vlekov

Title says it all lol. Now serioiusly, hello from Bulgaria, long time lurker here and finally decided to show my face, so first post for me. I'm a fairly new biker, reading alot on the internet whatever I can get my eyes on about bike parts, riding technique and so on. Never really had a bike that's something different of a second hand junker that barely moves, so I got myself a new bike two months ago. Its from a local bulgarian manufacturer, I highly doubt that you've heard it at all - RAM Bikes. It's a fairly light XC hardtail with low-end, newbie components, but at least its built properly and is a real pleasure to ride. It weighs around 12 kilos (26lbs) and has Avid Single Digit 3 v-brakes front and rear, a SR Suntour XCR fork. Other components I don't want to list, because it's already getting lenghty, I'll just say there are no super low end noname components on the bike, it's a nice enough bike for me, cost me around 350 euros.
Enough with the explanations, here come the questions. As I said, I read alot on the internet since I got the bike and want to do some upgrades. Since I'm a very lightweight rider (58 kilos, 127lbs) the fork that came with the bike is too hard for me, so I figured why not change the fork with something nicer? So, based on friends suggestions, practical experience and alot of forum reading I chose the SR Suntour Epicon LOD, 2011 version. It's a light fork, 1.7 kilos, almost a whole kilo lighter than my current fork, it has all the needed adjustments so I can tailor it to my weight and so on. It also has a very hard to beat price-performance ratio, I got it for about 160 euros. So this will be my new fork and because of it I'll have to buy a front disc brake (the Epicon doesn't have v-brake mounting points). My friends suggested that I should buy an Avid BB7 brake with a 185mm rotor and just change the rear v-brake pads with Kool Stop pads. My LBS sells the BB7's pretty cheap - around 45 euros or so. They also sell the BB5 for about 30 euros, so I can basically get two BB5's or a single BB7 brake. So here's the actual question - I've heard stories that BB7's are so much nicer than BB5's that there's no comparison, BB7's use sintered pads, the same pads as the Juicy series which are fairly common here, and BB5's use organic pads with a specific and hard to find size and type, BB5's are very hard to adjust properly and so on, so overall I'd be better off with a single BB7 than two BB5's, at least that's the general consensus. So guys, can you please tell me which of this is true about the BB5 vs. BB7's, and will it be enough for me to just use a single front disc brake with Kool Stop pads on the rear V? Should I change the pads at all on the rear brake? A piece of advice from my local bike shop said that if I wanted to have something that stops on the rear I should just put a disc there and don't bother with changing pads. Also I'll have to change my rear hub, because my current one doesn't have the necessary hardware for mounting a disc brake rotor, so this all adds up to the cost of the BB5's.
Sorry if my whole post sounds a little unclear and confused but that's how I am now - a little unclear and confused
One last thing - I mainly ride light XC around the local trails (we have many mountains in my country, one of them is a 20 minute bus ride away, it's called Vitosha) for now and I don't plan anything much harder than that, so basically the bike will see mainly bog standard cross country in it's whole life, with the occasional trips around town.
Thanks in advance,
Vladimir

PS: If anyone's interested - here's a picture of my bike that I made recently:

NCMTBIKER

Nice intro...i'd go with the BB7's if i were you

NCMTBIKER

nice lookin bike too by the way....

vlekov

Thanks for the reply and I'm glad you like the bike! A slight update on topic - today, after considerable poking around, I discovered that the pads on the BB5 are sintered and they go with a G2 CleanSweep rotor, so I'll probably buy a BB5, now I just have to decide if I really need the rear disc.
Thanks for the input again.

NCMTBIKER

No prob....got to look out for my fellow mountain bikers!