I think Dave is right about disc brakes on cheaper bikes. I have 105 hydraulic discs on my current bike and like them a lot, but quality rim brakes are surely better than cheap mechanical disc.

Thanks for having an impartial and rational conversation about it, especially given the amount of experience you have with all types of bikes. It seems like you're the only cycling publication capable of doing that.

I owned two bikes one with 105 hydro and one 105 with TRP SLC spyre mechanical set up with Compressionless outers, both calipers are set up with Swiss stop green resin pads, I found the Mechanical with 160mm rotors felt and stopped as good as my hydro on 140mm rotors, ultimately the hydro on 160mm stopped me a foot or two shorter. But I choose to sell a bike and I kept the TRP SLC spyre mechanical the main reason is Shimano has a horrible big lump where the hydro hose connects to the lever, it absolutely digs into my hand and winds me up! The mechanical R7000 levers are so much comfier without that hydro hose! Also the trp slc are super easy to set up and adjust, and with Compressionless outers transmit the power really well, plus when ya wheels are off there is zero issues if your levers get pressed etc.

I have hy/rd on one bike and Yokozuna on 2 bikes and love them. So close to full hydraulic but with ease of mechanical. I can also swap out to different setups easily. I recently switched my salsa Fargo from drop bars to flat bars and kept my Yokozuna brakes without an issue.

When I moved to discs over 3 years ago there was so much chat about increased maintenance. Apart from changing the pads I have had absolutely no maintenance with the hydraulic brakes whatsoever, and they work as well now as the day I bought them. Genuinely think you make the cost back over time by not needing to replace cables.

I’ve had rim, manual disc and fully hydrolic discs. They are all good if you maintain them. A good rim break is as good as a mid disc break.

Another factor is type of rim brake. In-line or V brakes have great modulation but require long-pull levers and very few dropbar brakes are long pull, none that also shift I don’t think. If the industry made them I’d build a bike around them-while I still have rim brake wheels knocking about.

There is another category for disc brakes: Not just 2 - - Sure there is cable disc brakes, and Hydraulic brakes - - there is a 3rd option A self enclosed Cable-actuated hydro brake. and while it is NOT as good as full hydro - is IS hugely better than plain mechanical disc brakes. and the cheap cost of cable disc brakes, and the expensive levers and brakes for full hydro, cable actuated-hydro units ARE between these two extremes and a good option from HY/RD, Juin, Zrace, and others. That aside, any debate about disc vs. rim... Sorry Rim brakes loose big time, I ride gravel and I want to be able to stop. Hate all you want there is no substitute for disc brake.

Hydraulic brakes are great for summer! Winter requires cable actuated disc brakes. In Montreal today, with the windchill, It was -36 Fahrenheit. That's not a typo! My rear TRP hydraulic line froze!

would be nice to have some information on which mechanical brakes worked better, I'm sure we'd all choose hydraulic (and dura ace) but not always in the budget

I'm still skeptical. Show me the data that indicates disk makes you faster on a track or in a race, and also that hydraulic is faster than mechanical disc. I don't believe any of this is needed, and I believe it's simply a matter of what you're used to. I have strong hands, most people do, and it doesn't bother me to use my little fingers to press a little harder when what I really need to worry about is the hundreds of watts my legs are outputting, and how to make that more efficient. etc. My two cents! : )

Thanks for another interesting and informative field test. CT is a must not miss on any tech related product/tool/maintenance for me. I trust Dave R. , Dave “shoddy” E. , and James H. ‘s opinions . How about a little old school stuff , for all of us that like steel n titanium rim brake road bikes. I have a fatbike w/hydro brake, gravel bike w/mech discs and a Moots ti road bike with Campy 12 speed Record and Campy Bora wto tubeless rim brake wheels. The braking is superb on the rim brakes. I live in hilly, not mountainous terrain and I never lack for stopping power or have any braking issues with rim brakes. Plus, I love the ride feel of my road bike. There are still a lot of us out here, and the industry is missing out because we are all buying n.o.s. or used components to be able to ride what we want. I know CT editors agree at least partially because I listen to the podcasts and here the occasional mention of an editors “rim brake , non-aero, non-carbon, non-internally routed favorite bike ;-) Keep up the good work and thanks, Dave

Dave is right about the detriment of discs on entry level bikes. Lots of comprises are made to slap the cheapest mechanical disc setup onto some of those bikes that would be better served with rim brakes.

spyre slc plus compressionless housing for the win!

When I got my first dual-pivot campy brakes I was amazed coming from old campy super record brakes. I guess disc brakes might be needed going down hills on tour, but I must be missing something here. 🤔

Refreshingly honest takes. Personally, I had hydraulics, mechanicals and rim brakes on my three bikes. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve removed the hydraulics from the bike thad had them. Given the shortages these past two years, replacing a steel cable is more of a sure bet over brake fluid… specially proprietary ones

Hydraulic are great as long you dont deal with leaking pistons - as it is common problem with shimano. Good mechanical such as paul klampers are fantastic

I have both hydraulic and mechanical brake bikes. I adjust things to perfection and recently converted a mechanical to hydraulic. I think braking power wise, hydraulic is overhyped compared to a “decent” mechanical brake. You get about the same braking power. Most hydraulic brakes are basically just hydraulic brakes pushed by fluid instead of cables unlike cars where there are brake boosters to multiply force. In terms of lever feel, hydraulic is unmatched because you’re not battling against the cable friction and the spring tension of your calipers, I love the feel of hydraulic levers. I do notice most cheap bikes these days with mechanical disc brakes, levers are a lot harder to pull, almost like the caliper spring tension is too great maybe that’s where all of the bad reputation about mechanical disc brakes requiring a lot more force for the same braking power is coming from. A decent mechanical disc brake with properly adjustable cable should feel nice and easy to engage at the levers. Maintenance wise, honestly it’s the same, if you can replace cable and housing, you can bleed a hydraulic disc brake. Overall, my opinion(only mine) is if you go from a “decent” mechanical to hydraulic and expect a magical increase in braking power, you will be disappointed. If you don’t like springy lever feel and want a nice refined lever pull feel, you will love hydraulic. It is a nice upgrade but there is absolutely nothing wrong with mechanical brakes.

I think I get a certain amount of tactile feedback with mechanical brakes opposed to hydraulic brakes. I've been in some extremely dangerous situations where it was more about the range of the pressure once engaged, than purely locking the wheels. Sometimes you want to sllow down but not lock your wheels because then you don't stop, you skid and knowing exactly how much more or less to engage the front brake, rear brake, of both simultaneously does more than keep you from a spill. It can save your life. I was so close to getting impaled from a splintered fallen tree that it ripped through my t-shirt, about about an inch from my kidney snd I saw it, hit my brakes, realized I needed more pressure to totally lock the rear wheel to initiate a skid that gave me that extra little clearance to avoid the wooden spike and it all happened in less than 1.5 seconds. It was skill, not luck but I wouldn't have been able to do it on hydraulics because you don't feel any "feedback" and that feedback can save your ass like it saved my kidney..

The key benefit of discs is too often forgotten……..wider tyre clearances. Rim brakes limit to 28-30mm. I’ve used mech,mech/hydro and hydro: for bang for buck the Juno Tech R1 mech/hydros are surprisingly good. Not quite full hydros but close enough.

I wished that the panelists had covered the question of rim wear when using rim brakes. How much of an issue is that? I'm curious, as both of my vintage bikes have rim brakes. Another question I wished they'd addressed was how often do hydraulic brakes need to be bled on bicycles? On motorcycles, it's generally every 2-3 years. Is the maintenance interval the same for bicycle disc brakes? Why or why not?

Disc brakes are just not needed for road biking. If your going carbon wheels i get disc. Alloy rims and rim brakes works great and your bike is about 3 lbs lighter and its easy to fix.

Full Hydraulic Disc Brake on road bike need cheaper options like what we have in MTB.

Brakes my favorite topic! Hydraulic brakes for only MTB, cross, gravel. Disk for dirt rim for road!

I have two disk bikes both with “mechanical disk” TRP SLC Carbons, with 140 rotors and compression less outers, “I stop just fine! , “a lot shorter than my rim brake bikes.” The fact is there’s only a 2 LBS difference more on pull on the mechanical disk brakes as vs the hydros to mimic hydro stoping power. I personally don’t feel a difference in that weight difference in pull. My wife has hydros on her bike and the only difference I can feel is a little less friction obviously because they are hydros, however my mechanical disk are really smooth and have almost a frictionless feel to them. Another good thing is that mechanical disk are far cheaper than hydros and ya don’t need fluid, or to worry about temperature changes, also ya don’t have to worry about brake fad with mechanical disk brakes. Another good thing is there easy to set up and a snap to maintain.

I know it wasn’t part of the test series, but if anyone has tried the Paul Klampers mech disc calipers ($$) it would have added to the discussion

Didn’t mention anything about hybrid disc brakes, informative video though

I have one set of mechanicals that are scary powerful, I wish I knew how to find another set, they are unbranded, but they use the same brake pads as the hydraulic shimano's, which I've never seen before. Can endo a 70 lb e-bike with no problem. Have to be careful at high speeds.

Mechanical disc brakes needs good housing to work the best. Unfortunately the housing that comes delivered on budget bikes may not be all that good. I bought a tandem some years ago with mechanical discs, and with the long cable runs you couldn't transfer the power to the rear brake, just too much flex in the housing. I changed to yokozuna housing, and the brake was transformed. Well-maintained hydraulics is still better of course, but for me it's not a strong enough reason to upgrade.

Mechanical brakes can be set up to have less hand strain it's all about spring tension. Just need calipers that reduce that. Also one finger braking can be done with rim brakes. And a gyro. On short pull systems. Sounds like you need better housing Teflon coated inner wires and a compression less housing like nokon. Finger and thumb grease. Coat the inners. Use triflow through the cables as well once the housings are one. Make sure you work it through and run it till you see triflow come out the far end. But don't completely wash out the grease. Proper lubrication reduces the amount of tension needed which reduces fatigue. My bmx brakes with dual cables completely compressionless straight pull from lever to brake arms feels like a Hydro with the lowest lever tension you've felt. Springs back quick not quite as snappy as some are used to but low tension like extremely low. My springs are tensioned with fingers. Hydros just have more clamping force which is needed for discs. And get around the disadvantages of a disc system over rim brakes.

i have trp spyre with compressionless outers to here , i much prefer the simplicity of install and adjust vs hydrolic but for mtb i have to admit it is the way

And what about Giant's combi system. I have it on a 2017 Revolt that I use bikepacking. It's paired with a set of Tiagra levers. Works super. Only had to bleed it once in 5 years. Modulation and power are more than acceptable. Definitely cheaper that full hydraulic.

Hydraulic disc brakes are good but if you live in a very cold place and want to ride to work in the winter your brake fluid will freeze up if you have to live you leave your bicycle out side that is a big down side to hydraulic disc brakes for me.I may have to go back to mechanical brakes so I can ride in the winter more.I wish I had knew this before I switch over to hydraulic disc brakes.It get very cold in Maine.

Have two high end groupsets that are cable pull which are getting dusty on the shelf. Gonna try juin tech for the hell of it

You do know, All breaks just only slow you down? Where I really need help is in the Speeding Up

Excellent. Thank you.

The cheapest to maintain is rim brake / v brakes. It’s enough to stop the bike even when wet or raining. Tested it real life. To those folks saying rim bakes suck in wet condition, you’re not running incredible speeds like 60 miles per hour like a motor vehicle does, and definitely the bike isn’t as heavy as a car. How much stopping power you needs. Lots of folks saying you need a disc brake for stronger stopping power, in real life, disc brake indeed has more stopping power but you don’t really need that much stopping power in bicycles. Rim brake is enough. Again it’s not a heavy vehicle and you don’t run at very high speeds.

and isnt it true that if you hang a hydraulic bike vertically the liquid leaks out?

Are you more likely to go over your handlebars with a mechanical disc brake?

I've always said hydraulic, as they just work, and have that 'bite' when you pull the lever. However, I wanted to give the mechanical discs a chance, so I bought the Crockett with mechanical discs, and they were okay, but nowhere near as good as hydraulics. In fact, my rim braked Domane, with SwissStop pads were just as good.

is trp spyre work with fully intrgrated cable frame?

I wish they would have made a distinction between mech brakes for drop bar bikes and mech brakes for flat bar bikes. I have TRP Spyres (considered to be among the best mech brakes) on my drop bar gravel bike and they are horrible whereas I have bottom of the barrel Tektro brakes on a $900 cheap ebike and they work fine. TLDR: Mechanical brakes on drop bar bikes suck, mechanical brakes on a flat bar bike are fine.

road race pro's fall on just about every race because of disc. off road disc is fine but on road is dangerous

There’s pro cons with each system…………. It’s a matter on which system is best for you and what system you like, and cost factor.

heavy, cleaning the dirt off, not as aero, rubbing, maintenance, disc wear, changing wheels,... how about other issues

Then there are cable actuated hydraulic brakes. Any thoughts on this combo variety?

I sure don't need hydraulic for a regular bike tour in mostly flat terrain. For that they are just not worth the hustle!

I went from Spyre "Tiagra" level mechanical discs to Ultegra rim breaks and thought the rim brakes were far superior. I've since gone to 105 hydraulic discs. I'll never, ever have a rim brake bike again. I can only imagine how good Ultegra, Dura-Ace or top-end Sram hydraulic discs must be, because 105 is bloody good.

I can't really tell because I use brakes as little as possible. 😀

I wonder if v-brakes wouldn't be as if not more effective (at least in the dry) than some of the mechanical discs on those bikes.

Has anyone ever actually clipped a hydraulic housing? People love to use this as a benefit of mechanical brakes, but I can't recall ever seeing a cable that has failed this way, and I work as a bike mechanic! I've seen cables kinked, but they still work fine, and I've seen one hydraulic cable chewed up by a dog. But that's it...

Can you speak to hydro/mechanical disc brakes? or should I say, Cable actuated hydraulic brakes.

Love my rim brakes

One of my riding partners lost his hydraulic brakes on Mt. Evans and had to do a bleed prior to a decent. Is this a common issue with hydraulic brakes?

I wonder what others folks have to say about the the cable actuated hydraulic calipers. It always seemed to be a good solution with no hoses to mess with and simple set up.

👍👍👍👍

I have been a pretty early adopter of road disc brakes and find that hydro discs, despite some drawbacks, are "the solution" for me I'm almost all cases. I initially had a commuter with mechanical MB brakes (Avid levers/Shimano calipers) and I have to say I have never had a problem with them (on the road or light trail use). I have had drop bar mechanical disc setups and they sucked no matter what I tried - different calipers, optimum cabling, etc. My unscientific conclusion is there is no way to obtain the combination of mechanical advantage and long cable pull that would be necessary for the mechanical disc/DB combination to work well, or that no manufacturer has really tried hard to make it so (given the option of selling a more expensive system).

There is no price on products that keep you alive. Brakes are the only thing that are your only life insurance. I have been running disk brakes for about 22 years now.

The only advantage on hydraulics is the simplicity of creating the mechanical advantage (force on the lever force applied on the disc) . But the same mechanical advantage could be achieved mechanically as well. It would a very simple engineering task in fact. Why don't we see more of that in the market?

No.

Labor....? First world users... Cable actuated is the cheapest thing ever. You're so lazy that you have to "change cables" or "change housings"... When a hydraulic gets broken is A TOTAL NIGHTMARE TO SET IT BACK AGAIN. With mechanic you lose one screw and reroute the cable and is done. You need to tell cycling community that the need to learn basic mechanic by themselves. Not to take the bike to the shop when some screw got loose...

Please don't take this personal, you take a hose with a piston on a braided hose with no air in the lines identical to a car fluid becomes a solid substance like an imaginary bar now a solid substance identically as a cable, if there's any air in it it's going to be spongy cuz air can be compressed why all the air has to be out of the line same thing with a car the same Concepts identically cable or fluid they're identically the liquid weighs more than the cable on the short run AKA like a bike cable because it's very thin 0.1 mm I believe. Between the two mechanically or hydraulic there's no big difference you not talking about 50% it's all hype mechanical/Hydraulics work just as good AKA identically literally making me Google you need to learn more go to any Machine Shop they will walk you through the whole entire system not difficult you can teach a child not trying to stop an automobile 25 to 3,000 lb or 5,000 lb it's a bicycle. That's why semis don't use hydraulics they use air brakes now let's put that on bicycle why would they do that traveling with 80000 lb piece of equipment fully loaded curiosity Never Killed the kitties. Like I said don't take this personally no advertisement going on> on my side.

Always makes me laugh when the old 'disc brakes are better in the wet' line is trotted out. That may be true, but 99% of cyclists don't go out on their bike when it's pissing down.

lol I can't believe hydraulic brakes are a thing on Bikes. Whats next 100hp motor bigger tires an bigger frames? fyi there called motorcycles.

Imagine converting your car's hydraulic brakes to cable actuation......Would it be safe???

rim brakes are awesome if set up correctly Cable discs are Rubblish Hydro in many cases is over kill on a road race bike (unless its raining) but u wouldn't be on tbe bike racing then in 99% of cases anyway. #marketing