Originally Posted by
fotooutdoors
Curious about this statement. I have 0 experience with hydros, so am pretty clueless, but I thought it was a pain in the butt if/when you overhauled them, especially when it comes to bleeding them. Perhaps this depends on the design/maker? BB7's do take a bit of care to keep adjusted in abrasive conditions, but I would not describe them as fussy or expensive; I replace the pads when they wear low ($15/set, roughly yearly), and occasionally adjust the pads so that they are close to the rotor. I spend perhaps 5 minutes per month on my daily commuter's brakes, and I ride year-round.
I ride significant elevation gain in terrible gritty wet conditions and had to fuss with my bb7s at least once a week -- sometime more often. Moreover, pad changes are, IME, more time consuming and annoying (alignment issues) with mechanicals than a decent hydraulic. Mechanicals also require more re-adjustment when you swap wheels (see my handle). I now run XT hydraulics and have 5 wheelsets that I can swap onto my two commuters with no more than a couple lever squeezes worth of adjustment.
Mid-level or better Shimano are set up and forget for 5-10 years (depending on your paranoia about mineral oil stability). Moreover, since both pistons auto adjust there is, IME, very little problem with scraping/noise. My brakes basically never need adjustment and only rub/squeal when the pads are extremely low. I tend to agree that low end shimano hydraulics are not much better than mechanicals but once you get to SLX ($70-$80 online) or better there really is no comparison, IMO.
And anther thing: shimano/magura mineral oil is dirt cheap -- compressionless brake cables not so much.