Tandem Cycling - hydraulic rim brakes

Anyone tried these or something similar?

http://www.gizmag.com/magura-rt8-tt-hydraulic-road-bike-brakes/21151/

I'm running Avid BB5 at the moment with 160mm disks. I've ordered the BB7 with a 203mm disc for the front.

Basically - we are looking for more braking power and the cable disks need regular adjustment as the pads wear which I am finding a little annoying.

Magura has had a road brake out for some but in bulkier version. It has been used on tandems but since there is no combination shifter/brake lever available it is a niche product. See the site below and navigate to road bikes.

http://www.magura.com/en/home.html

I don't want to give up my Campy shifters but feel hydraulic brakes are a superior technology to cable brakes. Maybe someday the big S will bless it and come out with a road shifter that will work and then SRAM and Campy will follow.

Wayne

....I don't know how aggressively you ride your tandem or your team's weight, but I will be quite surprised if you don't feel a huge increase in stopping power when you go to the BB7's and 203 rotor on the front. We are a 290# team (not including the tandem)with BB7's/203's front and rear and we ride a fair amount of steeps. We find that setup to be very effective and frankly have no need for more braking power. We never drag the brakes on the steeps...just aggressive and/or alternating on and off application prior to corner turn in. We have not had excessive pad ware to date. They were a bit finicky to get set up drag free and quiet, but once done they are pretty impressive stoppers. Good luck.
Bill J.

Let us know how you like the BB7s. I can't imagine a better brake.

....I don't know how aggressively you ride your tandem or your team's weight, but I will be quite surprised if you don't feel a huge increase in stopping power when you go to the BB7's and 203 rotor on the front. We are a 290# team (not including the tandem)with BB7's/203's front and rear and we ride a fair amount of steeps. We find that setup to be very effective and frankly have no need for more braking power. We never drag the brakes on the steeps...just aggressive and/or alternating on and off application prior to corner turn in. We have not had excessive pad ware to date. They were a bit finicky to get set up drag free and quiet, but once done they are pretty impressive stoppers. Good luck.
Bill J.

We are 290 lbs plus the bike - so not heavy as far as tandeming goes. On our last big decent I had smoke comming off front and rear BB5's and they were fading fast, managed to wash off enough speed to safely navigate the corner at the bottom of the hill but it did give me a little scare. Both rotors are now a shade of blue. The stoker was oblivious to the danger and thought it was a great rush :-) It was a steep climb, close to 20% gradient in places.

I've ordered the ceramic pads to go front and rear as well so hopefully the BB7 with the bigger rotor will sort me out. I do find fiddling with the adjusters to get to the point that I have a good lever without pads rubbing is a PITA. The calipers are just so simple so pretty interested in a hydraulic setup for the front at least - would probably leave the back alone.

Has anyone ever done a pulley system so you could run a disc and a caliper brake (cable operated) and have them working off the same lever for the front? That would be interesting.

We're using the Avid BB7s on a stock C'dale road tandem and from what my pilot's tell me, they work very well. However, we spend a lot of time faffing with them trying to get them set up correctly and invariably end up just having to accept some noise - if not with the pads rubbing, then from the whistling which seems to be caused in high winds at low speeds as maybe the disc is slightly distorted by the wind.

We're a heavier team (350 lbs) and do a lot of climbing which obviously increases the wear on the brakes and amplifies the issue.

Having experienced similar issues adjusting rim brakes on another tandem, again setup with STI shifters like the C'dale, I would probably err with a dedicated long lever brake caliper with either hydraulic rim or disc, or mechanical rim brakes and bar end shifters which would allow a greater degree of tollerence for us, if I started from scratch for a training bike.

Obviously you wouldn't be able to use any of the integral brake/shifter systems but these generally just don't seem to allow enough movement for us and would spend more time on the bike if we weren't having to continually adjust our brakes.

One thing I heard recently though is that some manufacturers are now producing hybrid mechanic / hydraulic brakes, which I think involves a standard caliper and cable moving something in a resevoir at the braking end but this is only speculation. This could offer the best solution as you could use standard road levers / cables while benefiting from the self adjustment and hopefully increased movement of hydraulic brakes. Be interested to know if anyone knows any more about these or has even tried them.

Cheers

Set-up's the key. Using organic pad's at the moment. Use these like a rim brake. Heat is a brakes enemy. We live in Sonoma County where the decents are steep.