Life In The Saddle

Cable actuated disc brakes get a lot of bad press. There is some justification for that — most of the systems lack the modulation and performance of their hydraulic counterparts. There is however one set of cable disc brakes that shines above the rest: the TRP Spyre SLC Disc Brake. This lightweight and sleek cable disc caliper excels in both design and functionality. My Kona Private Jake arrived in 2016 with a set of TRP's Spyre-C disc brakes fitted as standard. Those brakes worked very well for over 25,000 kilometres of use and abuse; I rode the bike for daily commutes (including a salty daily ferry journey), and I rode the bike fully loaded over the highest cols in the Pyrenees on the #CoastsandCols tour. The Spyre-C took all this abuse in hand and always produced the stopping power I demanded. This year, with the Kona Private Jake hitting a 25,000 kilometre anniversary, I decided it was time to upgrade and replace a number of the parts. To be honest, most of the component...

There is a plethora of bicycle disc brake pads on the market, but ask professional bike mechanics what their preferred option is, and SwissStop is often the popular choice. The brand produces disc brake pads for all kinds of bicycle; from road to cyclocross, and mountain bike. In this blog post I report back on my review findings after testing the complete range of SwissStop disc pads both off-road and on-road over the last year, with close to 25,000 kilometres of riding. SwissStop make four different models of disc brake pads: Green Organic, Yellow RS Racing, ExoTherm, and Silver Endurance. All of these pads are organic (not sintered) formula pads; providing a low noise and rotor-friendly contact with the disc brake rotor. All the pads are also designed to be stable at extremely high temperatures, such as those encountered on long mountain descents. The pads differ in the composition of the organic formula though, and also in the case of ExoTherm there is a different back panel. ...

The disc brake pads and disc brake rotors fitted to your bike play a significant role in braking power, modulation, and reliability. The pads supplied with your bike on purchase will only last around 5000 kilometres at most, so there comes a time when you will be shopping for after-market disc pads and considering replacing the disc rotors. In this ' Workshop Focus ' post, I look at the things to consider in this selection. Understanding Disc Brakes Disc brakes use a caliper mounted near the dropouts of the frame or fork of a bicycle. Two pads are housed inside the caliper, and pistons force these onto the rotating rotor; the resulting friction is what slows and stops the wheel. Pistons can be cable actuated or hydraulic powered. For a disc brake to be effective, the friction between the pad and the rotor needs to be strong enough; this is negatively affected by contaminants like grit, oil and mud — so it is vital to remove these to ensure consistent braking performanc...

When I bought my Whippet frame about 18 months ago, the intention was always to upgrade the components that I transferred from my original Gary Fisher, and with that build up a commuter bike. As you probably saw in one of my last photo blogs  the commuter bike is all built now. One of the key components to upgrade was the brakes. The previous bike had Deore M535 brakes on it, which largely I had always been very impressed by; due to their value, reliability, lack of maintenance and robustness. As a result when I started looking for upgrades, my mind was slightly in favour of a Shimano set up again. I was happy then when I put the question to the best forum in the world: 'Twitter', that Shimano brakes came up often as a recommendation for their easy maintenance and good performance. As is often the way it seems, the SLX version of this year's brakeset was almost identical to the XT version, just with a slightly different lever body design and a very slightly (just a ...