Hydraulic disc brake experience

On Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at 12:09:56 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
A cable has never leaked out of one of my cable-actuated brakes, disc or no. A cable has never fouled any of my breaking surfaces by touching them, nor damaged the pads beyond repair.

These are a couple of things to bear in mind when you use oil instead of cable to apply the brake.

Hydraulics are not all sunshine and roses, but long, enclosed cable runs and weak return springs on some mechanical discs like the BB7s, made for a draggy, poor performing rear brake. I changed cable and housing and even the mechanical caliper and could never get my rear to work that well. Running it half the year in rain probably didn't help either.

I much prefer the hydraulic rear brake on my commuter, and it has been problem free. The front brake is great, but so was the cable brake. The hydraulic pads self-adjust, which is a nice feature -- and there were times when I forgot to dial-in the pad on my cable front brake and had some scary moments on the sled-runs on my commute route. That was my own fault.

The only problem hydraulic brake I ever owned was a front brake that was bad out of the box. It spoiled some pads, but I resurrected those with brake cleaner and sanding.

-- Jay Beattie.