Mountain Biking - is it hard to change from hyd. to mec. brakes?

hey, so i'm gonna get the 853 frame bike in my earlier post, but i wanna prolly change from hyd. to mech. brakes, is this easy/possible, hard? the main reason is cuz i don't wanna have to go through all the bleeding and maintenance that comes with hyd. brakes.

or is this a bad idea, cuz it'll be a loss of money... i was plannin on sellin the hyd. on craigs..

I'm not sure I understand. Bleeding isn't hard, and there really isn't that much maintenance with hydraulic. Probably less than mechanical over a long period of time.

I much prefer the feel of hydraulic over mechanical...

But I guess to each his own.

Sure it's possible. You'll simply have to trade the levers and calipers. And run the cables.

Az

I have 3800+ miles on my 05 Caldera w/Hayes hydros. The only maintenance I have ever done to them is change the pads, and it was very, very easy. I suppose eventually I may need to bleed the system, but I haven't yet and they work as well as they did when they were newly broken in.

Stick with the hydros. You won't regret it.

Stick with the hydro's, you dont have to deal with any matenance really.

And if you do and dont want to deal with it, take it to the shop.

i have just done the opposite i changed from mech to hyd.
dont change to mechanical, loads more maintenence as cables constantly stick. a lot harder to set up more maintenence less braking power by a lot and if you get dirt in the cable housing they have a nasty tendency to stay on when you release the lever. this caused me to fall off regularly.
ps if you do want to change though selling your hydraulics will almost if not pay for your mechanicals. but i dont advise it personally

to answer your question, it is possible, but its somewhat of a hassle. if your frame allows you to use mechanical cables and housings, then it's not hard at all, just make sure your mech cable is long enough. then just get housings that fit right and set up the housings and cables onto your bike and you're on your way. I don't see why you would degrade, unless you are going for avid bb7s.. which are more powerful than the hayes nines in personal exp. not worth the time and hassle.. might not even save that much money.

I've ridden Hayes Nines and BB7's, I still prefer the Hayes.