I had the KCNC brakes. They work ok but have more friction and need more lever pressure than Dura-ace brakes. Last year I was doing a lot of repeats of a local mountain with a lot of twisty descending and wound up with pain shooting up my left wrist. I need to be able to type to make a living, so I went back to the Dura-ace brakes.

Edit: I also have the skewers, they work fine.

I have the scandium seat post, its doing its job very well and was light for the $$...

the brakes work pretty good with the right pads, I'm 185# and have been doing a lot of descending lately.

I'd stay away from the cassette, get a recon ti.

the pads that come with the KCNC brakes suck. use swisstop shimano type. they flex more that DA or campy but if you can lock up the wheels what more do you want. not advisable for clydesdales.

skewers are good but really tighten them up. most first timers don't apply enough pressure.

any aluminum cassette is for racing only. but all you guys know that.

fairwheel is good but shop around, they aren't the cheapest.

i heard the brakes don't stop so well if you're really muscular.

Thanks guys! I am sold on the skewers. I just bought a black one for my SLC. I will hold off on the others.
Cheers!

skewers are best in class, at least IMO and according to a review or two. No real downside other than price, which is still far cheaper than comparable low-weight offerings.

I've heard the brakes are too weak from other reviews, even with better pads. Your mileage may vary. There are plenty of other proven stoppers in the reasonably low weight class to choose from, e.g., SRAM red's brakeset.

I'm 150lbs and have locked up both front and rear wheels on different occasions.

i'm using SRAM Red levers, nokon housing, standard steel cables, and Kool Stop's "Dura2" pads.

I heard that skewers have a large effect on wheel stiffness (as far as the wheel flexing into the brakepads) and that cheap or weak skewers lead to a lot of brake rub and it is best to stay with steel skewers if that is a concern. Is this a problem with the lightweight KCNC's? I weigh 190 so I am no lightweight.

The hub sits in the dropouts though...

And the dropouts do have some compressive force applied to them by the QR's.

Bad closed cam QR's aren't going to squeeze as hard as good open cam or quality closed cam QR's will.

The result is a QR with end caps that are sliding all over the outside of the dropout, letting the hub axle ends become unseated when getting torqued on.

Yes, I weight 150 lbs and I cannot use the KCNC skewers on my steel bike, particularly the rear wheel. I do not race and am weak but when mashing or sprinting hard on my steel bike, I make the rear brakes rub (this is partly due to the dropout style on the steel bike) when using KCNC skewers. I changed the rear skewer to a Dura Ace internal cam and everything is fine.

On my CF bike, the KCNC skewers are fine; you have to make sure to get them tight though because of their short lever, it seems like they are tighter than they actually are.

The KCNC skewers are super light though; you can't even tell that you are holding them in your hand. The axle nut seems a bit cheap though but hey, that's part of how they get them so light

Gross

I have their crank an really like it, very high quality. I used the brakes and they work well, much better than the ZeroG's I had.

Since that is correct I would assume that your best chance of getting lateral movement is going to be as a result of the hub and/or wheel. Unless, of course, your skewer can't provide enough clamping force to hold the hub in place. As for that.. well.. these don't seem to provide any less clamping force than any of my other skewers. I put them on quite tight and haven't had them slip yet.

I weigh 160, however, I don't have a ton of mileage on them yet (maybe 300-400 miles). I haven't had any brake rub issues with them. I also haven't seen any reports of slippage or rub issues with the skewers from others. I'm sure some other people on here can chime in on that if they have had problems.

Out of curiosity I did a search and all I could find re: slippage was one person who had a problem and then they realized that they simply weren't tightening it well enough. That I could see, as the shorter length lever probably transmits a less tight "feel" for a given amount of force. That said, even getting them really tight for me is by no means hard. I go by the "just tight enough to leave an imprint in your palm" standard that is recommended by some manufacturers.

These are open / exposed design, and I see nothing low quality about them. The washers in the open cam are also metal, which leaves me to think there is less of a chance for deformation than there would be with the more common plastic washers.

This definitely sounds like a function of your particular frame, which is confirmed in that they work OK on a different bike. To me this sounds like a potential dropout wear issue, which Lennard Zinn has previous discussed. All you need to do is ride with improperly-tightened QRs for a bit, consequently wear a groove into the dropout face, and then no matter how much you tighten you are going to be out of luck. The closed cam Dura Ace may have had a larger contact area or a different tooth pattern / texture that overcame whatever problems you had. At any rate, something to take a look at the next time you take off your back wheel.

No offense, but Zinn taken out of context does not help. Yes, I have his book, and all the info provided therein can be obtained free on the internet.

It's a steel frame with old-school dropouts. It's very hard to get the drop-out adjuster screws precisely in the right setting, even by using calipers. This is a fact, and even the almighty Zinn agrees, that internal cam skewers provide more leverage than external.

Like I said, KCNC skewers are light but they do have issues with clamping force. Just search this on the net and there are many others like me. I am happy using them on my CF bike as that was the original intent (no point saving weight on my steel ride) but they are made for 1 purpose and that's it.

Actually, I think they look ok too. But that's subjective.

may I ask what pads?

How was that taken out of context? Using an internal cam skewer (because you need more leverage) is also consistent with dropout face wear issues. Just trying to be helpful in suggesting something you may not have thought of before.

Not to call you out, but please share these sources because I'd like to read them. If people are having problems with these skewers clamping it would be important for me to know since I rely on them to function properly.

Sure, np.

This is from FairwheelBikes (a lot of people here cite this place as being reputable):
https://fairwheelbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5238

This is the issue I had with my dropout (this is a common issue with older dropouts; notice the recommendations to fix the problem?):
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mechanics/395944-horizontal-drop-outs-prob.html

My Old Steel bike has horizontal dropouts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropout_(bicycle_part)
It's VERY difficult to get the KCNC skewers let alone a regular external cam skewer tight enough for the rear axle not to slip on horizontal dropouts, hence the internal cam skewer. Remember, when these steel bikes were made, everyone used internal cam skewers (you can read about Campagnolo and what his first successful product was if you want).

Again, I own the KCNC skewers, I like them, but it's pretty obvious that their function is predominantly their light weight and not their clamping power.

I already linked to that post earlier on in this thread. That's the only thing I've been able to find re KCNC's clamping ability. The OP in that thread admits later on that it was user error, rather than anything caused by the skewer.

Ah, ok, I was wondering if you meant horizontal when you said "old-school" earlier. That makes sense, and I think Sheldon Brown also argues that the move to vertical (and safety tabs) made the move to external cams possible. Regardless, that seems to be an argument against all external cam skewers in general and not the KCNC ones in particular.

The KCNC axle nuts are aluminum I believe. That's why they don't grip as well. If you have a modern CF bike and don't weigh 300 lbs they should work fine.

They are fine on my CF bike but dinky skewers on a steel, horizontal dropout do not play nice.

Hello again...

After using the bike with the Ken Chan NC skewers on a local crit, I am happy to say that so far it has been like any other skewer I used. It did not loosen up. Looks like this lightweight is a keeper. Early days though.

GJ If they didn't loosen up the first time, they should be good to go.

They're friggin light, no?

Oh yeah...almost weightless scary as I am thinking will this keep hold of the wheel? Well a 50km (5km lap x 10) crit should answer that..it did. Happy as Larry ha ha ha...