Stomping stoppers.

2011 & it was all about Cyclocross. Everyone wanted in on going muddy-puddle-bashing on drop ‘bar bikes, and for someone like myself who found no wrong with the filthy mash that is MTBing, I needed to get my share. So early 2012 I double-clicked on the cBroadman CX Pro from Wiggle UK & did a little hop for joy when the huge box hit my doorstep. But all was not as it should be. Little did I eventually realize, the standard brakes fitted to this, & many other CX bikes – Avids BB7 cable brakes – were not as ‘premium’ as I originally thought?  I used (still am using) my CX bike as the daily commute in all weather, so my problems were:

·                   Noisy [very] on application in wet and/or muddy going.
·       Quite a bit of travel in the brake lever required to clear the pads from the disk. Hard application sometimes brought the lever down against the handlebar. Any less travel on the lever left the pads dragging on the disk.
·       Frequent wet/muddy riding caused wear, which required adjustment. Adjustment required bringing in the pads at each side of the caliper, but it wasn’t as straight forward as that. Sometimes, an initial adjustment, required fine tuning after a short ride – multiple times, through the evening, and into the night…..

I scoured the ‘web for hints & tricks, all of which seemed to suggest what I had already been doing &, to persevere.

After a year & a half of evenings spent crouched by my brake calipers, I decided to fork out for TRP (Tektro Racing Products) Hy/RdHydro/Road calipers - essentially a hydraulic disk brake that bolts onto the end of the existing cable, in place of the Avid BB7 caliper, in my case. Not cheap at $150 per end AuD$ landed, I was happy to see that they also came with a new 160mm disk too.

I bought mine from Jensons USA, but even though only 160mm disks are specified on their website, I did receive 1x 160mm disk & 1x 140mm disk rotor in my shipment. These Tektro disks were slightly thicker than the Avid disks I ad on the bike, so I really wanted to stick with the recommended set up. I couldn’t fit the 140mm disk on the bike as both TRP Hy/Rd calipers when fitted to the bike, did not suit the smaller diameter 140mm rotor. Email to Jensens resulted in a $50 (US) credit to me with an apology, problem was the disk rotors for the Hy/Rd was unique in the Tektro range & not currently available as ‘rotor only’ in 160mm (or any other size), poo. So I opted for a Tektro Polygon (Auriga/Pro) rotor – because it looked the most like the correct 1x 160mm Hy/Rd rotor I got in the box (still en-route as I type this).

So right now my cBroadman CX Pro is running the TRP Hy/Rd calpier on the rear, with the original Avid BB& still on the front. The difference in ‘performance’ you ask? Well the Hy/Rd does bite earlier, but does not have the drag issues of the Avid BB7s – the hydraulic pistons retract the pads away enough to avoid any ‘sound’ of dragging on the rotors. Also after the ‘bite’, the Hy/Rd calipers do bear down firmer on the rotor & almost feel like they will lock up the wheel (I have already locked up the rear while riding with the Hy/Rd, but being a drop ‘bar bike all the weight it up the front so I can’t claim that they are suer powerful until I can do the same up front).

The Hy/Rd calipers [can] take Shimano Deore XT pads, which I think is a very good thing. At the moment they are running stinther metal equivalent pads.