Brake Choice? Hyd or Mech
 

I run Avid BB7 on my Disc Trucker. Would i benefit by going hydrauilic? What do you tourers run? Thanks

Have you had any problems with braking that you would like to rectify?

Seconded. Honestly, trading mechanicals for hydraulic is only a slight difference and not really worth the cost nor the future need for maintenance. Hydraulics need to be bled and have seals that can go bad. Compare that with changing a cable…both in cost and convenience.

I have mechanical disc on one Trek 4500 and hydraulic disc on a different Trek 4500. Both work well enough and everything else being equal I like hydraulic slightly better in self-adjusting and stopping. However, not enough that I would change over the mechanical disc bike.

Yea, if present braking is not adequate, what about going to compressionless cable housing as a less expensive solution if you have not already done so ?

I have not had any problems so one may say if ain,t broke don,t fix it. But i was just wondering if members felt it was a good upgrade or not really worth it for touring.

For me, depends on the range of touring. If you are doing domestic tours (America, Europe,etc) Hydraulic has it's place, but as mentioned above, not really a game changer if you have mechanical. Yes, Hyd has more braking power
If, I were going to more isolated places like Africa, Asia, where brake parts are very far and few between, I would stay mechanical. It is easier to carry a couple extra cables than fluid and bleed kit.
I built my tourer 5 years ago and went with rim brakes because I can find parts and fix/adjust them with my eyes closed

My recent loss of the front brake on my mtb due to a branch, and the nuisance of lining up parts to fix it, sorta has me slightly leaning back towards cable on future touring builds but the reality is road levers don't have the brake hose coming straight out of the lever in a way that's as easy to damage. Its also my first time doing anything to the brakes in the 5 years of heavy riding and crashing that I've done on the bike. I do find discs to be better in general and hydraulic to be better in particular and I've found it to be more trouble free not having cables and housing contaminated after 12 hour drives in the rain or 6 hour rides through through raining, muddy gravel trails. At this time, any new builds or buys are influenced by a preference for hydraulic disc and I wouldn't put cable on anything new and would actively avoid buying a bike with cable vs a hydraulic for a few bucks more. I don't find it so much better that I'm going to install new brakes on my current, cable disc touring bike which stops fine either way, only exception was the kids' mtbs, they really can stop faster with hydraulic due to the easier lever pull.

i stick with mechanical disc and/or v-brakes. mechanical does the job, and no worries about fluids and leaks and roadside repairs. my main concern is loading the bike in bus luggage bays or train cargo wagons. likely to have luggage and crates and sacks packed on and around your bike with no concern for delicate parts.

also have BB7's. all touring in asia, most places have cheap chinese clunker mtbs and spares - even cambodia and myanmar. if a caliper goes bad, can pick up a replacement no-name for $5 that will suffice.

I agree with the others, if it works fine, stick with it.

Robow has a point on compressionless housing. I have one bike with a disc on rear, I installed a TRP Spyre when I built that up six years ago. The instructions were clear that you should use compressionless housing, which I did. That bike has full length outer housing, so there is a long distance of housing to compress. From that I would say that if your rear brake feels soft, you might want to switch to compressionless.

All my bikes are rim brake except my light touring bike with disc rear and V brake front. But all my bikes are quick release (no through axle) too. I am sticking with the old stuff that works, robust, easy to repair, and components that are easy to replace.

One decent pro-hydraulic argument I heard from a bikepacker was for ease of holding a loaded bike on a steep trail for a long time, say waiting for a partner to clear a route. That doesn't apply to most classic touring bikes.

Like others above, I now have one bike with mechanical discs, and they work just fine. I'm happy not to have to deal with hydraulics in town life, much less touring.

Also depending on where you ride. 99% of the time for my touring I do not need hydraulic brakes per se


but there was this one time, touring Sao Miguel in the Azores when mechanical brakes gave my hands cramps as the downhills were long and steep and numerous :-)

this is the best question to ask--garryg responded that it works fine enough.
I have BB7 also, and for my weight, I have found that if properly set up, they work perfectly well.

From a budget angle, I personally would rather spend the money not spent on hydro stuff and levers on other things bike related.
Even if I never had to think of money, I would still stick with mechanicals for the known positives, just because they work and I am now comfortable with working on them.

Bringing a wealth of inexperience to this subject, I like my bike with TRP HY/RD cable-actuated hydraulic discs.

If you want more braking power, increasing rotor size is much less expensive than switching to hydraulics (assuming your frame can accommodate larger rotors).

I'm slowly beginning to change my stance on hydraulic brakes for touring.

Technically a seal can go bad but so can a ball bearing or other internal caliper mechanism. Neither typically does and at that point it's just bad luck.

Cables are easier to carry than fluid but in my experience hydraulic brakes are pretty set and forget. Once properly bled they go for years without attention. So you probably won't need a bleed set on tour. However Shimano brakes especially have made bleeding such an simple exercise that you can easily do it on tour. You just need the bleed funnel. If you don't have brake mineral oil on hand you can use baby oil in a pinch, especially if only doing a funnel bleed instead of a full flush. And there's no reason why you'd need a full flush on tour short of needing to replace a part. The good news however is that for a full flush you only need a few inch piece of correct diameter hose. So a funnel and some hose really isn't that bad. And of course some baby oil (not made with real babies)

Cable housings are still easier to come by but I'd argue that shimano hoses are starting to be more common than compressionless housings. If you pack a few barbs and olives at a gram each, you're golden.

Then again housing or hose failure is really quite rare. I've never actually heard of either happening in a properly maintained bicycle. Even counting crashes.

So in the end there's not that many failure modes. It just comes down to knowing the system and how to maintain it. But in case of hydraulics it does make sense to ride the brakes for a few months before tour so you'll bed everything in and notice if there are defects or leaks in the system. And you'll get all the air out.

If the bleeding required two whole syringes and/or DOT fluid or anything other exotic that used to be the norm, it'd be a hard pass.