Tektro brakes
 

My bike barely stops now, the pads are almost as thin as paper, will it make a difference if instead of getting nice pads, i just get some new calipers too?

Unless your brakes are broken or you just want new brakes, replacing the entire caliper is like replacing an entire windshield wiper instead of just the blade.

New pads are cheap and easy to install.

The best way to adjust Tektro brakes is to loosen the bolt holding the caliper on the frame, detach the brake cable, and throw the caliper in the trash. Then replace it with a good brake.

Sorry, just never had a good Tektro experience, MTB or tandem. Never used them on my roadies.

new DA pads....or get a set of 105s...

Oh please. The majority of the braking performance comes from the pads, which unfortunately does Tektros no good since the stock pads are garbage. Tektros are the best calipers for the buck.

Got to agree that brake pads make a huge difference on Tektro brakes. I have KoolStop Salmons on the front and 105's on the rear. TONS better than stock crap.

you can get some nice ultegra pads for about $12 or so. Was a vast improvment in stopping power when I switched them out. Plus the stock pads did not last that long at all. I broke in the new ultegra pad with a 5k+ foot decent, they worked PERFECT!!!

that's exactly how i 'adjusted' mine........;)

You'd be surprised to hear that Tektro makes a large majority of the brakes for companies like Shimano.

On a recent trip to buy a set of wheels through Craigslist I had a conversation with the seller, a respectable man retired in a nice neighborhood. He had beautiful bikes in his garage and a gleaming work area, so I asked him a bit about himself; he told me he had owned a bike shop for 10 years and worked at Shimano as a division manager for even more than that.

A few things he revealed to me were that Tektro manufactures almost all of Shimano's line of road brakes (excluding Dura-Ace is what he seemed to recall). Same deal with clipless pedals - Wellgo manufactures almost all of Shimano's clipless pedals. He then listed the names of different frame suppliers in Taiwan and which bike companies they made frames for.. the list was long. I already knew the gist of it, but he told me a little bit more about the story of Giant starting out as a framemaker and eventually becoming a bike producer of their own.

Needless to say, it was surprising but a fun learning experience. A little bit of a wakeup call too not to be so much of a typical sucker for marketing, too.

Ford makes the Focus and the Ford GT. Should I assume they perform the same?

There is a wide range of Tektro brake calipers, and many of them are very nice. I would pop some Kool Stop pads into them and I bet they will work fine. Also make sure that you have the cable tension adjusted properly.

That's probably a good analogy, but my brain is frozen and I don't have time to actually think it through. I'll get back to you later on that one. :p

Still, as I learned, Tektro takes care of Shimano's brakes all the way up through Ultegra - and we know those perform well.

Have to admit, most of my bikes have Tektro's on them and they work great - once you put Dura Ace pads on 'em. :D

I was just never particularly impressed with their MTB brakes, and the tandem brakes were quite awful, even after going to the kool-stop dual compound pads. I switched the tandem to Avid and never looked back.

Tektro brakes are crap, at least the base ones are. Their lack of stopping ability is NOT the pads.. its the fact they flex like crazy. I can bottom out the lever easily when they're properly adjusted. Riding even a moderately steep downhill at slow speeds is scary. I replaced the front one with an Ultegra brake on my Raleigh Rush Hour, it make all the difference in the world (I kept the rear as its flexy/mushy nature is perfect for the rear).

That said, the SRAM Force brakes look almost identical to the cheap Tektros, so I suspect its due to the pot metal they used, not the design itself.

I'd swap out the pads & see if that improves braking (which it most likely will...). If you need better performance beyond that, look for a used set of Ultegras or 105's on ebay. You can pick up a new or used pair from 50-75 bucks.

My Scott Speedster has a DA brake on the rear and a Tektro on the front. Both have DA pads and I can't tell the difference between the two. I've never tried anything but their road brakes. If I were to buy a set of brakes I probably wouldn't go looking for them, I just don't object to them if they're alread on the bike.

Oddly enough the $5k Cannondale SystemSIX comes with Tektro brakes...and they work great. FWIW the higher end Tektro brakes DO come with koolstop pads.

That's almost a deal breaker (no pun intended).

Nah they work great...seriously. If they can handle the braking duties of hauling my 220lb butt down from 50 mph they work great. :D

one of the first things i did when i got my felt was swap out the brakes for a pair of DA.......obviously the tektros were a cost savings measure on felts part......which was too bad...it was kind of like pairing faux leather shoes with an armani suit.

no, but you can assume they are both poorly made.

Zing!

No, the wheels don't fall off the Focus.