Originally Posted by
OnyxTiger
I just picked up a 2014 Fuji Sportif 1.3, which has the discs.
Some rubbing going on, but I'll let that slide for about 200 miles until break in readjustments.
But I was wondering... are there better brakes out there, or are these solid?
I previously had a 2015 Cannondale Quick CX 4 that I just sold, and the disc brakes on those were awesome. I had thumb shifters. The link says they are Cannondale Mechanical Disc 160/160 mm, but I never really paid attention to them because I didn't need to. They stopped on a dime. Really easy to modulate.
These Promax's are 160/140 mm. These ones originally started braking where the levers went all the way to the handlebar. The mechanic 'fixed' it, but the rear is stronger than the front, and there's a lot of roll, meaning it takes a lot of pressure in order to brake. His only suggestion was to check out some higher grade brakes. He has a mountain bike background, and suspects since discs are fairly new tech to the road world, that their brakes (coupled with Tiagra brifters) just aren't up to par.
Another forums says to upgrade to Ultegra shifters, since Tiagra is crap.
Should I consider going Avid BB7 discs, or upgrading shifters, or both?
I have the same bike, and I'm not having any issues with my brakes, so they probably just need some adjustments. They did squeal a good bit until I got some miles on them. Now, they're pretty quiet.
I'm surprised that those other forums didn't tell you to upgrade to Dura-Ace. Tiagra now, is pretty much the same or better than Ultegra was about 10 years ago. And unless you're willing to upgrade your whole system, you'd have to go to a previous version of Ultegra that supports 10-spd. And then you'd lose a lot of the reason of going to modern 105/Ultegra. Keep you Tiagra (it's not crap) until parts start wearing out (other than the chain and rear cassette). Once they start wearing out, then you might look at upgrading to a higher groupset.
GH