SwingNinja

I'm planning to do a bike tour next year. The bike I'll be using has hydraulic disc brakes. They seem to be quite a chore to fix if they're broken down in the middle of the road. So, I'm thinking to downgrade them. What are my options? Can I use cable disc brakes on the same wheel sets? Or should I go even simpler with rim brakes? Thanks.

Bill Kapaun

Often disc brake rims don't have a proper brake track for rim brakes. Does it have the proper holes, studs whatever to mount rim brakes?
Examine first.
IF you have disc brakes now, stick with them. It'd avoid a lot of potential pitfalls.

maddog34

the cable calipers should mount right up on your existing caliper mount bracketry

i use zip ties to hold the cable housing on the hyd,. hose guides... the black clips love to fall off for various odd reasons, don't hold cable housing tightly, and experienced touring types always carry a dozen or so zipties.

Avid bb7 or bb5 are "go-to" cable calipers, and the pads are stocked just about everywhere. both are available in short or long pull ratios... brifters/drop bar levers are short pull, Flat bar/MTB are USUALLY long pull... Older MTB levers can be either pull ratio since canti brakes are short pull.

csport

If the bike has drop bar brifters for hydraulic brakes you will need to replace them with brifters for cable actuated brakes, which is not cheap.

If you have brake levers for flat bar separate from shifters you can replace the brake levers only.

CrimsonEclipse

Simple cable disk brakes are fine. Likely the wheelset will fit normally.

Please report back on how it feels to you

cpach

How remote are you going to be? I think people overthink this often, and hydraulic brakes are likely to be just fine. I'm a mechanic so maybe my comfort is somewhat higher, but I wouldn't hesitate to tour on hydraulic brakes in the industrialized world if I could get to a town in a couple days riding. Serious failure on reasonably maintained brakes is pretty uncommon, and you have two brakes anyways. Any decent shop has some spare brakes and can usually install them pretty quickly. If you're doing a long distance tour in the remote parts of the developing world I can maybe see the argument. Learn to replace your own pads, reset the pistons, and center the calipers.

As for compatibility, yeah, sure, you can use whatever cable actuated brakes you want in place of hydraulic. I'd recommend making sure they're installed with compressionless housing--it makes a fairly significant difference. For specific models, Avid BB7 and TRP Spyke/Spyre would be on my short list. The BB7s have really pretty good power and have easy tool free adjustments to advance both pads independently, and the Spyre/Spyke move both pads evenly, like a hydraulic brake.

BTinNYC

How 'bout before your tour do a complete overhaul of your hydraulic brakes. You'll learn the system and be comfortable with it, both durability and maintenance. I doubt you need new pads or a fluid replacement but this way you'll know the ins and outs.

Kai Winters

How long is this tour?
What do you think will go wrong with hydraulic disk brakes?
If you are going to change from hydro to mech you will need to change the shifters as well as the calipers.
I went from mech hydro disk brakes on my Aethos to hydro when I changed to 12 speed Di2. The brake change was easy and no other parts were needed. Just make sure you get the correct calipers...flat mount or post? mount.
I think you are being vastly over cautious but you do you.

alcjphil

If hydraulic brakes were that unreliable, cars would still have cable operated brakes

SwingNinja

Well, you're pretty much 100% correct. I'm planning to travel to Taiwan from US and circle the island. I'll probably buy the bike somewhere else in Southeast Asia just before landing in Taipei. I already have an eye on a chromoly (frame and fork) bike, but it only comes with hydraulic brakes unfortunately. They are TRPs, but M-275, which I'm not familiar with the quality of them.

alcjphil

I have hydraulic disc brakes on my 15 year old mountain bike. Never an issue, the only thing I have done was to change the brake pads last year

veganbikes

Have you had actual problems with your brakes? If not don't worry about it. My main commuter uses hydraulic disc brakes and I have had zero issues and I rarely see issues with hydraulic disc brakes, maybe some of the cheaper ones can occasionally be problematic and OLD SRAM/Avid brakes had their issues but that was quite a long time ago and SRAM makes great brakes now. People do kind of freak out for whatever reason but it is usually unfounded. if you breaking a hose in the middle of nowhere it won't be much different then breaking a cable and that doesn't happen too often and if your lines are such that they have enough space to really get caught then you will probably have more issues.

If you did want to swap to a different caliper, I would go TRP Spyre/Spyke (depending on short or long pull levers) which use the super common Shimano M525 pad which is used in a lot of different brakes from a lot of different manufacturers but honestly I probably wouldn't worry about it too much. Plenty of people who do off-road endurance racing like the Silk Road Race and Tour Divide use hydraulic brakes and they are racing and need reliability and are going for 1000s of miles unsupported.

Chuck M 

That sounds to me like it would make the conversion from hydraulic to mechanical more of a hassle.

icemilkcoffee 

Isn't Taiwan where most bicycles are made? I don't see why you would worry about not being able to maintain your brakes there.

grumpus

It's where many mid- and high-end bikes are made - China produces more bikes but they're mostly not of the best quality.

grumpus

If you're riding remote back-country in conditions that your hydraulic lines are likely to get ripped out, then cables are quicker and easier to replace, but most tracks and roads aren't that hazardous or isolated. I like cable discs, good ones are a straight swap for hydraulics in terms of the frame/fork and wheels, but if you have combined gear and brake levers you're going to need to replace those shifters too.

Yan 

You're not going to have a problem in Taiwan with hydraulic brakes. You're way overthinking this. I thought you were going to Central Asia.

GamblerGORD53

Cars don't have to be turned upside down to fix a flat or pull the disc from between the pads. Pfffft.
OR pack it up for baggage handlers. LOL. hahahaha Nice try.
And even I have changed car pads both disc and drum.

GamblerGORD53

BB7 have ONE pad moving. = CRAP. If you really want one you can have the one I never used. I had a BB5 POS for years.
OTOH >> My cable TRP Spyre with resin stops my Rohloff INSTANTLY. So yah change what you have to this. Grim bakes are a total FAIL in any weather.
For a REALLY good upgrade, put a SA XL-FDD dyno drum hub in the front. ZERO worries or fiddling for 32,000 MILES. Maybe need a bearing change.
My tour bike was 120 lbs both trips.

alcjphil

I am capable of removing a wheel without turning my bike upside down

Canker

turning a bike upside down with hydros doesn't hurt anything anyway.

Rick

I only use mechanical disk brakes because I have frame couplers. I follow the cyclingabout blog.He has been through many countries and uses hydros. He rides mostly of road. I have a Rohloff with the gates belt. If you do go with mechanical disk brakes. Make sure you have compressionless cable housing. I use Yokozuna Reaction brake cable housing.

grumpus

Neither do bicycles. If you're not comfortable working on a bike in the upright position just lay it on its side. But there's really not much difference between lifting a wheel out of its dropouts and lifting the dropouts off the wheel, when you get used to working that way.