I love your content, there's a bit of no nonsense approach to things and in the same time a good level of thoroughness in your analysis and comparisons and you always go for componentry that many of us, all over the world, would be much more susceptible to use than what you'd see on those GCN wannabee channels. So thank you for having our back ! Had never heard of those but now I'm intrigued, very intrigued. That price point ain't to steep for such an important safety feature.

Terrific review Nolan! Glad you're enjoying the brakes. Sick bike, too btw!

I've got Growtacs on my touring bike and my fat bike, and I love them. I ditched my Yokozuna hydro-mechanicals for them. They're strong and easy to set up and adjust, but like you said, you do need to read the directions. I also lost the little plug for the pad adjuster hole on one brake, but fortunately it's tapped for an M4 bolt! I replaced the plugs with bolts on all 4 calipers. It does mean you need another tool to get at the pad adjusters, but so far that hasn't caused any problems.

They definitely look premium and go perfectly with your super dialed in Ritchey Outback. Another amazing review. I don’t have any experience with mechanical disk brakes but they have come a long way from the Avid mechanical brakes from years ago. Hydro brake calipers with cable lines seem to be the happy medium.

Thank you for your great review,i run trp spyre and happy with them,but always was aware other mechanical disc systems ,but now i have the knowledge of your review,i know what path to take, fine work again Nolan

Nice review! love that these exist. Don't get me wrong the Klampers (ive only ridden post mount) look and perform great but you really can't beat that price point. I want these on my next bike.

I believe quality mechanicals are so underrated. Nice to see quality stuff are still out there.

Switched from XT hydros to these after a caliper developed a leak at the piston and have not looked back at all. They are a breeze to set up, and no bleeding or hunting for leaks when something goes wrong. I don't feel like I am giving up much at all and the ease of maintenance and reduced noise are welcome changes. Makes internally routed stuff so much easier as well. They are MUCH better than most previous cable discs that I have tried (spyres, BB7) and lighter/slimmer but just as good as the Klampers. Was thinking of going back to rim brakes on all my bikes but these have changed my mind.

Getting the BB7s on my city/touring bike to work properly is a full-time job, so I often think it’s only a matter of time before I spring for these. But then I adjust the BB7s well enough to continue deferring, especially since I already have a gravel bike with 105 hydros for when I want more performance-oriented actuation. Maybe the next time I build a steel frame up from scratch I’ll go with these. Thanks for the useful review!

My favorite endurance bike came with Tektro mechanicals and I love everything about the bike except for the brakes. I’m not ready to change out the whole drivetrain yet, so I think I’ll give these a try. Thanks for the review. I’m enjoying your channel and your style of presenting information.

For cable actuated disc brakes, I love my Juin Tech Gt-F . Of course they hydraulic at the calipers.

Hey Nolan, at the end of this video you mention "cable stretch". I've always wondered about what is actually happening when people refer to "cable stretch". I'm no engineer, just a humble bike mechanic, but from my basic understanding of steel it seems unlikely that a steel cable could "stretch" enough to account for the amount of slack that's created right after installing new cables and housing or the slackening over time. I've always assumed that the slackening over time was caused by other parts in the system like the housing compressing or the ferrules being pressed on all the way under the force of braking. I was hoping as an engineer you could shed some light on what was actually going on when folks talk about "cable stretch". Many thanks, love the channel, keep up the good work!

Great review!

Interesting video, I hadn’t thought there would be any one making higher end mechanical disc brakes. I’ve seen a machined gear shifter somewhere that looked interesting as well

we have Paul components to thank for these, and competition is great for consumers. exciting

I think these are a great choice for your retro Ritchey where you are trying to blend an aesthetic not possible with hydros. I’ve said it before, but that build is stunning and appears to work as good as it looks. I just took delivery of a Corvid MAP. At the suggestion of the builder, the brakes are the other end of the spectrum for a drop bar. Force AXS hoods, 4 piston Guides, and 180s. I honestly never thought I’d need or want that much brake on a drop bar bike but after a few rides I’m sold. I’m also fussy about my brakes, with the same preferences as you, and this combo is the Sauce. The whole bike is equally bananas. Great video as always.Happy new year.

Great review, thanks! It would be great to hear more about your academic work! btw: consider getting a pair of plastic screws to replace the flimsy pad adjustment cover with ;)

Love the review and the in-depth details. Now if I had a bike with disk brakes............. :-)

Thanks , hadn't heard of these brakes before , I have my touring bike set up with mechanical brakes ( who needs hydraulic problems in the middle of nowhere) so all I do is carry a spare inner cable , weights nothing takes up no room , I went with the scram bb7 I am extremely happy with the power and modulation , actually just as powerful as my hydraulic MTB set up or nearly so could not imagine needing more and at a substantial amount less price wise than the clampers and grotacs , but I do like their look so I will give them a go as soon as the misses isn't looking

Great review! I just purchased an aluminum Topstone with SORA, because I like the simplicity of cable actuated brakes. Growtacs are a serious consideration. High-quality mechanical brakes are grossly underrated, IMO, and so is compressionless housing. Want to "wake up" mechanical brakes? Try compressionless housing. The levers, housing, cables and calipers are a system. The housing is the weak link.

When you say, "the ride feel is just dandy," you became my favorite bike vlogger. Good video again. Please keep it up.

Juin Tech mechanicals with Kevlar fiber EBC pads are the strongest combination I have experienced in the cable actuated category . You must use compressionless woven style sheathing like that used for BMX detangler systems .

Nice video. I have a Ritchey outback also. I have the juin tech gt cable hydro 4 piston on the Ritchey and have been very happy with them. This is my 2nd set 1st were on a Raliegh Tamland gravel bike. They worked flawlessly on both bikes. Would be interesting to see you revue them. I set both bikes up with yokozuna cables. The juentechs are sold by a few other brands with their brand on them, including Yokozuna. Juentech has 3 cable hydro brakes now 2, 4 and a 6 piston. I,ve had the 4 piston version version for about 3 years. Weights for them 4 g heavier than the grotacks.

Looking forward to getting my hands on some of these. I wonder how rebuildable they are. I also hope people really do read the directions, because the setup of the cam vis a vis the leverage function is super important to be done stepwise.

thanks for the review! one day I want to pair these with some ritchey brake cable connectors; then you could quickly swap between a road and suspension fork on a bike like the stigmata

Thanks for describing your experience with these calipers. Now I want them even more. I wonder if they work well w/ the Sword brifters.

The tensile strength of duralumin is higher than aluminum, although its resistance to corrosion is poor. I wouldn't want to use it in the winter.

I use Paul Klampers on two of my bikes. They work better than any of the other’s (Avid BB7 and TRP spyres) that I have tried. However, I recently changed from using 11 speed Ultegra levers to Dia Compe non-aero brake levers and was surprised how much better they have become. Would love to try the growtacs, but can’t justify as have two sets of Klampers!

I have the gold anodized growtacs on my VO Passhunter. Love them. 🧡

wow... sure would be curious what one actually requires to stop a bike. its like RC car stuff, pricey hop ups... I guess as an old bmx rider I dont use "element" and "nuance" when tuning my old heap. sweet ride. Brake dyno huh... I squeeze the lever(s) fer my research data! I thoroughly enjoyed this review man! I gotta get into this scene. I subbed and thumbed! Cheers from Santa Cruz

Personally looking forward to upgrading the Avid BB7s to one of these on the right bike Very much looking forward to building a touring setup with them

This might be the best mechanical brake ever made.

I love mechanical discs. I'd be interested in trying to install these on a trials bike...

You can use those black rubber covers you put in the steerer bolts to cover the Pad dialer-thingy . if its too big,, maybe a little hack will fix it.

But not sure if mentioned, great thing about Paul's is that you can minimize that "bend" to the rotor if you probably set up the non actuated side pad correctly to almost zero bending as it can be adjusted to act as a wall; rather than leaving a large gap there leaving room for bending 👍

Thanks for the super clear review! Can the flat-mount version also be used with MTB (long-pull) levers because the brake-leverage can be adjusted?

I'm rather intrigued by cable disks. Seems like if you can get really good ones like this, it's the best of both, light weight, lots of power and simplicity.

I've had a problem with my rear caliper freezing och locking up during cold weather. It could be condensation in the brake housing, since it does angle downward from the caliper. Has anyone else experienced this problem? For reference, I live in southern Sweden where it's cold but not super cold, say -5/-10C.

I mean you can get a pair of hybrid-mechanic juintech f1's for half that price and they have insane good braking performance, are super easy to set up and i haven't had any issues over the 6500km i had them on my bike. Would highly recommend those.

Thanks for sharing. My self I have an Outback breakaway and looking for a nice brake. I had the spyre slc which didn’t convince me a lot. A friend of mine suggested to try shimano rs305. Have you tried them? After buying these growtrac are staying with it or returning to hydraulic? I am torn between growtrac (if the rs305 don’t work well) and hydraulics and buy hydraulic housing splitter . Enjoy your ride

I would like to see you review the TRP Spyke dual piston and TRP Spyre dual piston. They're a lot cheaper. I have them both on my MTB and Gravel bikes. No issues.

what is the nature of the mechanical leverage that makes these better. for whatever reason my understanding of at least mechanical brakes, leverage is purely relative the length of lever.

I used Paul Klampers and then Growtac Equal on the same bike. Much prefer the Growtac Equal. It's lighter and feels like the top end power is higher, with no downsides I can tell. I did not lose any of the plugs.

A lot of comments about Growtacs being the same price as Hydros here. So I'll share this: I own a set myself, and my partner decided to go SRAM AXS Force D2 group. I lost count of the times I had to stop mid-ride and flip my partner's bike upside down to reset the pistons on the hydro brakes. I've yet to have an issue with the Growtacs and haven't had to stop mid-ride to readjust the pads. I also use several different wheelsets, and having to readjust the brake callipers between wheels was a pain back when I was using Hydro. With the Growtacs, I can do this with a simple Allen key. You can also adjust mech pads without taking the wheel off. With hydros, you have to do the Hail Mary every time you reset the pistons; if it rubs, you have to take the wheel off again to reset.

How well can you feel when the wheels are about to lock up vs. hydraulic, mixed like TRP HY/RD, and other mechanical disc brakes? The lack of “feedback” is still the main thing keeping me from mechanical disc brakes. I feel that even normal V-brakes give better feedback compared to (most) mechanical disc brakes.

All they have to do is use a cam style pivot, like modern Shimano hydraulic brakes, the first part of the levee pull gives greater pad movement which means less brake rub as the pads can be further away from the rotor, then as the pads make contact you have the 'slower' part of the cam which gives much greater leverage/force and better modulation.

Says they have modulation but with the lightest lever action. How do you feel the modulation?

I don't get it - why there aren't any fm calipers with dual actuation? At least I haven't found any. For pm, there are plenty to choose from, i.e. a good budget zoom db680

So they work with both long-pull levers and road bike levers out of the box? 👍🏻

Do you find a big difference in pad wear rates on the moving vs non-moving sides? It’s probably more of an academic question than practical. But, if there was a big difference I guess a little extra economy could be had by cycling through new pads one at time.

Would be interesting to see how the internals of the mechanicals of the brakes work. Is it a rotating screw, a cam, or how does it work. Seems that it must be a pretty simple mechanism, which leads to the thought, why then would one type of mechanical caliper be better than another?

Are these compatible with the cable pull of Campagnolo ergo levers? I've got a nice Athena 11 speed groupset that I'd like to migrate to a frameset designed for disc brakes.

Here’s a data point from bit of a bike nerd on Vancouver Island: My weight is probably approaching 240 lb with rain-soaked cool-weather gear on. I’m on a 64cm Straggler with OEM (road-lever-pull) BB-7 calipers. 160mm rear rotor. 200mm front rotor. Kool Stop sintered pads. The brake levers are Deore (long pull, mtn) with no fancy “speed dial” features. Even on the steepest paved and gravel routes around here, I can use 1 finger on each lever for total braking control. I need not skid. I can do without nose wheelies. Descending long steep routes here, I’ve overheated my rotors - turning them blue-brown, smoking hot, squealing horribly. This comes from descending too slowly with too little cooling airflow and too little aerodynamic braking. QV Jobst Brandt on this. I totally get the fun of nerding out on bike parts. I have a WE ARE ONE (made in Kamloops, BC) rear rim. If you want strong brakes on a budget: put on huge rotors. Yes, lots of modulation and a feeling of “these’ll never let me down”. BTW: those smoking hot, discoloured rotors work just fine after cooling. BTW 2.0: And some gravel descents were too sketchy for air-cooled descents. I’m remedying that by putting in a CushCore insert in my front 40c tire to allow lower pressures and better control on loose gravel descents. Growtacs look like a piece of Skylab after its fiery reentry. PAUL Klampers look like the real McCoy and I bet the Klampers would be fine on my mountain bike (220/200mm φ rotors). Thanks for a great no-nonsense episode. I like your style. Subscribed! And GOOD LUCK!

i've never noticed any difference between mech discs. barely notice hydro being better even. I spend lots of time setting up my brakes.. even my Cantilever 96 Rocky Mountain Cardiac will drop anchor and stop you. only question I have is how much cable pull? 15mm? 11mm? not that I'd ever buy these.

How do they compare to the Ole' Trusty BB7?

Any info on replacement pads for the Growtacs? Do the use a standard pad or something proprietary? Are there organic or sintered options?

Did you get any brake rub on steep climbs?

How do you think they would work with Jagwire's Link compressionless housing?

Given the non-indexed pad adjusters have you experienced the pads slipping ? (Which was very annoying with TRP Spykes) Thanks

can I used that brake on mountain bike?

Are you missing Russ from Path Less Pedaled?

I would be particularly interested to see how they perform in heavy duty mountain biking like Enduro rather than just trail use.

So just curious, outside of bike backing out into nowhere where repairability with minimal tools could be a benefit, why would you want to run mechanical disk brakes? It would seem to be a very limiting system, especially on drop bars where fewer and fewer brifter are available in mechanical brakes.

As i watched this and that part about footprint going up (3:15) my TRP Spyres, double-actuated mechanical yet slim brakes had a chuckle 🙃

Would this be usable on a Downhill mountain bike ? And as rear brake on a moded surron ?

What is the use case for this? It seems to me at this price might as well move to hydraulic.

Entirely too expensive really. You can get entire ltwoo hydro groups for that price. I personally would never spend that coin when you could do something else really.

Single sided pullikg calipers are not meant to be set up with the rotor centered. The rotor should be set as close to the fixed pad as possible to avoid any rotor flex. This is because you can feel the flex and it doesnt result in a firm feeling lever

Hi! thx for that video. can you desribe in a short way how strong the braking power compared to the trp spyre is? With the braking power of the trp spyre I was not very happy... :-(

If you lose the ajuster plug, or a bleed port plug, hot glue works well. If you have a glue gun.

I love my Yokozuna Hybris calipers.

Are you running a 160mm up front on the Ritchey?

I'm glad there's another high end mech brake available than the hilariously overpriced Klampers. However, even these are 3x the cost of the tried and true BB7s. Is the performance really 3x better? I use the BB7s on my e-bike and they have been perfect for what I am looking for. Yes there could be improvement to the brake feel, especially the rear, but I just don't buy that these could have the same or better lever feel (bitepoint and power) as a reputable hydraulic brake. These Growtacs are marginally more expensive than a set of Shimano SLX hydraulics which are what I consider 'reputable'. It's hard to compare brakes on drop bars with the whole brifter thing so I am talking flat bar for ease of comparison.

I wonder if I can run these through a gyro for the dirt jumper? 🤔 They certainly seem cooler than the Spyke/Spyre I'm considering using. Oh wait, single sided pull is straight ass. You either have a ton of pull/gap or they rub, or both. I've never seen a mechanic that can set them up worth a damn. And having warped rotors after a few months is also a drag. Guess I'm sticking with the TRPs on the play bike, (And hydros for mtb/gravel/road.) 😒 Appreciate the review. Seeing you endo almost makes me want to believe in mechanicals again. (But I'm always disappointed by them.)

$400? I'm about to put brakes on my Honda Civic for half that. What is going on???

Be using BB 7 with organic pad and a go cart rotor . Before I got happy. . People overlook the quality of the steel of the rotor . I am 115 kg and ride fast .

How are the growtac equals compared to trp spyres? Is it worth upgrading from trp to growtac for use on a road bike?

Juin Tech had cam slide feature first .

I haven't used these, but a few varieties of single sided brakes. That's a no go for me, now that I've got the TRP Spyre (double sided mechanical) I'm honestly surprised that you're willing to accept the feel of the twisting rotor and the grinding noise under hard braking. Side benefit, the Spyre are beautiful and slender and aero with a nice central cable run whereas the growtac are chunky and large.

Why would someone use this over hydraulic brakes?

I don’t understand why these are so expensive when with the same money you can get a good set of hydraulic brakes and calipers with hoses.

Have you tried the TRP HY/RD's?

TRP SPYRE SLC 145g and dual piston. For as low as €82. I demand. Head 2 head. Cos these were used for cyclo-cross racing for ages, I cannot see how these have better braking performance.

I certainly see the use of these on gravel/road-style bikes or handlebars. Hydraulic brakes are tied to the latest and greatest groupsets with those bikes. But I really don’t see the point of expensive ass mech brakes on a mountain bike. You can get cheaper hydros on an mtb setup.

How compare to Spyre?

oil cant freeze. ;) Never looking back to any cable brake. Shimano brakes need almost no service at all, even when you are riding 10000mls a year. You only have to change pads...

I still fail to see the point of mechanical disc brakes vs hydraulic.

Compared to TRP Spyer?

The obvious problem with these is that even basic hydro disc brakes will slap them. Only difficulty is finding levers for drop bars. Hydro discs fail over time, not suddenly. Reports of snagged hoses are oversold and the likelihood of both of your brakes failing at the same time is negligible. I spent one week with a bike that had "decent" mechanicals (bb7s?) and while they were perfectly strong, they had a horrible lever action and i probably spent more time at the side of the road adjusting them than i did actually riding. People stuck on mechanical discs are curmudgeons at this point. Quality rim brake or hydros, no in between.

Wow outer space aluminum. My mind is fucking blown. Where can we get this rare earth material?

So much more expensive than Avid BB7's without a significant difference in braking power.

I think you'd like them even more if you set up the fixed pad to be closer to the rotor rather than centreing the pads around the rotor as with brakes that have both pistons move. Most people seem to set up these single arm pads incorrectly and then complain about squishing. The fixed pad is intended to be moved in throughout the pads' life to keep it close to the rotor

uh. Single piston is bad. how about doing a side by side comparison with trp spyke or spyre? the video clip of the rear caliper in action shows an incorrectly adjusted brake. IF single piston have a hope in hell of working you have to remember the pad moving is the hammer, the stationary pad is the anvil. you set it so the hammer travels the smallest distance before it hits the anvil. I'm assuming there is a right pad screw, with no tension on move the caliper over so it just clears the left pad. now screw in the right pad so it just clears. put on some tension and Giddyup!(well more like Woah!)

😊

oh dang they're kind of pricey haha

This is so much better that hydraulics. You will always get home with mechanical disc calipers

The set screw critique is a problem of the tool not the brake I would say. Get yourself some PB Swiss Tools allen keys. They also come color coded, but with powder coating. The sleeve type ones from wera are the worst invention. It is not uncommon in any industrial application to have set screw deep in a hole. And any standard allen key, other than wera, will do the job fine to turn these screws^^

why would you need this.... thing, when you can buy a complete hydraulic set for the same money? some people sure do love making things complicated

face your brake mounts and i bet they will feel even better

as aero as a brick though...