Mechanical disk brakes?

200sols · 17 Jul 2020 at 16:59

Looking at a gravel bike,

https://www.halfords.com/bikes/adve...nture-bike-2021---s-m-l-xl-frames-365774.html

Looks decent apart from the brakes. Anyone experience of them? Fed up waiting for bikes to come back into stock.

UTmaniac · 17 Jul 2020 at 17:17

Wait for the £1k Boardman adv 8.9 with GRX hydraulic brakes, fit and forget besides new pads, cable disc needs frequent tweaking to work to a satisfactory level.

mattyfez · 17 Jul 2020 at 20:20

What he said^

The biggest issue with mechanical disk brakes is that that as the pads wear, they don't self adjust, so the lever pull gets longer and longer until you re-adjust them. If you ride a lot, or are heavy on the brakes you might be having to adjust them every month or two to keep the bite point without having to pull the lever too far.

They are OK but you will need to learn how to adjust them by screwing the (static) inner pad closer to the disk with an Allen key as they wear, and adjusting the cable tension to keep the outer (active) pad close as well to maintain a good sharp bite point at the lever.

EDIT, I had them before I went fully hydraulic, and basically it just means you have to adjust the pads really slowly until they just start binding on the disks, then dial them back a teeny bit.

DereksDontRun · 17 Jul 2020 at 21:26

mattyfez said:
What he said^

The biggest issue with mechanical disk brakes is that that as the pads wear, they don't self adjust, so the lever pull gets longer and longer until you re-adjust them. If you ride a lot, or are heavy on the brakes you might be having to adjust them every month or two to keep the bite point without having to pull the lever too far.

They are OK but you will need to learn how to adjust them by screwing the (static) inner pad closer to the disk with an Allen key as they wear, and adjusting the cable tension to keep the outer (active) pad close as well to maintain a good sharp bite point at the lever.

EDIT, I had them before I went fully hydraulic, and basically it just means you have to adjust the pads really slowly until they just start binding on the disks, then dial them back a teeny bit.

I've been able to adjust the mechanical disc brakes on my CX bike easily with the barrel adjuster on the brakes. (I guess it's easy to fit an in-line barrel adjuster if there isn't one present). It's just a pain when replacing pads as you naturally forget to wind out the adjuster and wonder why the wheel doesn't go back in...

Would still choose hydraulic over cable tho, as the power seems better and more consistent.