Lightest Brake Set

Anonymous

Hi guys.

I had a situation tonight where I was undoing my brake levers at the bar when the bolt that holds it together snapped flush inside the thread, so I took the drill out and long story short I messed up the screw hole to the master cylinder so my brakes buggered

Rather than spend on a new M/C I might as well use this opportunity to upgrade, but I don't know whats out there ?

I got my hardtail down to 11.38kg now and I'd really like it down to 10kg so I am after a light weight brake set which wont hurt the bank too much and help me on my way to my goal.

If anyone can offer any suggestions of any light weight brakes that are not too expensive that would be great.

Cheers in advance

BikeSwan

Well . . . You'd have to run no brakes at all to save the 1.38kg to get down to 10kg so that's not really an option. The lightest brakes I know of, that actually work are the Formula R1 Racing. I've got the normal R1's and cant recommend them enough! A truely great brake. Another option is Hope Stealth Evo Race X2, these are quite a bit cheaper than the R1's but still a decent brake.

Anonymous

Yeah I know I aint gonna save all that but if I can make any saving at all from the Hayes Stroker Ryde then its all good.

Thanks for the tips I will check out the Formula R1 and Hope X2, cheers

supersonic

What do your brakes weigh?

Anonymous

I think my current ones say a system weight of 400g ? I dont understand what that means, its not clear, is that including rotors ? lines, fluid etc.

I think these are what I have right now:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=46038

I'm prepared to go up to say £150 for 1 brake and maybe get 1 at a time and use my existing brake while I save for the other.

Reading conflicting reviews about the avid xx brakes and theres many variations, world cup, magnesium etc, am checkin Forumula R1 out now, need to order some tonight or asap as I cant ride until I get some.

supersonic

Without knowing what they weigh exactly is very hard to say if you will lose anything. I would weigh the lever, hose and caliper with pads. Mounts and bolts are going to be the same, as are the rotors (unless you change them).

Anonymous

I'll get right on that in the morning then.

When it says online things like this: Formula’s Race version of the R1 features a carbon lever blade and Kevlar hoses. This drops the weight to just 264 grams and makes it the best choice for every XC-race oriented rider.

What are they weighing ? is it the lever and master cylinder and caliper complete each ? surely its not front and rear complete calipers ?

supersonic

Usually the bits I mentioned: lever unit (ie lever, master cylinder, lever body), hose, caliper and pads. No mounting hardware or rotors.

supersonic

IE this is XTRs Race brake:

Anonymous

Cheers thanks for that Sonic, I'll weigh mine then and weigh up the pros and cons and see if I can find a middle ground on weight and cash.

Cheers

supersonic

But do check the specs just in case! Some might include rotor!

MTBUK

Formula oros are light and good value....powerful.... Yet a little old now.... Personally I love my Hopes.... Not the lightest but I appreciate the machined contours... Good engineering.... I have 3 pairs of evo tech m4's and a set of cheapie formula RX that I brought from bikediscount.de but they're not as powerful IMO.

BikeSwan

On the power front. I was riding a mates Santa Cruz Tallboy LT and he had Hope EVO Race X2's on his bike with 203mm and 180mm rotors. I found this plenty powerful enough for my 190 lbs.

supersonic

Big rotor though! But rotors are an important factor and an area that weight can be chopped.

Anonymous

:shock:

Hayes Stroker Ryde - Front - 243g


Hayes Stroker Ryde - Rear - 260g


How can this be ? cheep and nasty old Hayes stroker ryde only 23g more than those Race XTR's ??

Theres gotta be something wrong here, those weights claimed by brakes like Formula 1 @ 273g say one of the lightest on the market, so it must include rotor ?

I have those aishima rotors @ 80g each so I dont want to change those.

Now what do I do ? just get a replacement master cylinder and save £400 ?

supersonic

I use Stroker Carbon (carbon blade) and I do like them a lot!

But as above, it really does depend on what they ar actually measuring, many can be coy about what bits they actually have on the scales.#

Looking at Formula R1 Racing, the weight of 270g is for a 850mm hose and rotor and bolts!

Anonymous

Phew...

OK well me rotor, lets see if I have a pic somewhere...



So for the front its currently:

Hayes Stroker Ryde - 243g
Ashima 160mm Disc - 88g
UberBike Rotor Bolts - 15g

Total Brake Weight - 346g

So potential saving of 76g for the front if I go Forumula R1 and I cant see me getting much lighter than those for the money, so I might be lucky and save 150g then in total for a £400 spend, or just get a replacement hayes M/C for 1/4 of the money and stop using red, soft, ally bolts that snap for bling factor and put it down to lesson learned

That being said, ever since I put those rotors on and at the same time added new Uber Bike pads my brakes have been absolutely rubbish, dont know if its the pads or rotors thats responsible, but its still a lot of money ....

Anonymous

Just to update.

3:36am Zzzzz been an education again this evening/morning, I wouldn't go to bed until I found a replacement set of brakes.

I found that even throwing silly money at brakes isn't going to save me significant weight, then I came across this at Merlin Cycles:

Formula RX 2012 Disc Brake Set 160mm - £169 and I got an extra 10% off at checkout

341g weight, so while I probably wont save anything it's been an affordable upgrade and I hope to have better braking with it than the Ryde.

It also says this:

New for 2012: upgrade your brakes with our new FCS (feeling control system), TFRA (tool free reach adjustment), SpeedLock and MixMaster.

So I may go for the FCS and TFRA upgrade when I get them installed, bike should come in at least 11.3k dead so a new chainset in time will get me into the 10kg hardtail category and i'd be happy at that.

Thanks everyone for the help, couldnt have got this far without it.

Cheers 8)

70\ʹspenguin

Expensive stuff but this site is great for weenie info.

http://r2-bike.com/Home