Thinking of upgrading brakes to hydrolics. I have a Specialized Cross Trail Comp 2011 with Avid BB5 disks . I live in the mountians starting take futher rides did just under 49 milies last saturday.1st 5miles basicly striaght up 1hour plus. Other side 8% grades guys I was riding with hit 50 plus I dont ride that fast down hill right at 30 on the brakes alot started to think about brakes after that. Just wanted some opions on brakes I have and on hydrolics.

You may want to upgrade the front one only at first and see how that goes since that one will do a lot more work than the rear one. You might also want to consider larger rotors but I'm not really sure if that's necessary.

Hydraulic brakes won't stop you any better on the downhill than mechanical ones. I don't understand why you would want to change the method of actuating the brakes. Your big problem on long downhills is going to be balancing speed and heat buildup with good braking technique.

Ya I uderstand the the heat build up and braking technique. Technique I have working on it was just after I went on ride I pulled the brakes apart. Saw the nickle sized pads was kinda surpised really had not thought that much about them. use to car brake sized pads.Was just wondering because they are avids bottom line?

I think all brake pads are about the same size for bicycles. Your car brakes are much bigger because it probably weighs about 15 times as much, goes 2 or 5 times faster, and to some extent weight doesn't really matter.

Maybe I should have wrote the origanal thred as this. I was thinking of changing my origanal avid bb5 brakes to Hydrolics and has any one done this and liked the results ?

I changed from cable to Shimano Deore hydraulic on my bike. The original brakes were low end but the Deore is significantly better feel but I do not have anything else to compare.

All brake pads are not the same size. The BB-7 from Avid has a bigger break pad than the BB-5. The BB-5 is about the bottom of the barrel in terms of disc brakes. The BB-7 is far superior. Buy a BB-7 caliper for your front. It's about a 15 minute switch-a-roo. You can even use the same brake levers. You will notice a difference.

Yeah, slap some BB-7's on there and you'll be tickled with them. I did it on my Mendota. Easy, cheap, and sweet!

Thanks for the replies,
When you changed out the bb5s for the bb7s did you change out the rotors?

It's fine to leave the old rotor and save the new one until the old one wears out. The original brake on my bike is Hayes MX4 and I'm using the same rotor for Shimano Deore. Most manufacturers have 160mm rotors. It's only when you go bigger that you run into problems because some use 200mm and others are 203mm for example.

Kept the same rotors on the Mendota as well. You can buy them without the rotors. My LBS did it at a very reasonable price.

I've got two bikes with disc brakes. One bike has BB5's the other has Hayes Strokers. The Hayes Strokers are far superior.

The sweet thing about the BB-7s is that they have an outer and inner adjustment dial as well. With the BB-5s I always had to flip my bike, loosen the caliper, and re-center each time I made an adjustment. I could never get those darn things adjusted with just the one dial. Furthermore, the BB-5s 'fell' out of adjustment a lot quicker than the BB-7s.

I had to buy rotors with the calipors. So I payed the extra for a 200mm for front and 180mm for the rear just waiting for them to come in. About aweek out.