KneesUp
Guru
After fettling with the brakes on my bike again over the weekend, they're still not that great. I know how to adjust them, I know pads make a difference and I know maintenance makes a difference. But they never seem to work perfectly for long.
They are rim brakes and so have all the inherent disadvantages of that design - braking wears the rim, wet weather makes them less effective, and if the wheel is buckled they rub. Plus it's a pain to get them to centre properly.
My bike frame as is won't take discs - it would need bracing at the back and a new fork, and nice 1" off the shelf forks with disc mounts are a little thin on the ground anyway. Besides which, I don't really like the sound of discs. I've never ridden them, but as far as I can tell from reading here, there can be issues with noisy application, with judder, with pads lasting less time than they take to fit, with discs warping, with hot discs burning people and you still get rain and muck and all sorts on the braking surface, which means that in the wet they still don't brake immediately.
So, I've been looking at drum brakes. Not the Shimano roller brakes, the drum brakes as made by Sturmey Archer. These seem to address many of the issues:
1) the pads basically last forever (I've read of 20,000 miles) and there is enough adjustment in the system to mean you don't need to unbolt the cable during the life of the pads
2) they are sealed units, so even in the wet the pad and braking surface is dry and clean
3) you can fit them to a bike without disc mounts (sturdy fork recommended - mine is)
4) there is no rim wear
5) they look neat
6) I can use 26" rims designed for discs, wich gives me a lot more choice. Many 26" rims now have no brake track.
On the minus side they are a few hundred grams heavier than a normal hub (although some of that is offset by the saved weight of the cantilever arms and possibly being able to get a lighter rim)
That's as far as I've got. I don't know anyone with drum brakes, or anyone who has ridden with them. If you have drum experience, I'd love to hear it.
The bike is my drop-bar MTB conversion with slicks, which gets used for everything really, unless it's really muddy, when I use a normal MTB, or it's a high day or holiday, when the road bike comes out.
They are rim brakes and so have all the inherent disadvantages of that design - braking wears the rim, wet weather makes them less effective, and if the wheel is buckled they rub. Plus it's a pain to get them to centre properly.
My bike frame as is won't take discs - it would need bracing at the back and a new fork, and nice 1" off the shelf forks with disc mounts are a little thin on the ground anyway. Besides which, I don't really like the sound of discs. I've never ridden them, but as far as I can tell from reading here, there can be issues with noisy application, with judder, with pads lasting less time than they take to fit, with discs warping, with hot discs burning people and you still get rain and muck and all sorts on the braking surface, which means that in the wet they still don't brake immediately.
So, I've been looking at drum brakes. Not the Shimano roller brakes, the drum brakes as made by Sturmey Archer. These seem to address many of the issues:
1) the pads basically last forever (I've read of 20,000 miles) and there is enough adjustment in the system to mean you don't need to unbolt the cable during the life of the pads
2) they are sealed units, so even in the wet the pad and braking surface is dry and clean
3) you can fit them to a bike without disc mounts (sturdy fork recommended - mine is)
4) there is no rim wear
5) they look neat
6) I can use 26" rims designed for discs, wich gives me a lot more choice. Many 26" rims now have no brake track.
On the minus side they are a few hundred grams heavier than a normal hub (although some of that is offset by the saved weight of the cantilever arms and possibly being able to get a lighter rim)
That's as far as I've got. I don't know anyone with drum brakes, or anyone who has ridden with them. If you have drum experience, I'd love to hear it.
The bike is my drop-bar MTB conversion with slicks, which gets used for everything really, unless it's really muddy, when I use a normal MTB, or it's a high day or holiday, when the road bike comes out.