads to 90% trail
riding on the MTB. Dusty, mucky, wet and gravely trail riding.
Sometimes when a stench develops I have to pry "brake mousse" out
of the front caliper. That happens after the weeds shot up and have
to I ride through them for miles. Star thistle is particularly
nasty. It tangles in the rotor spider, then gets chopped and pureed
at the caliper. Doesn't cause performance issues but it can stink.

What wears really fast are organic pads. The kind bike shops sell
you for north of $15/pair. I like ceramic-based pads. You can't use
cheap rotors with those though, they'd eat them up. I use Shimano
RT66 rotors. They cost me $22 each, 8-inchers.

Organic are terrible, but even the metalic pads don't last that long
-- not nearly as long as rim brake pads. I run 160mm rotors on the
commuter and 140/160mm rotors on every thing else (the hydraulic
bikes). I buy name-brand and not Chinese no-name replacements.


This is the puzzler, the Chinese ones last the longest and (so far) had
the best braking performance for me. Not really no-name, they are from
the Hangzhou-Novich factory and arrived in blister packs with their logo
on them. They can't always be found on the web though so when I find
them I buy in bulk because I don't get to travel to China.

My experience with MTB tires is similar. The really low cost brands from
Thailand hold up the best, provide decent traction and most of all have
sturdier side-walls than most "name brand" stuff.


I have a Norco Search gravel bike with hydraulics that my son was
riding today, and they get drag periodically and can be very
annoying. SO TECH QUESTION: what would cause periodic dragging -- and
a pinging-type drag, almost like the return springs are hitting the
rotor.


Return springs? There are usually only the little spreader clips and
they can't or should never hit the rotor. If they did that could mean
trouble.


Then it goes away, and braking is normal -- so I know the pads
are not worn out and the springs are not hitting the rotor (but I
will check). Piston drag? The bike is not that old, but I could
bleed it. The calipers are properly centered.


That is one of the occasional nuisances. My disc brakes can go tsssing
... tsssing for tens of miles. Sometimes dirt or vegetation "mousse" gets
in there. A toothpick fixes that but the drag is so miniscule and the
noise so faint that I don't bother during a ride.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/