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Hydraulic Vs mechanical brakes

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Hydraulic Vs mechanical brakes

Old 01-30-23, 05:39 PM
  #101  
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Originally Posted by tomato coupe
You completely misrepresented what he posted.
Don’t think so. First, not all modern brakes are Shimano. Second, with regard to the implying that mechanicals are death traps, elcruxio did bring up the nightmare scenario of frozen brakes. If that isn’t fear mongering, I don’t know what is.

The rest of the post was him trying to convince us that somehow cables are difficult to work on compared to hydraulics. Utter hogwash!
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Old 01-30-23, 05:45 PM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by Kapusta
I bleed my hydraulic brakes way, Way, WAY more often than I change cables or housing on my mech disc brakes.

My XT, SLX, and Magura MT7s all need some bleeding at least once a year, but sometimes it has been 2, 3, or even 4 times in a year. If I do any work on the MT7s that require a bleed (like replacing a hose or lever), I pretty much always need to do a follow up bleed.

Running full length high quality cables and housing? Many years for the cables, and practically indefinitely for the housing. My fat bike sees a ton of mud and water, and garden hose spray-downs. I just replaces the cables after 4 years. Housing is still fine.

OTOH, there are other aspects where hydros are less work and hassle.... namely pad adjustment.
Hmmm...I've had my newest MTB (XTR hydro brakes) for 7 months, and I bought it used. I have zero idea when or if the previous owner ever bled the brakes since the time he replaced the stock SRAM brakes with XTR. Based on his poor maintenance on everything else, I suspect never. I have yet to come across any reason why the brakes would need to be bled.

Am I doing it wrong?
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Old 01-30-23, 05:48 PM
  #103  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
Second, with regard to the implying that mechanicals are death traps, elcruxio did bring up the nightmare scenario of frozen brakes. If that isn’t fear mongering, I don’t know what is.
He did not refer to frozen brakes as a "nightmare scenario" -- that's all on you. In fact, he called you out on it.
Originally Posted by elcruxio
Why the dramatics? Why the death and destruction? That's just unnecessary hyperbole.
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Old 01-30-23, 05:59 PM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
While I agree with what you’ve said, I’d like to point out that the disc crowd…especially the hydro crowd…act like the rest of us are riding spoon brakes. I have cable disc. I have cable rim…including the dreaded cantilever (The HORROR!). I’ve had hydraulics. I haven’t found any brake that works sooooooooo much better than the others that I would give up even my dreaded cantilever brakes. I’ve ridden in mountain bikes in wet/muddy conditions in mountains even on…GASP!!!…cantilevers!!! and never had a situation where the brakes failed to work. I simply don’t feel any real difference between them.

These discussions always devolve into the hydro crowd implying (or even outright stating) that we are going to DIE if we don’t immediately adopt their brake system. It’s useless hyperbole which is what I object to. And this is coming from someone with 40+ years of mountain biking, winter riding, loaded touring, loaded mountain bike touring, and tandem experience. And I’m not shy when gravity takes over.
I haven't seen that. Do you have any specific examples? Mostly, I see the anti-hydro folks complaining/campaigning that disc brakes are too complex, too heavy, too dangerous, or in some other way a waste of time, money, and/or effort. In response, hydro disc users generally respond with personal experiences related to why some/all of those things aren't true or aren't actually significant. Many hydro disc users (including myself) have multiple bikes with multiple types of brake systems, and acknowledge that non-hydro brakes (disc or rim) work adequately in most situations.
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Old 01-30-23, 07:55 PM
  #105  
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Originally Posted by Eric F
Mostly, I see the anti-hydro folks complaining/campaigning that disc brakes are too complex, too heavy, too dangerous, or in some other way a waste of time, money, and/or effort.
You forgot ugly and inelegant.
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Old 01-31-23, 12:27 AM
  #106  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
Not nearly as often as you are representing. There are solutions to contamination as well. There are lots of sealed ferrules out there that will reduce the possibility of contamination. While corroded cables occur, not all cables corrode. I’ve worked on thousands of mistreated bicycles at my co-op. I would estimate that 1 in 100 have corroded brake cables. It happens but it doesn’t happen all that often.
Corroded cables are just a matter of time and conditions. In harsher conditions and daily riding cables corrode more easily. Or get grimy.


Why indeed? Just answering your hyperbole. Your implication is that mechanical brakes will fail in the slightest cold weather. That’s also dramatic hyperbole.
Where did I state that exactly. I think that's all in your head, but do go find quote where I post that mechanical brakes fail at the slightest cold.

Ah, the old “you are ignorant” saw when you are caught out bending the truth. Why would a sealed brake system have any bubbles in it? If you have to do a “bubble bleed”, there is some underlying problem that needs to be addressed. That’s not any easier than changing a cable nor changing the housing and cable. As has been pointed out to you, the cable housing doesn’t always need to be changed and lasts a whole lot longer than 2 years. To quote another poster “if any of that seems complicated to you than I honestly can’t help you.”
sigh...

So typically you'd do a bubble bleed when you shorten a hose or do some other minor adjustment that may have introduced air by opening the closed system.

You're not doing yourself any favors here...

​​​​​​​And there’s where your whole argument falls apart. Not all hydraulic brakes are Shimano. Not all mineral oil brakes are Shimano. The number of DOT and mineral oil hydraulic brakes are just about even on what is currently being offered on the market and DOT hydraulics outnumber mineral oil brakes. DOT bleeds are much more involved and far from simple. Mineral oil bleeds are also not as simple as you make them out to be but, I’ll agree that they are easier than DOT brake bleeds. None of them are as simple as cables…and we haven’t even addressed replacing hydraulic hose replacement.
mineral oil brands
Shimano
campagnolo
Magura
Tektro
Trp
Clarks
Promax
Trickstuff
some sram brakes

Dot brands
Sram
Hayes
Hope
formula

Shimano being the market leader with the low end dominated by Tektro I'm just gonna assume a vast majority of brakes today use mineral oil. And most of them can use the gravity bleed process and so most of them can also funnel bleed in one way or the other.

As to swapping a hose, well it does require a bleed but as outlined earlier, that at least is a very simple procedure. But the hose swapping itself is pretty much on par with housing swapping except you need less specialized tools with a hydraulic hose.

Housing
Hex key,
Cable cutter or dremel

Hose
crescent wrench
Knife
Also a table or wall comes in handy.

Good cable cutters are pretty expensive and a dremel even more so. Please tell me you're not one of those people who mash a housing to ruin with wire cutters..

​​​​​​​It’s not the liter of material that is hazardous waste that needs to be disposed of. The 25 ml is hazardous waste and is not made better by collecting a whole lot of it before disposal. Small amounts are probably worse because you forget where you put the previously collected fluid years ago or it gets thrown away or, worse, flushed down some drain. It’s still a problem that cables don’ make.
Do you forget where you've stored used chemicals?

​​​​​​​Honestly I’ve never seen anything on replacing disc pads that doesn’t say to remove the wheel first. It’s just easier. If the pads can be removed from your hydraulics without removing the wheel, the same could be done with some of the mechanical discs. It would even be easier since you don’t have to push the piston back. Most all mechanical discs I’ve seen have an external socket that allows the pusher to be screwed back and away from the rotor. Many of the better ones have adjusters on both sides which makes life even simplier.
Which mechanical discs allow for replacing pads without removing the wheel?

​​​​​​​That said, I’d still take the wheel off because it would just make life easier.
that's really no surprise...

​​​​​​​Just following your lead. You’ve come up with all kinds of nightmare scenarios with cables that mostly don’t exist.
Which nightmare scenarios exactly? At this point I'd really like to know.


​​​​​​​The same could be said of your overblown claims about cable systems. Exactly the same. Cable contamination issues can be easily corrected and doesn’t happen nearly as often as you imagine it does.
As I've experienced they do you mean?

​​​​​​​No oil to leak with cables. Just sayin’
So never a broken caliper or such with mechanicals? They should probably build space shuttles out of such indestructable things...


​​​​​​​Kinked hoses, blown seals, corroded pistons, rubbed through hoses, etc. If you are going to list a bunch of unlikely issues with cables, you need to consider the unlikely issues with hydraulics.
I think I hit a nerve. Why is this topic so precious to you?

​​​​​​​You only think you are special. I live in the mountains. Our weather is far more variable than just about any other place on the planet. We can go from 60°F (15°C) to 0°F (-17°C) in hours. How’s that for a freeze/thaw cycle? We can also go from 0°F and snow to 60°F and slush is hours. Salt is used here on the roads (didn’t used to be and our state symbol used to be a broken windshield). My bikes have gone from outside in freezing drizzle to inside to back outside to the frozen drizzle. Still no frozen brake cables.
Yet where you live is quite arid with dry air, low precipitation (relative to where I live), no ocean winds or moisture those bring.

Do you ride every day rain or shine?


​​​​​​​Since you asked: Sealed ferrules, Teflon coated inner wire, and lined brake cable housing (or compressionless if you prefer). These are all things I use regularly.
So I use all those except the black gunk cables. Strange.

Originally Posted by cyccommute
Don’t think so. First, not all modern brakes are Shimano. Second, with regard to the implying that mechanicals are death traps, elcruxio did bring up the nightmare scenario of frozen brakes. If that isn’t fear mongering, I don’t know what is.
I'm beginning to think you're a kind of person who doesn't check your brakes before you set out...

Let's imagine a scenario shall we? You come home and it's wet slush all over. You leave the bike in the garage overnight like you always do. During the night the weather has gotten colder. In the morning you go pick up your bike for your daily commute but a squeeze of the brake levers reveals that the rear brake is frozen.

Oh bummer.

It would be pretty funny if I went out risking life and limb with a frozen rear brake just because cyccommute demands some drama, but what really happened was I picked another bike and was late from daycare. Bummer. But I suppose for some people that is a deathtrap situation.

​​​​​​​The rest of the post was him trying to convince us that somehow cables are difficult to work on compared to hydraulics. Utter hogwash!
Important semantical distinction and I can understand you missed it: modern hydraulics in general aside from SRAM (which are horrible. Avoid at all costs) are in fact easier to work on than mechanicals.

Something being easier does not make the other thing difficult. It makes it less easier.

But once you get past the fear of fluid dripping somewhere, hydraulics are incredibly simple things. The difficulty of bleeding and working with them is massively overblown. Perhaps by the times when they were difficult to work with. And by SRAM.
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Old 01-31-23, 02:18 AM
  #107  
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Speaking of things being overblown so is the difficulty of working with Sram brakes. Sure back in the day my avid(sram) juicy 5s were kind of a pita but my avid elixer 7s take maybe a few extra mins to do compared to a proper bleed of my shimano XTs. Shimano makes half butted bleeds easier but proper bleeding still had a lot of fiddly steps.
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Old 01-31-23, 05:17 AM
  #108  
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Originally Posted by elcruxio
Important semantical distinction and I can understand you missed it: modern hydraulics in general aside from SRAM (which are horrible. Avoid at all costs) are in fact easier to work on than mechanicals.
Here I must disagree.

Hydros are more complex by far. As you note, not Difficult ... but more complex.

Not excessively complex, but ... go read-the chain-waxing novella. For some folks even wiping a chain is too much work .

I have Spyre Cs and changing a cable or pads is really simple. Adjustment is just like adjusting any mechanical brake.

I have hydros on my MTB. Very, very low maintenance, but bleeding is more steps. More Simple, Easy steps, but more steps.

Again, though neither is better or worse because of that.

One could almost think it comes down to ... Personal Preference.

This is the sort of debate that by the time it is over, even if one person or the other can say, "I won," everyone involved feels a little soiled.

Bikers are good. Brakes on bikes are good.

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Old 01-31-23, 08:24 AM
  #109  
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Bike Forums: where anyone with a different experience than yours is wrong.
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Old 01-31-23, 09:35 AM
  #110  
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I'm not this emotionally attached to my brakes
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Old 01-31-23, 11:22 AM
  #111  
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Originally Posted by elcruxio
Corroded cables are just a matter of time and conditions. In harsher conditions and daily riding cables corrode more easily. Or get grimy.
No, they aren’t. Use better cables. Use better housing. As well as never having had brakes freeze, I’ve never had a cable corrode. It’s not just “a matter of time”. It’s a poor mechanic indeed that blames his tools.


Where did I state that exactly. I think that's all in your head, but do go find quote where I post that mechanical brakes fail at the slightest cold.
You have certainly implied that brake cable freeze is a very common occurrence. Many others…including myself…have pointed out that they ride in bad winter weather and have never experienced a brake cable freezing.



sigh...

So typically you'd do a bubble bleed when you shorten a hose or do some other minor adjustment that may have introduced air by opening the closed system.

You're not doing yourself any favors here...
Quit moving the goal posts. In your earlier statements you said that a brake bleed is easier than changing a brake cable. Your “bubble bleed for shortening a hose” is the equivalent of cutting off the end of a cable. And I can’t think of any “minor adjustment” on a hydraulic system that would introduce air. There’s nothing to “adjust”. Even replacing pads wouldn’t open the system.

​​​​​​​Shimano being the market leader with the low end dominated by Tektro I'm just gonna assume a vast majority of brakes today use mineral oil. And most of them can use the gravity bleed process and so most of them can also funnel bleed in one way or the other.

As to swapping a hose, well it does require a bleed but as outlined earlier, that at least is a very simple procedure. But the hose swapping itself is pretty much on par with housing swapping except you need less specialized tools with a hydraulic hose.

Housing
Hex key,
Cable cutter or dremel

Hose
crescent wrench
Knife
Also a table or wall comes in handy.
The procedures I see on bleeding mineral oil brakes start with forcing the old oil out from the caliper with a syringe. Fresh oil is pushed up from the bottom so as to displace air in the easiest direction. After the old oil is displaced, oil is pumped through the system from the top but it isn’t gravity feed. Swapping hoses is going to leave you with a hose that is completely empty…i.e. full of air…so a simple “gravity bleed” isn’t going to get the air out.

As to tools, you are again misrepresenting the hydraulic system. To be fair you are missing the inner cable for the cable system but if you are changing hoses for the hydraulic system you have to add

4mm hex
2.5mm hex
open end wrench for the bleed port
mineral oil
barbs
olives
brake bleed kit which contains 5 to 6 more tools
hose for the bleed port
something to catch oil in
a whole bunch of rags

Your tool kit is far from complete.

​​​​​​​Good cable cutters are pretty expensive and a dremel even more so. Please tell me you're not one of those people who mash a housing to ruin with wire cutters..
No, I don’t mash housing with diagonal cutters. I do cut them with cable cutters and grind the end or just make a good blunt cut. But cable cutters are general tools that are used cables like derailer cable and cable housing. A bleed kit costs about the same as a set of good cable cutters and only has one use.

​​​​​​​Do you forget where you've stored used chemicals?
Stuff gets misplaced all the time. If you are trying to fill a 1L vessel 25ml at a time, that’s 40 brake bleeds. I’ll agree that brake bleeds don’t need to be done all that often so it would take years to fill a 1L vessel…perhaps decades…in a home setting.

​​​​​​​Which mechanical discs allow for replacing pads without removing the wheel?
Just about any of them. You could pull the pads out of an Avid BB7. There’s a tab that extends outside the caliper body. It’s not easy but removing the pads from a hydraulic system without removing the wheel is equally as difficult. What hydraulics can you remove the pads without removing the wheel? More importantly, why would you want to.

​​​​​​​So never a broken caliper or such with mechanicals? They should probably build space shuttles out of such indestructable things...
No, I haven’t. I’ve never even seen a broken mechanical caliper and I’ve seen hundreds of them from high end to the worst possible copies of the Avid BB5. I’ve never even seen on where the caliper was frozen from corrosion. They are incredibly robust.

​​​​​​​I think I hit a nerve. Why is this topic so precious to you?
It’s not that the topic is “precious” to me but that you are misrepresenting hydraulics. The brakes are not simple. They require maintenance that mechanicals don’t. They have complicated procedures for bleeding them. Look at the shop rates for a brake bleed ($30 to $100, depending on the system) compared to roughly $20 for cable and housing replacement.

​​​​​​​Yet where you live is quite arid with dry air, low precipitation (relative to where I live), no ocean winds or moisture those bring.

Do you ride every day rain or shine?
Please read what you quoted. It’s right there. I’ve ridden in just about every weather condition imaginable up to and including hail storms. I’ve ridden…and crashed…in more freezing drizzle than any sane (and intelligent person) would.


​​​​​​​I'm beginning to think you're a kind of person who doesn't check your brakes before you set out...
No, I don’t check my brakes before I go out because I don’t put bikes away if something is wrong with it. I fix problems while I’m thinking about them. If there is something that I can’t fix right away because I don’t have the parts, I choose another bike. I have many more than one.

​​​​​​​Let's imagine a scenario shall we? You come home and it's wet slush all over. You leave the bike in the garage overnight like you always do. During the night the weather has gotten colder. In the morning you go pick up your bike for your daily commute but a squeeze of the brake levers reveals that the rear brake is frozen.
How do you get “wet slush all over” the bike? Slush on the lower part of the bike, I can see but how do you throw slush up on the brake cables? Most all of the bikes that I own have cables that run on the top tube or directly from the lever to the caliper along the fork. I have had derailer cables freeze up but most of the bikes I use for winter now have the derailer cables running along the top tube as well. I haven’t had a derailer cable freeze up on those either.

​​​​​​​Important semantical distinction and I can understand you missed it: modern hydraulics in general aside from SRAM (which are horrible. Avoid at all costs) are in fact easier to work on than mechanicals.

Something being easier does not make the other thing difficult. It makes it less easier.

But once you get past the fear of fluid dripping somewhere, hydraulics are incredibly simple things. The difficulty of bleeding and working with them is massively overblown. Perhaps by the times when they were difficult to work with. And by SRAM.
Are SRAM brakes not modern? They are sold now. And not all brakes sold today (or within the last 10 years) are Shimano nor mineral oil brakes. The bleed procedure for DOT brakes is pretty much the same for all DOT fluid brakes. But, again, my objection isn’t (necessarily) to the brakes themselves but to your representation of them as some how much easier to work on than cable systems. I’ve done bleeds on DOT brakes, including SRAM, and on mineral brakes. Neither one is a simple procedure and far more complicated than replacing a cable and housing.
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Old 01-31-23, 11:27 AM
  #112  
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Originally Posted by tomato coupe
He did not refer to frozen brakes as a "nightmare scenario" -- that's all on you. In fact, he called you out on it.
I’ll remind you, again, that exculio is the one who brought up frozen brakes and his fears of them. Many other posters…not just me…are scratching their heads over that one. As to calling me out on it, I called him out on his dramatics as well.
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Old 01-31-23, 11:34 AM
  #113  
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Originally Posted by Maelochs
Here I must disagree.

Hydros are more complex by far. As you note, not Difficult ... but more complex.
My problem with the complexity of the bleed procedure is that there are more places where you can screw something up and have to start over or to screw something up and have to replace something. It’s pretty difficult to do that with a cable and housing. Cable and housing replacement certainly isn’t as difficult or onerous as exculixo has made it out to be.

And, let’s not forget that a brake bleed is about the equivalent of replacing an inner cable. If we include replacement of tubing…the equivalent of replacing housing…the complexity is increase several fold.
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Old 01-31-23, 11:43 AM
  #114  
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My tour bike has a SA DRUM brake in the front. I squeeze the levers hard often. The cable went BOTH tours, 20,000 miles and 6 years. I use lovely SA levers.
Cable ends get frayed IF you take them apart. Even then, the last few years it has been less of a problem. Otherwise, I haven't broken a cable since my caliper brakes on old Raleighs. Often I reuse rear cables and casings on the front. It is simple to carry a spare cable. I did carry a cable cutter. LOL.
My Rohloff disc brake certainly also has cable TRP Spyres.
I certainly wouldn't use hydro if you paid me.

Last edited by GamblerGORD53; 01-31-23 at 11:50 AM.
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Old 01-31-23, 12:08 PM
  #115  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
I’ll remind you, again, that exculio is the one who brought up frozen brakes and his fears of them. Many other posters…not just me…are scratching their heads over that one. As to calling me out on it, I called him out on his dramatics as well.
Anyone can read the thread and see that you introduced "nightmare scenario" and "death trap" when referring to cable-actuated disc brakes. The hyperbole is on you, dude.
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Old 01-31-23, 12:10 PM
  #116  
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[QUOTE=cyccommute;22786282]No, they aren’t. Use better cables. Use better housing. As well as never having had brakes freeze, I’ve never had a cable corrode. It’s not just “a matter of time”. It’s a poor mechanic indeed that blames his tools.

And here's me thinking you were a chemist. Are the cables used in bicycles in fact totally impervious to corrosion?

You have certainly implied that brake cable freeze is a very common occurrence. Many others…including myself…have pointed out that they ride in bad winter weather and have never experienced a brake cable freezing.
Used to be relatively common where I live. But nowadays most people using disc brakes tend to use hydraulics.

I didn't have those issues when I lived up north where I got really bad winter weather. But it was colder and drier.

​​​​​​​Quit moving the goal posts. In your earlier statements you said that a brake bleed is easier than changing a brake cable. Your “bubble bleed for shortening a hose” is the equivalent of cutting off the end of a cable. And I can’t think of any “minor adjustment” on a hydraulic system that would introduce air. There’s nothing to “adjust”. Even replacing pads wouldn’t open the system.
What the...? If you invent wacky scenarios out of thin air with no prior input from me and I refute you by explaining what are the situations where a bubble bleed is necessary, how is that moving the goalposts? The only goalpost that could have moved was the one you invented in bad faith with malicious inventive misreading of my comment.

But I know you were really proud of your "gotcha!" moment.

Anyway the adjustments where air might be introduced are adjusting the cable angle in the caliper via the banjo bolt or adjusting the hose twist in the lever via the hose bolt.

You should get your basics together.

​​​​​​​The procedures I see on bleeding mineral oil brakes start with forcing the old oil out from the caliper with a syringe. Fresh oil is pushed up from the bottom so as to displace air in the easiest direction. After the old oil is displaced, oil is pumped through the system from the top but it isn’t gravity feed. Swapping hoses is going to leave you with a hose that is completely empty…i.e. full of air…so a simple “gravity bleed” isn’t going to get the air out.
You can do it that way. If you like wasting time. Gravity bleeding gets the air out just fine. Google the shimano funnel.

Again, This is basic stuff. I know you don't have hydraulic brakes and thus don't have a clue how to service them but acting like a master on the subject is just embarrassing.

​​​​​​​As to tools, you are again misrepresenting the hydraulic system. To be fair you are missing the inner cable for the cable system but if you are changing hoses for the hydraulic system you have to add

4mm hex
2.5mm hex
open end wrench for the bleed port
mineral oil
barbs
olives
brake bleed kit which contains 5 to 6 more tools
hose for the bleed port
something to catch oil in
a whole bunch of rags

Your tool kit is far from complete.
Barbs, olives, oil and hose are as much tools as cables are. If you remember I also mentioned the bleed. Gravity bleeding requires the funnel and a piece of hose. As tools.

​​​​​​​No, I don’t mash housing with diagonal cutters. I do cut them with cable cutters and grind the end or just make a good blunt cut. But cable cutters are general tools that are used cables like derailer cable and cable housing. A bleed kit costs about the same as a set of good cable cutters and only has one use.
Cable cutters are pretty rare for someone not wrenching bikes. Also again, the funnel. I think thats like ten bucks.

​​​​​​​Stuff gets misplaced all the time. If you are trying to fill a 1L vessel 25ml at a time, that’s 40 brake bleeds. I’ll agree that brake bleeds don’t need to be done all that often so it would take years to fill a 1L vessel…perhaps decades…in a home setting.
personally I tend not to misplace hazardous materials. But that's just me.

​​​​​​​Just about any of them. You could pull the pads out of an Avid BB7. There’s a tab that extends outside the caliper body. It’s not easy but removing the pads from a hydraulic system without removing the wheel is equally as difficult. What hydraulics can you remove the pads without removing the wheel? More importantly, why would you want to.
All deore and higher shimanos, all road shimanos, all sram, all hopes, all higher end tektro and trp, all trickstuff, all maguras. I mean I could keep going but every mid and higher hydro caliper allows for hot swapping pads. So you can pull them out from the top side of the caliper.

You're right. Swapping BB7 pads without taking the wheel out is difficult because it's not really possible. The spring is in the way like in all mechanical calipers. And taking them out from the intended direction from the bottom when the wheel is in is just idiotic.

​​​​​​​No, I haven’t. I’ve never even seen a broken mechanical caliper and I’ve seen hundreds of them from high end to the worst possible copies of the Avid BB5. I’ve never even seen on where the caliper was frozen from corrosion. They are incredibly robust.
indeed. And so are current hydraulic calipers.

​​​​​​​It’s not that the topic is “precious” to me but that you are misrepresenting hydraulics. The brakes are not simple. They require maintenance that mechanicals don’t. They have complicated procedures for bleeding them. Look at the shop rates for a brake bleed ($30 to $100, depending on the system) compared to roughly $20 for cable and housing replacement.
I suppose I could ask my LBS about how much bleeding is but I doubt it's any more than cable swapping.

​​​​​​​Please read what you quoted. It’s right there. I’ve ridden in just about every weather condition imaginable up to and including hail storms. I’ve ridden…and crashed…in more freezing drizzle than any sane (and intelligent person) would.
Ie. You ride occasionally in a relatively arid environment. When you start riding daily, get back to me.


​​​​​​​No, I don’t check my brakes before I go out because I don’t put bikes away if something is wrong with it. I fix problems while I’m thinking about them. If there is something that I can’t fix right away because I don’t have the parts, I choose another bike. I have many more than one.
I am not surprised. Personally I always give my brakes a good squeeze before I set out just to make sure everything works as intended.


​​​​​​​How do you get “wet slush all over” the bike? Slush on the lower part of the bike, I can see but how do you throw slush up on the brake cables? Most all of the bikes that I own have cables that run on the top tube or directly from the lever to the caliper along the fork. I have had derailer cables freeze up but most of the bikes I use for winter now have the derailer cables running along the top tube as well. I haven’t had a derailer cable freeze up on those either.
And you've ridden in all sorts of conditions? Right right...

​​​​​​​Are SRAM brakes not modern? They are sold now. And not all brakes sold today (or within the last 10 years) are Shimano nor mineral oil brakes. The bleed procedure for DOT brakes is pretty much the same for all DOT fluid brakes. But, again, my objection isn’t (necessarily) to the brakes themselves but to your representation of them as some how much easier to work on than cable systems. I’ve done bleeds on DOT brakes, including SRAM, and on mineral brakes. Neither one is a simple procedure and far more complicated than replacing a cable and housing.
And with that you've demonstrated what I suspected from the start. Your reading comprehension is at such a level that continuing is pointless. You either misunderstand and/or misinterpret maliciously. I suspect it's the latter.
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Old 01-31-23, 12:15 PM
  #117  
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Lots of fun stuff here.

I’ve never broken a brake cable in my life. I’m fairly sure the ones I’ve seen rendered inoperable were so the user could continue riding on bent rims.

I’ve never blown a hydro mid ride either. I have grabbed a bike and found the hydro completely empty. This is at least on par to grabbing a bike with a flat tire if you have all the parts. More than likely, this is a time you grab a different bike (3 in your garage is the minimum acceptable number).

I’ve also seen mechanical brakes that had a mysterious sponginess. Sometimes to the point they barely work. Always to the point that the mismatch with the front brake drives me crazy. Depending on the fault, this can be pretty time consuming to track down and eliminate. Sometimes the nuclear option of compressionless cables can cost almost as much as the brake system.

Hydro’s have gotten way easier to bleed over the years. Mineral oil systems seem to be dominating. Hopefully SRAM is paying attention to this too.

The feel for good hydro’s is better than the best cable rim brakes. IMO it’s good enough to learn a few new tricks at the workshop. It’s not so superior that I’d ever stop riding my rim brake bikes. I think this is where most forum users are, loving our disc brakes and still loving our old bikes too. It’s an extremely small segment that truly hates one or the other. They do tend to be rather dominant in these discussions though.

I still think that cable discs are pointless. I do like hydro rim brakes though. A Magura HS11 rim brake is $70 on Amazon right now, providing crushing (hyperbole) power, easy adjustment, and by design can’t be spongy. V-brakes are great but when it came time for me to choose between new and better rim brakes, the hydro was the only thing on my list.
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Old 01-31-23, 12:39 PM
  #118  
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Why are people so biased against Dot? Shimano brakes being "easier" to bleed has nothing to do with mineral oil. If you swap the seals over to the kind made to handle DOT fluid and used Dot nothing would change. Yeah it eats paint if you just leave on it there rather than cleaning it off but I clean mineral oil off my paint too. It isn't like it is going to ruin your paint in a couple mins. It absorbs water. Yep that is a good thing. It distributes the water through out the whole system rather than just letting it pool in the caliper. Don't drink your hydraulic fluid.
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Old 01-31-23, 01:01 PM
  #119  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
I’ll remind you, again, that exculio is the one who brought up frozen brakes and his fears of them. Many other posters…not just me…are scratching their heads over that one. As to calling me out on it, I called him out on his dramatics as well.
Maybe his riding conditions are different than yours, and this is something he has actually experienced. It turns out that not all of us have the same experiences. It seems to me like you're the one that has over-blown elcruxio's comments into "fears" and "nightmare scenarios". Mechanical issues aren't necessarily catastrophes, but just something that has to be dealt with. Such is the nature the bicycle machine.
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Old 01-31-23, 01:12 PM
  #120  
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Not to disrump the discussion but I have couple questions WRT SRAM AXS HRD brakes. I just got the bike in late November and only have about 1040 miles on it. How do I know if they need bled already? The left (front) lever almost goes to the bar tape. Is this a bleeding issue? The left lever feels squishy and on my car, I would bleed the brakes with a whimpy pedal. The pads are shot, I was going to try that first.

Also, If I want to put on TT bar setup, I will have to disconnect the lines at the levers. Can I just hook the lines up in the new position with different levers on the TT bars (assuming length is ok), or is bleeding necessary? I assume the oil is still ok.
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Old 01-31-23, 01:46 PM
  #121  
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A couple of things here. I have never had a bicycle crash because I didn't have enough braking power. I have had several get offs when I inadvertently grabbed too much front brake in a bit of a pickle. The worst of those occurred with hydraulic disc brakes. Sure, with more skill, I may not have crashed. I have never been stranded as a result of mechanical brakes. I have been stranded and needed a shop to rectify the issue as a result of hydraulic brakes. Sure, with more skill, I could have solved the issue myself. There are multitudes of threads where folks have had issues bleeding hydraulic brakes. I can't recall any threads where any of us were having difficulty getting cable tension sorted out.

Love me some one finger hydraulic braking on long downhills, but that is the only place I prefer hydros.

TRP Spykes and Spyres are my sweet spot in performance, cost and ease of maintenance.
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Old 01-31-23, 04:33 PM
  #122  
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Originally Posted by tomato coupe
Anyone can read the thread and see that you introduced "nightmare scenario" and "death trap" when referring to cable-actuated disc brakes. The hyperbole is on you, dude.
Anytime there is a discussion on brakes it's almost always the hydro disc fan boys who try to convince everybody that cable actuated brake systems are weak, unreliable, prone to failure, complex to set up, complex to adjust and inadequate for any type of serious riding.
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Old 01-31-23, 04:42 PM
  #123  
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Originally Posted by wolfchild
Anytime there is a discussion on brakes it's almost always the hydro disc fan boys who try to convince everybody that cable actuated brake systems are weak, unreliable, prone to failure, complex to set up, complex to adjust and inadequate for any type of serious riding.
Not relevant to my comment.
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Old 01-31-23, 04:50 PM
  #124  
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Originally Posted by wolfchild
Anytime there is a discussion on brakes it's almost always the hydro disc fan boys who try to convince everybody that cable actuated brake systems are weak, unreliable, prone to failure, complex to set up, complex to adjust and inadequate for any type of serious riding.
Do you have any specific examples of when that actually happened? I tend to be involved with brake discussion threads and haven't seen the behavior you're describing from disc-brake proponents. This isn't the first time you've made a claim like this, and it just doesn't match up with my observation. Granted, I could have missed something, which is why I'm hoping you can provide an example.
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Old 01-31-23, 04:51 PM
  #125  
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Originally Posted by Eric F
Hmmm...I've had my newest MTB (XTR hydro brakes) for 7 months, and I bought it used. I have zero idea when or if the previous owner ever bled the brakes since the time he replaced the stock SRAM brakes with XTR. Based on his poor maintenance on everything else, I suspect never. I have yet to come across any reason why the brakes would need to be bled.

Am I doing it wrong?
it depends on the brake fluid. Some fluids absorb water, which reduces the performance of the brakes, and can lead to corrosion of the cylinders and pistons in the braking system. And it is also possible that air can get into the system over time,
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