MAK

I know the basic difference. I'll be road riding and touring. No way off road riding but some dirt and grave such as the C & O Canal, etc. May I have your opinion as to:

Does one require more general maintenance and upkeep than the other?

Is one generally more dependable than the other?

Does one perform better than the other in inclement weather?

Does one perform better than the other in muddy situations? (Important to me.)

Is one more difficult than the other when removing a wheel (when fixing a flat)? I've heard that one can lock
up if a spacer isn't used or the spacer falls out. (Very important to me.)

Thank you

fietsbob

Mechanical brake the adjustment for brake pad wear is You.

hydraulic will Over-compensate for pad wear, if the lever is Bumped while the wheel is Out

and wont let you put the wheel back in..

The Hybrid: TRP Hy Rd.. cable all the way to the caliper where the whole Hydraulic Mech is a single unit.

Stock from Trek on their 720.. (a screw blocks the caliper from closing, It is used first to install the cable ,
but will serve to not let the caliper close when you remove the wheel.. still get the pad wear self adjust)

I only Own The Avid BB7Mtb, It came on my Bike Friday, The 2nd set of pads, Kool stop, organic compound
is better than the original stock was ..

My Hydraulic is on another bike Magura's HS 33 rim brakes , other than snapping in a fresh set of pads , no service needed over 4 years.


I dont own a Hydraulic disc Brake Bike But the Bike shop sells bikes with them

and I see Tourer's Bikes here in the summer with Primarily The Mechanical if they have disc brakes

(use the forum archives to read past postings on this topic)

Edit; see 12th post, made after you finally said what bike you were getting..






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jimc101

The biggest thing about hydraulics is the price, are you buying a complete bike, of building yourself?

If buying a complete bike, would go for hydraulic every-time, total integration from the manufacture (either SRAM or Shimano) both have their designs sorted, and you can get them in 10/11 speed. and complete bikes can be very cost effective for getting hydraulic discs

If building the bike yourself, then probably mechanical, as we still seem to be a few years away from hydraulic discs being reasonably priced/available for the aftermarket (as STI shifter/brake untis). Although TRP HyRD seems like a pretty good unit.

For reliability/general maintenance, I have had Shimano CX75/77 brakes for a few years, the stock (resin) pads required adjustment after every descent, switch to aftermarket (Ashima) sintered pads resolved this, apart from this no other adjustment/maintenance other then when changing cables to match the bar tape. For Hydraulics, I know a rider who does at least 15-20,000 km a year, he has had DI2/Dura Ace hydraulic discs for a few years, and no issues with them.

For wet weather, both will work, but hydraulic will self adjust, and generally will have a better feel to mechanical.

Muddy situations? either will perform great, but how muddy? on a road/gravel bike even would be more concerned about tires/frame clearances than mechanical or hydraulic brakes in those conditions.

For wheel removal, simply don't pull the brake lever with hydraulic brakes 9not hard to do, mechanical aren't affected by this. You can use a brake lever (plastic) to push the pistons in if this happens. (having used MTB discs for 15+ years, unless intentional, this has never been an issue).

For HS33's much as #fietsbob likes to evangelize about HS33's, for most users they are archaic (unless you German and into treking bikes), and as your looking at a road type bike, unusable for that design of bike. (nothing wrong with HS33's, I have several sets, but they are from the last century usage wise)

Andrew R Stewart 

I think the practical difference is at the levers. cable disks have a wide range of levers that will work, drop or flat bars, STI/Ergo/bar ended shifting no problems. Fluid disks have specific levers which get pricy if also containing shifter controls and will lock you into specific drivetrain specs.


As far as maintenance goes both cable and fluid have their plus and minus aspects. Being an old wrench my preference is cables. I know them and they are so easily dealt with in so many situations. For touring I carry a spare rear brake and rear gear cable, I wouldn't want to carry a can of liquid and the bleeding tools.


In use the fluid disks are a bit nicer, better modulation and power usually. But not by much and not by an amount that will get you into trouble in dicy situations as long as you're using the usual common sense when riding.


The one aspect of disks in general, and cable ones specifically, is the feel of a bottomless lever pull. As mentioned I'm an old wrench and have gotten use to a solid lever feel. I have the hand strength to stop with single pivot calipers with very little issue. I run cantis set up for proper mechanical advantages on my tandem and touring bikes and don't find many times I run out of braking. All my bikes have a firm lever feel, with the exception of my only disked one, which is also the bike I like to ride the least... Andy.

fietsbob

Now they have a road race bike version again ..MAGURA

for Time trial setups , so that includes the Triathlon set.

but their discs and where they keep upgrading the design, are all for Mountain Bikes..





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Leebo

OP, running drop bars or flats?

jimc101

The road version as you note, isn't really for road bikes, just TT bikes, you need to go back to the HS66 for a true road version (which are just levers, and really from the pre-STI era for bar-end users).

For upgrading, and just discs!!! the HS33's get upgraded/updated every few years, the latest update was in 2014, previously in 2011 (had these, didn't like them), 2005-2010 (probably my favourite version) early 90's to 2004 (have a set of these, pretty nice as well) this designed lasted a long time, and the major change during it's life was the change to EVO II mounts. The HS11 is getting a re-fresh for 2017, so would expect the HS33 to get one for 2018/9

For just being for MTB's, I originally mentioned Treking and German, as if you look at German bike sites, they like their HS33's still for Treking bikes! add to this Margura now have a few versions of the HS33, aimed at E-bikes, (the MTB thing really has died a death with discs now being standard), and they have also long been associated with the trials scene.

MAK

I'm looking to buy a new touring bike (LHT, 520 or other) with drop bars and bar end shifters.

jimc101

With bar end shifters, your almost limiting yourself to mechanical, as there are very few options for hydraulic disc which aren't integrate with shifters (Tektro Hylex is the only one I know of, anyone know any others?) SRAM make single sided LH brake levers CX1, but not RH side (these are only offered as shifter/brake levers)

drlogik 

I have one bike with mechanical and one with hydraulic. I much prefer the hydraulic from a performance standpoint; however, from a maintenance perspective mechanical I think is easier and takes less time and fuss.

I upgraded a new Kona mountain bike to XTR's this year and so glad I did. The stopping ability and performance cannot be beat. Got a great price from Jensen on them and were really easy to install as they came pre-bled but I had to cut the tubing down and re-bleed though. Jensen has great prices on XT's, and lower end brakes to, worth a look.

Riding both and considering performance and maintenance I'll go with hydraulic from now on. Once bled and adjusted, they are fairly maintenance free except for pad replacement but you have that with mechanicals to. The only down-side to hydraulic is you need a couple of specialty tools to make maintenance easier but they aren't a necessity (i.e. bleed kit and tubing cutter if you have to cut them down).

fietsbob

there was an Urban-Hybrid version Uses the HS33 lever-Master. but Asia is where US Bike companies get product, not Europe.

so you have to get that from Sellers in France & Germany.

I Got a NL made Koga-Miyata, Used , seller in NC said some FBI Guy brought it back from Over there , during their Holiday,
so that was how it got stateside.





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fietsbob

Your Choice was Picked for you...520D and LHT D come with cable disc Brakes .

Andy_K 

I've used mechanical discs, hydraulic discs and TRP's Hy/Rd hybrids on my commuter at various times. I don't know if there is an objective answer to which is best for your priorities, but I'll give you my impressions.

1. The hydraulic brakes (Shimano R765) were shipped dry and I had some trouble getting them bled sufficiently after initial installation, but once I got past that they were great and I haven't had to do a single thing to them since. Obviously, I'll eventually need to change the pads and everything I've read suggests I will eventually need to bleed them again, but on a day-to-day basis they require no maintenance. This is mostly to say that the hydraulic self-adjustment for pad wear works as advertised.

2. Mechanical discs are relatively easy to set up, though I believe they are more sensitive to correct caliper alignment and centering than are hydraulic discs. However, mechanical disc brakes do require regular tweaking to keep the pads the correct distance from the rotor. This is a fairly trivial problem, but there is very little margin for error between the pads not being close enough and the pads scraping a rotor that isn't perfectly true. In general, I found this to be a nuisance.

3. The Hy/Rds are as easy to set up as mechanical discs but they self-adjust for pad wear the way that hydraulic brakes do (as long as you haven't accidentally closed the system by using the barrel adjuster incorrectly). The early versions of the Hy/Rds had a lot of problems with the self-adjust feature, but I am confident that TRP has solved this problem. Take any negative reviews you read with a grain of salt. If the review mentions needing to top off the reservoir, disregard it as applying to an older design. In theory a time may come when the oil in the Hy/Rd became contaminated and required bleeding, but it's a closed system with a fairly small reservoir so I'm skeptical as to how often this would be necessary. I used a pair for around 3000 miles with no degradation in performance.

4. Under extremely muddy conditions in a setting that called for hard braking, I've heard reports that cyclocross racers with mechanical discs had the pads wear enough in a single lap (~2 miles) that the brakes would no longer stop the bike. This is an artifact of lacking self-adjustment, but a hydraulic disc in those same conditions would probably wear through the entire pad in under 50 miles, so I'm not sure how important this is. The C&O Canal towpath gets muddy, but you'd be able to ride the entire length of it several times without having this sort of a problem.

5. I don't use a brake block and I haven't experienced the problem with my hydraulic brakes locking up with the wheel out. I've tossed the bike aside for a tire change by the side of the road without worrying about this in the least. A tap of the lever won't cause this problem. You'd have to give it a good squeeze. Even then, the problem can be fixed it's just difficult to do so.

6. It's very uncommon, but there are ways that hydraulic discs can fail completely. For instance, the fluid can boil (mostly a problem for DOT-fluid based brakes), or the oil could leak onto the pad, or a cut in the line could cause loss of fluid. These aren't really things you would want to fix in the field. There isn't a whole lot that can go wrong with mechanical disc brakes that a cable change and new pads won't fix. This doesn't worry me at all for my 10 mile commute. I probably wouldn't worry about it for a trip along the C&O canal (although I guess some parts of that get fairly isolated). It's just something to think about when you're touring. I suppose you could carry spare hoses and a bleed kit.

So those are my thoughts on maintenance. There are pros and cons of each solution.

As for performance, I really don't think there are pros and cons. Hydraulic discs objectively perform better. Yes, ultimate stopping power is limited by tire traction in either case, but hydraulic brakes achieve that stopping power with a lot less hand force and they just feel better doing it. The best mechanical disc brakes I've used are maybe 75% as good as hydraulics. The worst aren't even half as good. The TRP Hy/Rds are around 80-85% as good. I'm generalizing hydraulic performance here. I've only used the Shimano brakes mentioned above. It's my understanding that SRAM's latest brakes and the TRP Hylex (which is what I'm guessing you'd get) are at the same level though.

fietsbob

I remember reading the Cross Worlds They got discs made overnight, without holes in them
because the sand pits left grit in the disc holes
so to make the pads last an Hour of racing they got new discs made minus holes Specially for their competitors ..

have to have the brand show in best light , even if it was 10th place