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Old man shouts at clouds
This past week I've felt like that old man who shouts at clouds.. so I thought I've have a moan and waffle on here and see if I'm an idiot or luddite or just maybe someone else has had a similar experience.
I'm a proud owner of a beautiful Mason Definition.. being honest it hardly gets any miles in as I spend most of my time riding my other bike.. still, it's a beauty and it sits in the garage, in winter on the turbo, but usually is dressed in knobbly tyres for off-road rides (gravelly type stuff). Since I've had it, I've changed the disc brakes twice and swapped a couple of chains out.. but nothing out of the ordinary..
I've just come back from the new forest, I threw the bike in the car fully in the knowledge that I had only one working disc brake, 'but it'd be okay' I'd borrowed a bleed kit from a mate and had brought some some mineral oil from my LBS. I'll sort it when I'm down there.. or so I thought. Firstly, the instructions with the commonly found bleed kit were very hard to understand (lack of terminology understanding on my part), you tube it is then.. (which helped). Secondly, the bleed kit needed a 'not included' adaptor to attach the 'pot' to the levers for 'roadies' .. (very unhelpful). This then became a two man job as my dad and myself tried to bodge the pot in place.. (which turned into a fail with a third of the bottle of mineral oil all over my hands, the rims/tyres and the floor. So.. a quick google seemed to show the 'adaptor required' as a pretty common part, the next day a few calls to the numberous LBS in the forest would prove otherwise.. however 'Bike Jacks' LBS in Lymington proved very helpful, "Pop it down and we'll get you running" they said, "Brilliant" I replied! So I popped down to Bike Jacks and watched as he fettled, ingected and squeezed my front brake back into action.. it probably took 25 mins for the expert to get it working. So armed with two working brakes and a warning about tipping a bike upside down and air bubbles I drove back to base and had a lovely couple of days bumbling about the new forest.
My shouting at clouds moment is simple.. why and how are disc brakes so bloody complicated!! Don't depress the lever when the wheel isn't in.. don't tip your bike upside down, don't worry about the rubbing, don't spray soap on the discs, don't mind the screeeeeeaching.
Now I am fully aware that this is all 'knowledge which is to be treasured and learned from but after seeing Bike Jacks wrestle and squeeze with just one brake I'm wondering how the hell do other people manage? For the record, I'm usually quite happy with 'new stuff' I've been running tubeless on road for ever, I've happily made every mistake along the way and have experimented galore to arive ay my current set up... but I can't see me wanting to 'try to fix' my brakes again anytime soon.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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27 comments
To be honest I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for your predicament. You knowingly set off on a ride with a faulty brake; you don't have the right kit to fix it and you make a bodge of the job. Just the sort of rider I travel miles to avoid really.
But stick with it, hydraulic brakes are a quantum leap better than anything that went before and your persistence will pay dividends. I'm old and have old men's attitudes; I never spend money on nonsense. But I swear I will never waste cash on rim brakes again, they are very much yesterday's answer to a never-ending problem.
I mean, granted, I'm a veteran Disc-brake-cloud-shouter and even I accept that people seem to like them and that they're here to stay, but quantum leap? No chance. Compared with an OEM set of Tektro callipers with good pads (Swissstop blue) and mid-quality DT aluminium rims, they are merely a marginal gain at best (at the expense of more time bedding in, reduced pad clearance in gritty conditions, squealing in the wet, extra weight, pads that get contaminated by road spray, and well, extra expense!). I swear if more stock bikes had come with decent callipers, pads and rims to begin with then less people would be so infatuated with discs.
Rim brakes will make a come-back in years to come when manufacturers have run out of people to sell expensive new disc brake bikes to. They're just trying to figure out a new way to market them ("light, cheap, effective, pick three?")
I quite agree. I am amazed that so many think they are such a huge improvement when they make scraping noises due to trapped grit and squeal horribly in the wet and maintenance is so much more difficult and more frequently required.
["I swear if more stock bikes had come with decent callipers, pads and rims to begin with then less people would be so infatuated with discs."]
I guess it just comes down to how much people can or are prepared to spend on their kit. My Record brakes with blue pads on Shamal rims would easily send me over the handlebars if I were to pull too hard on the levers.
The same applies to the xtr levers/ Avid Ultimate v-brakes on my touring bike.
As for the claims about rim wear, I've never worn rims out yet.
I honestly wonder if that's down to the Swissstop pads as well, I've only replaced rims on my gravel bike after 4000km because I've dinged them off rocks (something I'm hoping a set of inserts will prevent). On my all-conditions road bike I've only replaced wheels because the cheap OEM wheels were snapping too many spokes, after 6000km the rims had plenty of life left.
I guess if I could actually afford carbon rims I'd maybe be looking at it differently, but the only bike I would put carbon wheels on doesn't come out in the rain anyway so it's a moot point!
Mine don't!
Mine don't!
There is certainly more involved in setting them up.
Not in my experience.
So would my H11 brakes, but it's definitely easier to brake hard and keep the back wheel down than it was on my Chorus rim brakes on Zondas.
I have! One Zonda rear and one Calima front. I have a suspicion that the TCO of disc brakes is barely any different than that of rim brakes, because I can replace a £20 rotor in 5 minutes, whereas your options for a worn rim are a rebuild taking quite a bit longer, or a whole new wheelset, costing quite a bit more.
Good rim brakes are good. Good disc brakes are better at their primary function, which is braking.
I am amazed that so many think they are such a huge improvement when they make scraping noises due to trapped grit and squeal horribly in the wet and maintenance is so much more difficult and more frequently required
Presumably because the people who assert disk brakes are a great improvement are as thick as two short planks and are mindless dupes who have fallen for the evil propaganda of Big Bike. An alternative view is that they are indeed a great improvement, make considerably less scraping noise than occurs with the grit embedded in brake blocks which is simultaneously wearing away the rim, squeal less than brake blocks and require easier and less frequent maintenance- for mechanical disks at least. I have worn through lots of rims over the years- I suppose this rather depends on how many miles you do.
Rim brakes will make a come-back in years to come when manufacturers have run out of people to sell expensive new disc brake bikes to
This degree of self-deception is really astonishing. No they won't, although they might continue for some time to cater for the same sort of people who insist that analogue audio is 'better' than digital
they are merely a marginal gain at best
We'll just have to disagree.
To be fair, analogue audio is 'better' than digital audio in the sense that it is a more accurate representation of the original (sound being a constantly changing wave and therefore inherently suited to analogue rather than digital reproduction).
However, you do need top end, high quality (and highly expensive) audio equipment to even begin to notice the difference, especially at current sampling rates and resolutions.
Also ... been running non-scraping, non-squealing disc brakes for two years now and definitely no intention of going back to rim brakes.
I used swissstop, even used the special rubber to clean the rims (2 hours a time) and broke a mavic rim after about 18 months - not going back to rim brakes.
Not seeing how disc brakes make money when I know my wheels will last a lot longer - how are they going to make money on wheels as I don't need a set for each day of the week.
The same applies to the xtr levers/ Avid Ultimate v-brakes on my touring bike.As for the claims about rim wear, I've never worn rims out yet
Try this with rim brakes, and you soon will- if the wheels survive the crashes
This is the equivalent of complaining that changing threaded bottom brackets is difficult, because your toolkit doesn't include the correct spline adaptor and you grazed your knuckles while doing a two-man bodge using water pump pliers and two bits of copper pipe.
Using the correct tools saves time and effort, no matter what job you're doing.
Reading Pete's post, and then the comments below the line, I am more than happy to stick with my rim brakes
Me too, even carbon rim brakes seem simplicity itself - and stop well enough for me. Going is my problem, not stopping
If the brakes have been bled fully there will be no air bubbles and the orientation of the bike will be irrelevant.
In my limited experience of building my last bike it was the bleed kit that was not up to scratch. It was letting air in which made bleeding endless, until I worked out what was going on.
Doesn't there need to be air in the resevoir to allow for expansion of the brake fluid in hot weather or etended use?
This is a good example of the design problems. The SRAM system for bleeding had depressurising the reservoir by pulling on the syringe as the final step. This was to get the air bubbles to float out into the syringe. But that meant you had a completely full reservoir to make it work. If you then closed the reservoir you had too much fluid and the brake setting mechanism wouldn't work - it relies on a certain amount of piston travel being sealed to suck the pads back before opening the reservoir to release excess pressure or accept more fluid. I think Hope resolved this by having a rubber cap that allowed for an expansion chamber, but SRAM you have it full or a bubble of air shaking around. Shimano didn't need tricks to suck out bubbles, you just pushed fluid up from the bottom into the cup until no bubbles - though not sure how they resolve the air gap, been a while since I fiddled.
I'm amazed by the complexity they have introduced. I've had hydraulic brakes on all my motorcycles and there really should be no need for syringes and the like - it's poor design.
Have you tried turning your motorcycle upside down?
At some point they've all been down the road at various angles 🙂
Thanks. That explains afew things.
In my bike mechanicing days, there were many aspects of bike design that could have me in dispair of why someone had decided that this is How Things Must Be. Like why didn't the manufacturers realise that the sensible thing to re-routing gear cables through 90 degrees to put them under bar tape meant that it would be sensible to rotate the lever mechanism by 90 degrees rather than having the cable follow some tortuous route that is nearly impossible to re-cable without wasting at least one cable unravelling due to the experience, and that's before you've had the "how to get a wire mushroom out of a gear change when it has snapped at the same point that all modern cables fail at - the tortuous bend".
If you buy the (correct) manufacturer's bleed kit, then you shouldn't have adapter problems, but of course, buying the right kit is not necessarily trivial. 3rd party kits are another kettel of fish, as they are trying to cover multiple manufacturers and bikes being what they are, the different makers do love, erm, differentiating their designs.
Having said that, getting a good bleed does require experience and patience. There are lots of tricks, and depending on the design, some bikes do require things to be done in just the right way to pursuade air out of the system. Shimano have put a lot of design effort into simplifying their bleed systems to the extend that now you can bleed in situ - that is generally about designing where the ports need to be and shaping the cylinders to avoid nasty little hiding holes for the air. The worst to bleed I found were the SRAM systems which not only needed a complex system of stage by stage bleeding, but also needed to be filled to the exact amount, especially on their cheaper systems lacking adjustments... the difference between a binding brake and one where the lever hit the bar with no resistance seemed to be about 2 drops of brake fluid.
So, I sympathise - the reason that brakes are hard to bleed is poor design. The requirements are not hidden from manufacturers. As for the list of grizzles, I think the don'ts on brakes are exaggerated - brakes get sprayed with crap on the roads all the time so you cannot avoid them getting contaminated, ride in the rain they will squeal as you can't avoid getting muck in them, they clean up and quieten down with use. However, the same applies to rim brakes, rims get covered in muck and they may not squeal, but they more likely may not stop (and if anyone remembers the joy of steel rims in the wet...).
Bleeding the brakes shouldn't take more than five minutes if you've got the right tools and have done it before. If you get the right bleed kit, it'll come with the little screw-in pot for road levers and then it's really easy to use. I don't know why it would take someone 25 minutes to fix - that sounds like the time to replace a hose.
Serious question - how much of an issue is turning a bike upside down from the point of view of creating air bubbles?
Air bubbles in the reservoir don't matter, when turned upside down they might move up to the pistons where they make a difference. Maybe...
Unlikely to cause much of an issue depending on how long the bike's upside down and how much fettling is going on. If an air bubble starts floating up (down) the hose, then it'll likely float back down (up) when the bike is righted. If you're really worried, you could try putting a rubber band or bit of tape to keep the levers depressed before turning it upside down as that should make it a closed system.
Thanks. Though the rubber band tip won't work as the only reason I turn the bike upside down is for a roadside puncture repair.
I see it as a learning experience. A journey if you will.
It took me a decade to figure out how to easily set up my cantilevers (curve) so as to really get the best out of them. Just the doing. Vs were sooo easy.
I think the faff is very much worth it though, such power and control. I'm draining and replacing the fluid this weekend, better at doing it this time than a year ago. And servicing the pistons. Did a bit of looking into, got the brand specific bleed kit and a recommended tool, that I don't really need because I got a prison press (highly recommended by me). Will bleed in a couple of weeks too, just to get my incompetent self's tiny air bubbles out.
If I was travelling lots I'd get some of those travel piston keepers, though I hear that folded cardboard will suffice.
As my ex-commanding officer used to say "prior preparation prevents piss poor performance".
Perhaps in future you should check that everything is present and correct in advance of your journey rather than rocking up and expecting everything to go to plan.