Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Single piston mechanicals have never been something that need constant maintenance nor constant adjustment. Nor have I found them to be worthless. I’m not saying that they are vastly better than rim but they aren’t any worse.
And yet for some inexplicable reason you keep upgrading to Paul Klampers...The one & only exception of the single piston mechanical disc brake world that actually works well.
I’ve not been impressed with hydraulics…I find them far too touchy and the very opposite of “well modulated”…and dual piston mechanicals don’t perform any better than any other mechanical. I’ve had both dual piston and single piston. Neither is notably different from the other. They both stop well…but then so do most any brake.
Brake levers are not binary toggle switches. They are analog devices that require operator skill & experience with a particular installation to use properly. But the beauty is you can configure the installation to be as grabby or as spongy as you want. Hydraulic 4 piston/203mm rotor will be a totally different experience than 2 piston/140mm rotors.
Perhaps your experience was with the former? Did you borrow a purpose built & customized down-hill mountain bike & think that experience spoke for all hydraulic brakes?
Dual-piston mechanical do indeed work better than cheap OEM single piston. One such way is the giant large rectangular pad cheap OEM's tend not to spec don't wear as quickly & have more surface area to better grab the rotor.
Another way they work better is they tend to warp rotors less, if ever & lever effort spent deflecting the rotor is spent applying braking force instead. Seriously, what engineer said: "Hey let's apply heat & torque to this thing we are bending & expect it to remain straight"? Come on man? Even you must see the poor design in that!
Are you talking about
this case? That was a year ago. The parents
claim the brakes were defective but the claim isn’t that they didn’t work but that they induced a wobble to the wheel when applied. Strangely, they said nothing about letting a 12 year old ride a bike that specifically says not to be used by anyone under the age of 18. These are extremely heavy bikes and a 12 year old may not have the strength nor motor control to keep one upright at speed with
any kind of brake.
I wasn't there & neither were you. But I've worked plenty of Rad "bikes" & it was only a matter of time something as dangerous & cheaply constructed as they are would get somebody killed.
As to your experience, it’s not one that I’ve shared. I’m not a small guy and I carry relatively heavy loads on a mountain bike on steep rugged downhills in the Colorado mountains where I can reach speeds of 30 to 40 mph. I’ve never had any kind of mechanical brake that failed to stop the bike. That includes both dual and single piston mechanicals. For that matter, I’ve never had a instance with any kind of brake where I thought the brakes would fail me. I’m not shy about letting gravity have its way with me.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal
Try doing 35mph down a 6% (
) grade & witness a green light turn yellow & at around 20mph find the brakes you
had decide that a 15mph reduction of speed was enough work for them in the span of time it takes the yellow light took to turn red.
I'm not shy about staying off my brakes & as a truck driver, I know proper braking technique. They were cool, properly maintained & unused until that point of the descent. Any brake, even the foot I stuffed against the tire & seat-stay BMX style to
eventually stop in the intersection should've been adequate for that scenario.
The OEM single piston mechanicals
had a habit of behaving this way & after about the 10th failed emergency stop on an incline or fade to nothingness at normal cycling speeds, I moved to BB7's & 180mm rotors. Then over the years have upgraded from there.
Quite simply we've had different experiences & the variable is you are using the cream-de-la-cream of single piston's offerings & I'm talking OEM.
I admit, in recent years, OEM pads have gotten bigger. Most being the same form factor as Shimano B10S which are an improvement &
may be passable performance minimum with 160mm rotors for most people.
Single piston mechanicals are safe, effective, and simple if properly adjusted and properly used. Most all issues I’ve run across (other people’s bikes, not mine) have been issues with improper adjustment…even on low end mechanicals. Properly tuned, even cheap mechanical discs are effective.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division