I’m thinking about getting a new mountain bike and wonder about getting disk brakes.
I have a roughly 10 year old Specialized Rockhopper with ordinary brakes. It has about 2500 miles on it, all trail riding, and my front rim is about worn through. It’s obnoxious that the brakes squeal so loudly, and the braking action is noticeably uneven as the wheels rotate, and much weaker when wet.
So I wondered…
How nice are disk brakes?
How responsive and crisp and trustworthy do they feel?
Do they stand up well to mud, vines, and other trail brouhaha?
Do they drag when they’re not supposed to?
Are they quiet?
Are they finnicky, for adjusting or repairs or wheel removal?
How long do the parts last compared to regular brakes?
My wife has had a Specialized Hardrock Sport with disk brakes for 2 months now. It has noticeably better stopping power than my Devinci with regular brakes, especially when wet. When we ride in the rain my brakes squeal and slip, while hers perform nearly as well as when it’s dry. As far as performance goes, they are fantastic.
However, they can be finicky. When you mount the front wheel (after removing it for locking, or whatever) the bike must be perfectly vertical or the disk can end up out of alignment and start to rub. Even knowing that, she still had problems with the disk rubbing. I had to figure out how to adjust the pads, and I seem to have fixed it.
She hasn’t had it long enough for any indication on the durability of the parts.
Overall, I think the performance improvement is worth the finickiness, especially if you expect to bike in inclement weather conditions.
I have a recumbent with them, the Promax mechanical disks, which I think are the least-expensive ones. I don’t ride off-road, but for normal street use they do work much better than rim brakes. Some will rub and drag a bit when new, until the shoes are broken in. They do have more stopping power and are more controllable under braking. If you regularly coast down ski slopes I don’t know if I’d suggest the cheapest brand, but for what I do they are great… and when I was in teh bike shop I saw that many low- and mid-priced mountain and hybrids come with them now anyway, at least on the front wheels. I have even seen bikes at Wal-Mart with them, the same brand that mine has.
~
I have limited exposure to the disc brakes, however, experience leads me to echo the comments of those who have posted before. The only downside of which I am aware is that you are adding weight to the fasting moving portion of your bicycle, which makes life going uphill MUCH more difficult. My cyclo-fanatic friend once stated to me “one ounce off your wheelset is worth 10 pounds off your bike.” I regret to inform that I’m too lazy to do the math… A very quick look at performance bicycle produced only one “hit”:
I think all in all disc brakes are better than rim brakes, especially if you ride in a lot of slop. Avid Mechanicals are the best bang-for-buck disc brakes from what I’ve read.
I don’t know about putting them on a 10 year old Rockhopper though. You have to have special mounts on the chainstay for the rear and for the front, your fork has to have mounts. In addition, you have have special hubs to accomodate the rotors. So it can be a pretty expensive proposition.
You might be better off spending a couple hundred more than it would cost to upgrade (if it’s even possible) and get a whole new bike, with discs.
I had those on one of my recumbents and loved it. It has a unique adjustment mechanism that makes adjustment very easy. I had to sell the bike but the Avid brakes would be my top choice for my next bike. I’ve seen people use these on $3000 titanium recumbents.
I also had (and still have) Hope hydraulic disc brakes on another recumbent. It’s smoother and feels even more powerful than the Avid, but I find hydraulics are harder to work on than cables. (It could just be my lack of experience, however.) It’s also more difficult to adjust and much more expensive.
Hydraulics can be a bitch to bleed. I recall stopping by my local bike shop and they were having a hell of a time trying to bleed some hydraulics on a new mountain bike. I worked with them, and we got it done in another few minutes, but there was a learning curve that is for sure.
Once bled, hydraulics should be very bullet proof.