Well, I spent half of Monday and a good part of Tuesday morning confirming what I already knew: That you do, after all, get what you pay for. I got these Zoom DB680 dual-piston, mechanical calipers from Aliexpress on Monday morning and learned my lesson - for the zilionth time. Though single-piston, the Meroca D201 (also from Aliexpress) that I intended to "upgrade" from were far superior to these, whether in terms of build quality or ease of installation and adjustment. I can't compare them performance because I never even got to test ride the Zooms - which is probably for the best.

Instead of a lengthy, rambling writeup (which the paragraph above has already turned into ,) here's the review I already posted:



At the end of the day, I probably should've listened to the YouTuber who reviewed these and told me not to waste my time and money on this junk. Instead of wasting any more time and effort trying to get these to work, I just went ahead and put the Shimano 401/420 brakes back on the bike ans made it classy again.