I want to hear from people who have both good and bad experiences with higher end disc brakes like Avid BB7, mostly I'm interested in mechanical cable disc brakes.
Do they get too caked with salt? Do they stay working well? Is it worth it or should I just go cantilever with kool-stop pads?

If you have the mounts on your bike, go with cantilevers with koolstops. Disk brakes are a much more substantial investment. Not saying they work better or worse, but they require a whole new slew of parts.

A small selection of bikes I like.

https://www.bikeforums.net/general-cycling-discussion/368115-drop-bar-discbrake-700c-off-peg.html

In my experience with only a rear disc in the city is that they work well, but the salt slush will cause the parts with threads to seize, the brakes pads get caked with rust though still work, & the action becoming stiffer maybe because of water getting in the longer run casing. My rear brake (BB7) is a bit unusual though as it mounts upside down with an adapter as my frame wasn't design with disc bosses so alot of crap ends up collecting in there. A normal disc above the axle will probably fare better & regular cleaning after rides which I often neglect will likely negate any of the above problems.

One of the main reasons I would go for it other then icing on the rim is the wearing down of the rim through such conditions.

I have Avid BB7s front and rear and am in my second winter with this bike.

The front brake is perfect, all the time. I've only had to replace the pads at about 5,000 miles. The rear one has had issues, most of which were solved by running the cable in sheath for the full length.

However, on the rear, the inboard (fixed pad) adjuster seized last month. I took the caliper off, removed the plastic adjusting knob and turned it with a pair of pliers. That broke it loose. I dribbled some Tri-Flow on the threads, worked it in and put it back on the bike. I'll do something more substantial in the spring when I can use my other bike for a couple of days.

I had V-brakes before. I strongly prefer the disk brakes and can't see ever going back on a wet/winter bike. The V-brakes used to collect slush and freeze open. That could be a real thrill in traffic. I also had to replace pads monthly, and replace rims in the spring. I don't miss 'em at all.

The only prob I've ever had with a disc was a lower-end Hayes MX-2. The set screw's hole on the rear caliper used to fill with water and the screw seized. If I would've noticed in time,I could've covered it. But zero probs with BB5/7's and Shimano M495's. The Shimano's are in their third winter of snow/salt and have been stone ax reliable. They do however require tools to adjust and change the pads.

BTW,my conversion to discs came after going through a set of V brake pads in just one month on my old Trek 7200,followed by snow packing in the brakes causing me to glance off a car's fender. That coupled with having to tweak V's all the time and having my wheels get filthy pretty much made me a disc-only rider. The only bike I own without them is my folder.

Funny, I have been having a problem with my rear brake also. It will slow, but not stop, the bike. I have to look at your fix as a solution.

Please let me know if you come up with something more permanent.

And, to the OP. The front works great all the time. I would never go back to any rim brake for my commuter. Winter or summer. The above problem is a maintnance issue not a reliability issue.

Nothing bad to say about discs. I've been a big proponent of them for a long time and still am. Mine with proper maintenance have been flawless.

-Roger

I have BB7's on my hardtail. They are great. I will say the various slop thrown into them has degraded performance over the winter, but a simple pad swap in spring will fix that.

Compared to my Paul Canti's with Kool Stop Tectronic pads, I prefer the disc brakes hands down.

I have a BB7 on the front of my commuter. Yes, it gets caked with salt. And yet, it works just fine. I never had any trouble with it at all last year (my first winter running disc). I take the pads out and power wash the calipers in the spring, and wash the whole works out with WD40 to chase out the last of the crap and water.

Oh, just FYI since you're thinking of buying these; I bought replacement pads on eBay for I think $6 each set. I bought 3 sets since they combined the shipping (it was $5 shipping no matter how many pads I bought). They're working as well as the $18 Avid pads.

FWIW, here's what my pads looked like after winter. And keep in mind, the brakes were still working great at this point! OK, not as well as clean and fresh pads, but still a little better than rim brakes at their best.

Thanks for the replies! Interesting, I already have a set of front bb7's on my karate monkey (not yet complete), which will eventually serve as both winter and summer bike.
In summer it's a fixed gear with big apple 29x2.35, fenders etc and front disc brake, in winter I have the option of either:

-building 2 other wheels, both with braking surfaces, and run cantilever brakes. Essentially either I'd be running sturmey archer 5 speed with cantis, and this would require me to build 2 more wheels.

Or the other option, run alfine with disc brakes, requiring me only to build 1 other wheel and I may just eventually forgo the fixed on that bike and run alfine all year round, just swapping Big Apples for Nokian 294's in the winter. I like that the alfine has the option for bullhorn bar shifter, I may go that route.

Hmm now I'm just wondering if rear discs will be troublesome with horizontal drop outs, but I guess it can't be too bad at all.

Hey! From your sig I can tell you're referring to your Portland. I ride an '06 Portland.

I heard, but have never been able to confirm, that they re-routed the rear brake cable starting in '08. But this may help if what I've heard was wrong.

On my '06, there's an S-bend in the piece of housing from the bottom of the chainstay to the top of the rear caliper. Apparently no-one told the Trek engineers that S-bends like that are a no-no. The cable tries to accordion the housing rather than pulling through smoothly and cleanly. That brake always felt mushy, never positive like the front one does.

Last month when I had the caliper off to free up the adjuster, I tore the cable and housing all out and ran a new cable in housing right from the lever to the caliper. No more bare cable on any brake on the bike. That and a couple of zip ties sure make it look ugly, but boy oh boy does it improved the feel and operation of the caliper. It's now easily 95% as nice as the front one feels.

As for the adjuster, I was thinking about this at work today (it was a slow day) and what I'll try first is Teflon tread tape. It seems preferable to any sort of grease or oil in there. If that doesn't work, I'll try anti-sieze instead.

Disclaimer: Pure speculation follows.

I think it would depend on where the caliper is located. If it's in the front half of the rotor, there may not be a problem. In the rear half and you'd never be able to get the wheel on and off. There may still be some issue with the pads and rotor as you move the wheel back to take up chain slack.

+1 to everything already written. i run bb7s front and rear---they work just like really good rim brakes, but better; and they won't grind down your rims.

i, too, will never willingly go back to rim brakes.

I have a Karate Monkey set up with BB7s front and rear. Absolutely love the bike and brakes, btw.

Disc brakes and track ends are not a perfect marriage. However the mounting holes are oblong so all you have to do is loosen the mounting bolts and slide the caliper up to get the wheel out. I was worried that the whole set-up would be knackered when I removed/replaced the rear wheel, but so far it has not been a problem. Every time I get the wheel in and crank down on the brake mounting bolts, it has all come together and not required adjustment. Seems to work right, but I would rather not have to loosen the brake to remove the wheel.

jim

Okay sounds good, looks like bb7's front and rear for me!
Maybe I'll end up with one single commuter bike, alfine, all the time. Just swap tires in winter...

Now, what color should I spray paint the frame to make it more visible and less desirable ?? Hot pink? Neon yellow?

I love having disk brakes on my bike. Let me tell you 2 stories -
1. Last weekend I was out on my bike. My bike got covered in snow, particularly the disc brakes which were packed with the stuff. Brakes still worked exactly the same as they always did, except the front one squealed by the end of the ride.
2. This summer I took out my rode bike with Dura-ace brakes and stock pads. It started raining expectantly. I hit the brakes, and went about 2.5 times the distance I usually do before stopping.

So yeah, I think they're great. However, there are 2 issues with them that I didn't have with road brakes -
1. I'm having a lot of trouble getting my front brake to not rub while I'm biking. It's a brand new bike and I've brought it in twice - each time they said they fixed it, it didn't rub, then once I rode it for a while it started rubbing again. People tell me some rub with disc brakes is somewhat typical. I don't notice myself going slower while I ride or anything (I would if my rim brakes were rubbing) but it's still pretty annoying.
2. In bad conditions, disc brakes squeal. Apparently, though some are better than others, that's just the way disc brakes are. My rim brakes only ever squealed if they were misaligned or worn out.

I have BB7s on my mountain bike, and they are hands down beter than any rim brake. Period. Especially when moisture comes into the equation.

That said, I mostly commute on my cyclocross bike with cantis and it works fine. But the pads need more frequent replacement, and it took me like a year with cantilevers to get good at setting them up.

Remember too that contact patch of the tire makes a difference in braking, and my mountain bike has bigger tires than my cross bike, most of the time.

If I were building a commuter from scratch good mechanical discs would be a major plus but not a deal breaker by any means. YMMV.

Hey TSL! Yup, I love my Portland. When the "Whats your ultimate commuter bike?" thread pops up, I have to resist telling the world that I am riding mine. Not much that I would change about it.

When you say "S" bend. Are you saying that your rear brake cable runs along the bottom of the chainstay? I can tell you that mine runs down the 10 o'clock postion on the down tube into a stop (near the BB), through a housing to the top of the chainstay at another stop(the other side of the BB), bare cable to a stop (again on the top of the chainstay near the brake) and then in housing up to the caliper. I would not call the last bend on mine an 'S.'

So, maybe the did re-route the cable in '08.

I will tell you that I have wished in the past that the cable ran along the bottom the chainstay. WIt it's current positon I can't mount the speed/cadence sensor for my Garmin 305. It is supposed to use the same spot as the brake cable. So, no cadence for my commute.

I'll jump in here too as i too have an 06 Portland. I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out the rear brake too. Mine has the same bottom-of-the-chainstay mounted cable, but I think that I've isolated it to two separate but related issues. I've read a few places that the return spring on the BB7 wasn't really engineered strong enough for that long brake cable run. It seems that a lot of folks have taken to adding another spring that is stronger to compensate. I checked again this evening and the binding is resulting in some leftover play at the brake lever...and some loose slack in the cable under the downtube. It is pretty frustrating as I just don't want to have to rig up some "fix". I'd rather that the spring was just strong enough to pull the darn thing back on its own. Mine doesn't feel mushy, just extra slack to take up every time I pull the lever.

Any thoughts?

Dan

I buy the spring argument. When I look at rear caliper it is slow to return to the open position. It releases quick to about 2/3 open then takes its own sweet time opening the rest of the way.

I would be willing to try the spring on my spring overhaul, do you know what to replace it with and where to get it?

For cdalefan and danredwing:

Sorry it took so long to reply here. I had to hunt down the bike's "Baby Pics". This is from the first or second day of ownership.



This is how the cable was originally routed. Not quite an S-bend at this time, but you'll note the strain due to the tight bends at the cable stop and at the rubber boot where the housing enters the caliper.

This configuration lasted about a week. The return spring just didn't cut it. The brake was dragging all the time. It was at this first reconfig that a longer piece of housing was installed, and that introduced the S-bend mushiness, while resolving the dragging.

As for the slack, Dan, that can be taken up at the caliper. My guess is that your actuator lever is closer to noon or one-o'clock rather than 11:30 as in this pic, or 11 o'clock as it is now on my bike. In other words, the brake is always in partial actuation. Back out the adjusters to compensate.

Later I had to reroute the cable entirely to clear my cyclocross tires. The bare section from under the BB to the that cable stop on the bottom of the chainstay cut into the wheel area a bit. Strangely, my 35mm Nokian studded snows cleared the cable, but my 34mm Bontrager Jones CXR tires would rub the bare cable.

It was at this reconfig (after several iterations) that I ran the cable in housing for the full length, right from the lever. That eliminated the S-bend mushiness, keep the cable out of the tire space, and did not re-introduce the dragging it had when new.

This pic is of the second-last reconfig, shown here parked outside my bank (in a snowbank) with the Nokians mounted and the stainless-steel rotors on my winter wheelset.



Here the housing extends to beneath the BB. As you can see, it picked up all sorts of gunk there and there wasn't really a good place to anchor the end of the housing. It bobbed up and down with actuation. That re-introduced some mushiness. The housing now extends all the way to the stop just above the T in Trek.

Cdalefan, you'll see how I now have wireless speed and cadence sensors mounted on the chainstay. There's hope for you and your Garmin yet.

Hope this helps!

Thanks TSL

I just snapped a couple pics of my rear brake so that you can see where the '08 has the cable. I don't think that it will help you much, but, it sounds like you have it under control anyway.

While taking the pictures, I was thinking about your solution. I may try and take some of the extra housing out just before the caliper to make a smoother bend and see if that helps at all. You can see in the picture there seems to be a couple of mm extra.

Also, you can see my challenge with the Garmin. I have tried to mount it upside-down (to the bottom of the chainstay) but the sensors of the assembly want to be on the other side. I even looked at the drive side but I thought that the chain would eventually get into it.

I like your tires too. I have yet to invest in studs. I'm not sure that I can justify the weight and expense for the kind of winter that we have been getting in NJ recently. Do you have a lot of overlap with them? What do you do with the fenders in the summer? Do you move them down to reduce the clearance on a smaller tire?

Sorry for all the dirt on the pics of my bike. At least you can see it gets ridden

I was wondering if you'd tried that.

I have toe overlap on this bike no matter what. It's a function of the front-end geometry and my big feet. It's a fair exchange, IMHO, for the way the bike handles. Let me rephrase that: I love the way the bike handles, and if a bit of toe-overlap is payment for it, I'll gladly pay it.

I have three sets of fenders for the bike. I use the original "fenderettes" when using the cyclocross tires, and when traveling where full fenders may get damaged in shipping, (as in the Amtrak Bike Box). I have a set of SKS P-35s for the three-seasons with the road tires. The PlanetBike Cascadias in 45mm go with the snow tires.

So does mine, to the tune of 5,000 miles in two states (NY, CO) and two countries (US, Canada) last year alone. Adding a third state, Utah, to the mix this coming summer.

Here's a pic of us at the top of Mt. Evans last July. (The Portland in its road tires, fenderettes, and 16-27 cassette.) The disc brakes are super on those mountain descents.