After setting up Avids mech's, owning Avid Juicy 5's, Codes, misc. rim brakes, and test driving several other brands of brakes...I'm actually considering moving to a mech. If I do, they will assuredly be BB7's.
I'm OCD, so here's why:
What I didn't like about my Hydro's:
-There was always a little different travel in each lever in the Juicy 5's. I thought that it would be cured with the Codes due to the pad contact adj. When i got the Codes (all noise aside), the pad contact adjustment was worthless. I had to have them adjusted all the way in and there was still too much "free play". I could possibly have squeezed the lever with no rotor and made up some distance. I had to bleed my Juicy 5's a couple times per year. (not a huge deal) When I bled the Codes, they were tricky to get all the air out of those little corners and "hiding places".
The BB7's will allow me to "micro manage" my brakes allowing me to totally adjust:
-engagement
-lever reach
-individual pad distance to contact
Sure, the main reason I'm prob. trying out the BB7s over Juicy's is going to be money savings, but with my hyperanalityOCD'ismic'control-freakishness...I may like the extra micro-adjustibility of the BB7's over the BB5's. I'm also a bit of a snob. I think the BB5's could be slummin it for me, hehe.
What I expect not to like would be cable drag and general "feel at the lever". I can get plenty of power for Kansas out of a BB, but the smoothness factor may get under my skin just a tad.
It seems that alot of urban riders that I see are using BB7's, and that's what I'm starting to enjoy more than anything these days.
We'll see...still undecided.
Last edited by ed; 10-04-08 at 12:54 PM.