Steely Dan

so with the forecast in chicago calling for our first accumulating snow of the season to start tonight and into friday morning, last night i went down to the basement to dust-off my studded-tire winter steed and get her ready (lube the chain, inflate the tires, make sure the lights work, give the IGH and brakes a check, etc.).

lo and behold, i must have done an inferior job of rinsing her off after last season because the rear brake is completely shot. it looks like corrosion got though the hydraulic line right where it enters the brake housing and all of the hydraulic fluid leaked out.

the front brake is fine, which would be ok for any other season, but i don't like riding in icy/snowy slippery conditions without a rear brake. now i have to decide whether to just roll the dice and ride in the snow tomorrow anyway, or sit-out riding in winter conditions until i can get the rear brake replaced.

there's also the additional decision of whether i should just get a new winter bike altogether instead of spending money on a pricey hydraulic brake replacement. on the one hand, i don't love my current winter bike and we recently came into a little bit of money. on the other hand, it's just a winter bike and she gets the job done. winter abuses bikes, and parts replacements are just par for the course when riding in such salty conditions.

repair what you got, or reach for some new hotness?

alan s 

Steely Dan

^ i've never done hydraulic disc brake repair/replacement.

it's intimidating and something i've always left to the pros.

CreakingCrank

Agree, just fix it. I'm no bike mechanic and installed new hydro brakes on my MTB and I bled my wife's brakes (Both Shimano). It isn't that hard and youtube is your friend.

no motor?

I've never done them on a bicycle but it's no big deal on the cars and motorcycles I've done this on it wasn't a big deal as long as you have the right parts.

rumrunn6

my recollection of commuting is that there are few, if any stops. but if this is your 1st stormy commute of the year & you have options I'd probably drive or whatever & bring the bike to a shop for an estimate. they can probably bang out the repair speedy quick & have you rolling again soon. get a new bike for sure, but don't rush the purchase

Steely Dan

i called my LBS and got a rough phone estimate of ~$80 (~$50 parts/$30 labor).

if i'm gonna buy a new winter bike, i don't wanna sink $80 into the old one.

decisions, decisions........

pdlamb

Repair or replace? How much is it going to cost to get the winter bike back to like new / almost new? How much would its replacement cost? And how many parts could you reuse?

mcours2006

Decent bike with hydro brakes will run you quite a few hundred dollars. $80 doesn't seem an exorbitant/unreasonable amount for the fix.

Steely Dan

it's not exorbitant, but if i'm on the fence about buying a new bike (which i am), i think i'd rather save the 80 bucks and use it towards the theoretical new bike instead of repairing a bike that might be imminently replaced in my stable.

Steely Dan

i rode the winter bike into work this morning.

reacquainted myself with how much rolling on studs sucks.

i decided that i'm gonna go ahead and get my current winter bike repaired and forgo the temptation of a new winter ride.

when i took the bike into the shop to get the correct brake parts ordered, i mentioned my slippy EBB (the main reason i don't love the bike) to the mechanic and she said that it might be worth considering an add-on chain-tensioner if the EBB refuses to sit still.

i think that's exactly what i'll do. i originally got an IGH bike for my winter ride to avoid extra chain appendages like derailleurs and such, but at this point i no longer care, i just want a chain that won't jump off if i roll over a big bump while pedaling.

wolfchild

I've had problems with hydraulic brakes too during winter, so I changed to BB7s because I don't want to deal with messy brake fluid and brake rebuilds and brake bleeding...BB7's are good but they're not 100% immune to road salt. I still need to rinse the road salt out of the calipers or else they will seize up.

dscheidt

I got rid of my front BB7 after the second winter. I got sick of adjusting the pads every week (only about 25 miles!) in the heart of winter, and of having to totally rebuild the thing every spring. The salt slush just eats pads, and destroys the brake.

alias5000

Is regular spraying of water enough for you to keep your BB7s happy long-term? I'm asking out of curiosity - I'm running BB5s into the second winter now and prefer to keep them happy.

cyccommute 

Steely Dan

my winter beast has hydraulics, but my regular commuter came with BB5's and i hated them. i could never get them to stay aligned for more than several dozen miles at a time.

after a couple months of aggravation, i gave up on them and got some TRP Spyres. that was 4 years ago and other than brake pad changes, they haven't given me any issues since.

if others have had good experiences with the BB5, that's great for them, but i'll always consider it a garbage brake.

alias5000

I thought so too for a long time and in fact have a spare set of BB7s in my basement. But you can make them work well and reliable which I managed to do. Now there is no need to swap - at least for as long as the current set of pads is still good. There are a few threads on this in the bike mechanics forum - including an adjustment method using a business card on the outboard side. This is what is working very well for me. My take is that BB5s are a bit weaker in braking power than BB7s and they do overheat faster, which I already got to experience. They're good enough for commuting and light-touring.

cyccommute 

The only thing that should have an effect on pad wear should be the pads. The calipers shouldn't matter. I have (and have had) BB7s over a wide range of years including the BBDB (ball bearing disc brakes) that predate the BB7 designation. None of them have ever required excessive pad adjustment. And none of them have required adjustment for pad wear after 25 miles.

alias5000

I do not think, that it relates to pad wear. It seems that you adjust the brake and that adjustment is lost after a short amount of time. Maybe it's the caliper, maybe the hub, maybe flex plays a role. I do not have any plausible explanation, but I have ridden such a bike first hand.

cyccommute 

Pad wear is the only thing that pad adjustment can relate to. There is an adjustment screw that moves the pads in and out on the BB7 but that screw is difficult to move and doesn't really vibrate out of place. The hub shouldn't move and the caliper should be solidly bolted in place. If either of those are misaligned or improperly installed, the problems will manifest as something other than pad adjustment nor would pad adjustment have any effect on those problems.

Nickfrogger

There's this super-cool low maintenance new bike brake tech I heard about recently:

alias5000

...until your v-brake frame mounts start to rust. If you don't have replaceable ones, your (steel) frame is done within 1-2 winter seasons from a rust-clean-abrasion-cycle. *points at myself*.

dscheidt

Riding the bike in Chicago winter. Salt, mud, sand. Eats pads. I'd eat three pairs of pads a winter. city traffic, lots of braking. and the road bb7s don't have much room for pad wear before they require adjustment. It's not hard to twist the knobs a couple clicks, but it's annoying. I replaced them with TRP HY-RDs, which went through a couple pads the first winter, and one last. I wasn't happy with them for other reasons, and replaced them with a hylex. Which has been brilliant so far, we'll see what winter's like.

I still have the bb7 on the back, which sees much less use, and much less pad wear.

dscheidt

Riding the bike in Chicago winter. Salt, mud, sand. Eats pads. I'd eat three pairs of pads a winter. city traffic, lots of braking. and the road bb7s don't have much room for pad wear before they require adjustment. It's not hard to twist the knobs a couple clicks, but it's annoying. I replaced them with TRP HY-RDs, which went through a couple pads the first winter, and one last. I wasn't happy with them for other reasons, and replaced them with a hylex. Which has been brilliant so far, we'll see what winter's like.

I still have the bb7 on the back, which sees much less use, and much less pad wear. I think I had to take it apart and free it up once, but I don't remember.

Steely Dan

for real? i bike commute through the winter in chicago as well, but i've never gone through 3 pairs of brake pads in a single winter season.

that seems like an extreme case.