Originally Posted by
uspspro
Thing that's bugging me, is the disc brake, it still doesn't have very much stopping power. Should it take more than 200 miles to break that thing in???
Unfortunately, I have no first hand experience with your Hope rotor and EBC brake pad set-up
I can only speak to the break-in period for Avid's 203mm G2 Clean-Sweep rotor and their OEM pads which, at least based on breaking-in two different tandems with the same set-up, seemed to have two distinct break-in periods:
1. Initial stopping power out of the box was non-existent but by over-using the rear brake during a short 30 mile / 2,300' ride from home the OEM pads bedded-in and seasoned the rotor to the point where I could drag the tandem to a near stop from 25 mph to about 4 mph on an 8% grade under full-braking at which point the rear tire finally locked-up the rear wheel and skidded the rear tire. From my journal....
As for performance, on our first day back on the Calfee with the Avid rear disc I intentionally over-used the rear brake to accelerate the bedding-in process over our 30 mile / 2,300' regular loop ride from the house. By the time we were headed down the 8% grade into our community I was able to get the rear wheel to lock using only the rear brake. The following weekend we did an in-town ride with three other couples. For those who don't know, the city of Atlanta and its surrounding communities north of I20 are actually quite hilly in many areas. Anyway, as I did yesterday, I intentionally overused the rear disc brake and by about 1/2 way through the ride the stopping power was well on its way towards what I would call "normal" for an Avid BB7 with 203mm rotor. It had been over a year since we'd ridden our Avid BB7 equipped '02 Erickson and it was nice to have a really grippy rear brake back on the tandem. While we really don't need it for most of the rides we do locally, it's wonderful to have when we head up to the regional mountains.
2. Once the brake pads have completed that initial bed-in process and the rotor is seasoned, our rear disc brakes have exhibited a further and somewhat progressive increase in braking power over a few hundred miles until somewhere around 300 miles or so there was a pronounced increase in brake bite. However, it's noteworthy that during this break-in period the Avid's caliper required a routine post-ride brake pad adjustment to compensate for the very quick, initial wear that occurs as the OEM pads wear down the higher contact surfaces (upper edge of inner pad, lower-edge of outer pad) and end up with an off-camber wear pattern that is essentially faced to match the rotor's position under full brake power: remember, the rotor is pushed ever so slightly inward against the inner, fixed brake pad by the actuating arm, hence the off-camber wear.
So, getting back to the Hope & EBC pads, it could be that you've created a longer break-in period by going to the longer-wearing / sintered EBC Gold compound and perhaps the Hope rotor's lower-heating characteristics or differences in the stainless steel used for the rotors are further exacerbating the length of time it will take for the pads and rotor to bed-in. Again, it's been somewhat interesting to me that my break-in periods were not really that linear. There was some initial improvement that occured at a somewhat steady rate of progress as the brakes were used followed by an incremental 'jump' that took me by surprise when the brakes really started to bite. Again, I've also not had to use any type of an in-line brake booster (PBP or Travel Agent) on either of our Avid-equipped tandems so once again I can't comment on how they may or may not alter the break-in process and timelines.