TRP HY-RD vs full hydro road set

mamil314

I am in process of putting together a 'road' disc bike on a titanium cx frame. I have a used Campag Chorus groupset in a good shape and was intending to drop in TRP HY RD front and back with perhaps upgraded pads and Shimano rotors (not sure if needed, that 88 turn video is well reassuring).

I am now thinking if I would be better off going with full hydraulic set up, with, perhaps, electrical shifting, since I am building from scratch? Are there any riders who could advise if it would be beneficial to do away with cables and which systems are better value/more reliable? I am not overly concerned with weight savings although that would be a bonus. Sorry if this was covered previously somewhere

gaffer_slow

subscribing as i am interested in how HY RD compares with Shimano Hydraulic.

ugo.santalucia

I have never felt the need for full hydraulic. The Hy-RD is a powerful caliper, more powerful than a mechanical one and that's all the caliper you need. Easier to setup, cheaper and compatible with all road levers. I have caramelised the pads, but the fluid was fine, so that is not a concern. The TRP red pads are not great and I was let down by them on a very wet and muddy day. Basically I destroy them in a couple of hours... I bought some Nukeproof semimetallic from CRC, which are much better and seem to survive some abuse

mamil314

Thanks for reply, Ugo. I understand you used the kit to descend actual mountains and this is sweet information to have. I guess main concern that mostly would pop up while investigating the topic would be lever throw issue as here
viewtopic.php?f=40042&t=12998008
Campag levers might get closer to the bar before locking the wheel but the cycle clinic reported no issues of such setup so it should be fine to stay with my original plan. Meh, was kind of hoping to do away with leaky Ultra Torque BB. As more and more people use full hydraulics on road rigs, hopefully more manufacturers will release their versions which, via competition, will improve the offerings end user can chose from.

scottishgeek

I can't comment on the TRP HY-RD as I have never used them but I recently moved from cable (BB7) to Shimano R685 hydraulic. Only been using them for commuting over the past two week but straight away found them better than the BB7, even with stock pads, in terms on braking ability and better feedback theough the levers. Not tried them yet on long decents so can't say how they cope there.

redvee

Fitted a Hy:Rd, to replace a BB7, to my bike on Saturday and took it for a ride before sorting outer cable to one length rather than 2 with the Avid inline adjuster. Lever throw felt too long for my liking so set-up with the advice here. Tomorrow will tell for stopping power but the lever throw is more with my liking now.

ugo.santalucia

I wouldn't try to shorten the lever throw by playing with the caliper. All I did was to tighten very slightly the adjusting nut while the caliper was still locked by the arm retaining bolt and that was enough to prevent self adjustment.
You either live with long lever throw or buy something else. BTW: Shimano hydraulics also have a rather long lever throw.
Even with Campagnolo levers, the caliper bottoms before the lever does, if everything is installed correctly.

cycleclinic

Shimano brakes do have long lever throw trp's have long lever throw and they both work equally well. I also do not see the need for a fully hydrolauic setup. We have both in the borg household.

meanredspider

HY-RDs are very good. I was considering going fully hydraulic but I don't see the point. The braking down the Alpe was great it was just a shame that the original caliper had a fault. The current one has been faultless. Choose your cables carefully because they make a difference. I use Gore Ride-On (now unavailable?).

mamil314

You, guys, are awesome, if Alp test is not good enough, then i don't know what is.
Ugo, keep it up and i will owe you some business ^ ^

bendertherobot

I've got Hy Rd on two bikes and Spyre SLC on another. All are so easy to set up and, crucially, work brilliantly. Lever throw is fine. It's not "on and off" as per a dialled in BB7 but, once you get past that, they are far far superior. I cannot see how, in terms of braking performance, a full hydro setup can better them other than in terms of aesthetics. And, if you are even only slightly good at DIY, then the Hy Rd are ridiculously easy to set up.

Anonymous

Personally I see the Hy-Rd's as a great fix for cable discs but would choose fully hydraulic (if going disc) all day long on a new bike.

Better feel, better performance, better aesthetics.

Road hydraulics are going 140mm arnt they?
Surely the 'you don't need full hydraulic' argument is offset by the fact you can have a smaller disc.

I prefer rim right now anyway, but happy that will probably change.
The Hy-Rds are just on my CX/commuter. Lever pull is a ball ache and I could no way have them on my best bike.

There is often talk of 'set up' when you moan about cable discs, but personally I feel thats irrelevant when rim and full hydraulic just seem to work out of the box.

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

Road hydraulics are going 140mm arnt they?
Surely the 'you don't need full hydraulic' argument is offset by the fact you can have a smaller disc.

Why? Because Shimano tells you that? There is no reason why hydraulics need a smaller disc than mechanicals. I would love a bigger disc instead, having overheated my 160 mm one a few times

Anonymous

No, nobody told me anything lol
I just assumed they were going that way. It will be what it will be.

Personally I prefer the look of smaller discs on a road bike, but as (as I have said) I am not into discs on a road bike I do not have any real interest what is happening or what would be best yet.

I thought the overheating problem was what they were struggling to address. Not sure bigger discs will go down that well lol.
Definitely sticking with rim (maybe try hydraulic rim) if thats the way things go!

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

Personally I prefer the look of smaller discs on a road bike, but as (as I have said) I am not into discs on a road bike I do not have any real interest what is happening or what would be best yet.

It's not about the look, it's about what works... I have found out that a 160 rotor is barely enough when the descent is very technical and demanding. I would prefer a bigger rotor, more powerful and better at dissipating heat and that possibly doesn't warp... :?

Also, if you are not into road-discs why do you give advice? In particular, how can you say full hydraulic is better if you have not tried either (or even just one of them)? :shock:

bendertherobot

I have Trp Hy Rd on my best bike

Anonymous

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

Personally I prefer the look of smaller discs on a road bike, but as (as I have said) I am not into discs on a road bike I do not have any real interest what is happening or what would be best yet.

It's not about the look, it's about what works... I have found out that a 160 rotor is barely enough when the descent is very technical and demanding. I would prefer a bigger rotor, more powerful and better at dissipating heat and that possibly doesn't warp... :?

Also, if you are not into road-discs why do you give advice? In particular, how can you say full hydraulic is better if you have not tried either (or even just one of them)? :shock:

It is about the look............ and about what works, its a combination.

I am replying to a thread on Hy-Rd's. I have extensively ridden both Hy-Rd's (on my CX) and full Hydraulic (on my MTB).
This in itself gives me more than enough info to comment, but I have also ridden full hydro disc road bikes.

Its up to the OP to take as 'advice', its just comments otherwise ;-)

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

I am replying to a thread on Hy-Rd's. I have extensively ridden both Hy-Rd's (on my CX) and full Hydraulic (on my MTB).
This in itself gives me more than enough info to comment, but I have also ridden full hydro disc road bikes.

MTB hydraulics are a different breed, head and shoulders better than the micro-sized Shimano road version... in fact I suspect you have 180 or even 203 mm rotors on your MTB... or 160 at the very least.

Choosing brakes based on looks is about the worst decision one can do and one might live to regret. If you ride on challenging terrain and or challeging days, you will find out 140 mm is not enough. I would not want to come down Hardknott on a 140 mm front disc

harry-s

It's a while since I built my disc bike up, so my research may be a little out of date, but the general advice I got, from frame builders and brake suppliers, was 160mm on the front and 140mm on the rear, and I stuck to this.
Brake feel, ie modulation and lever travel, both improved dramatically when I changed the pads from the standard TRP to Swissstop D15 Organics. Longetivity of these was also pretty good, - this is a road bike so no muddy stuff, but they have pad material to spare after a lot of use through the winter, regardless of the weather, and including at least one session of long/steep hill reps per week.
As others have said, brake set up is a doddle. Coming up to their third year, and overall, they have been brilliant. No desire to go full hydraulic.

Anonymous

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

I am replying to a thread on Hy-Rd's. I have extensively ridden both Hy-Rd's (on my CX) and full Hydraulic (on my MTB).
This in itself gives me more than enough info to comment, but I have also ridden full hydro disc road bikes.

MTB hydraulics are a different breed, head and shoulders better than the micro-sized Shimano road version... in fact I suspect you have 180 or even 203 mm rotors on your MTB... or 160 at the very least.

Choosing brakes based on looks is about the worst decision one can do and one might live to regret. If you ride on challenging terrain and or challeging days, you will find out 140 mm is not enough. I would not want to come down Hardknott on a 140 mm front disc

MTB hydraulics have certain things in common though.

Can you please read and listen to what I have said rather than be selective just to pick a fight!
I did not say I would choose brakes because of how they look, I said looks were a factor.
I would probably need them to do both, but as I am sticking with rim right now its irrelevant to me what they work or look like on a road bike.

Personally I think they will make smaller discs work for most situations.
Nothing wrong with bigger discs for other situations though, like in the MTB world.

You just seem to want to bang on about your fast/steep/long descending prowess, which I am almost sure the OP does not give a fcuk about.

bendertherobot

What looks factor are we concerned about? It's a lump of metal. One system has lumpy levers, the other has a square box on the caliper. Neither are really all that beautiful. I have silver Hy Rd on a black bike. They look rather luscious IMO.

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

Personally I think they will make smaller discs work for most situations.
Nothing wrong with bigger discs for other situations though, like in the MTB world.

You just seem to want to bang on about your fast/steep/long descending prowess, which I am almost sure the OP does not give a fcuk about.

I don't think they will... car and motorbike rotors are getting bigger rather than smaller, don't see why bicycle ones should go the other way. The obvious way to increase power and improve heat dissipation is to go bigger. They might change material and they probably will. You can marginally improve heat dissipation by playing with holes, fins and dents, but ultimately it is size that matters.

Brakes are all about fast/steep/long descending... that's how you discriminate a good one from a bad one... if the OP doesn't have performance requirements, then there is no need to spend money on decent brakes. I would expect Shimano to think along these lines

Anonymous

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

Personally I think they will make smaller discs work for most situations.
Nothing wrong with bigger discs for other situations though, like in the MTB world.

You just seem to want to bang on about your fast/steep/long descending prowess, which I am almost sure the OP does not give a fcuk about.

I don't think they will... car and motorbike rotors are getting bigger rather than smaller, don't see why bicycle ones should go the other way. The obvious way to increase power and improve heat dissipation is to go bigger. They might change material and they probably will. You can marginally improve heat dissipation by playing with holes, fins and dents, but ultimately it is size that matters.

Brakes are all about fast/steep/long descending... that's how you discriminate a good one from a bad one... if the OP doesn't have performance requirements, then there is no need to spend money on decent brakes. I would expect Shimano to think along these lines

Road bikes and road bike riders have limitations and requirements that things with engines do not.
Bigger discs showing through huge alloy wheels are completely different to bigger discs on a road bike IMO.

Brakes are not just for the descents you mentioned. That may be a great (the best) test, but good brakes are useful in plenty of other situations

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

Bigger discs showing through huge alloy wheels are completely different to bigger discs on a road bike IMO.

Brakes are not just for the descents you mentioned. That may be a great (the best) test, but good brakes are useful in plenty of other situations

Why are they different? They do the same thing... they slow down a body of mass M from a speed X... the bigger the M and the X the bigger they need to be. If a 50 Kg rider can be happy with 140 mm rotors, surely a 90 Kg rider will not. If the same 50 Kg rider can happily stop from 60 Kmh, maybe he can't do the same from 90 Kmh.

Brakes are also useful to stop you on the flat, of course... I don't think the need for hydraulics (if there is one) comes from that though. They were introduced in MTBikes which is clearly not flat going... you can find them on commuters, bu they are a waste of money.

I don't think you have much of a point to be honest... :roll:

meanredspider

Like Ugo, I have extensive experience (4 years) of discs on a road bike. My Volagi Liscio has 160 up front and 140 rear. I think that's probably optimum for the average user. I certainly wouldn't want to go smaller up front. HY-RDs do away with the adjustment faff that came with typical mechanical disc brakes - that's their big selling point and, I'm pretty sure, why MTBs went to full hydraulic originally. On an event like the Strathpuffer, you can destroy a set of pads in 2 or 3 laps - if you were constantly stopping to adjust for wear, it would be hopeless. Clearly road bikes don't have anything like that issue but wear compensation from the HY-RDs is great. It also negates the issues of the adjusters seizing on BB7/BB5. As I said, I've considered swapping my current set-up to full hydraulic but decided that the advantage doesn't warrant the cost nor the other downsides.

veronese68

Carbonator wrote:

There is often talk of 'set up' when you moan about cable discs, but personally I feel thats irrelevant when rim and full hydraulic just seem to work out of the box.

Really? What about toeing in the pads a bit and lining them up so they meet the braking surface of the rim? Plus making sure the caliper is lined up centrally to the rim. The BB7s I had were way easier than that. The caliper needed aligning when first fitting then I had to adjust them as they wear. I'd say they were easier to set up than rim brakes. People are just so used to rim brakes they don't think about all of those little adjustments.

Origami02

I keep thinking that rim/wheel manufacturers must find it hard to see the the evolution of disk brakes on road bikes as a good thing. If/when they really take off isn't it going to punch a big hole in their sales figures due to rims lasting so much longer.
At least with mountain bike wheels, the manufacturers can take solace in knowing that said wheels get battered into submission even without their rim walls getting ground away by brake pads.
I love the idea of decent disc wheels, I just wonder if all of the wheel industry can really love the idea too.

Anonymous

Veronese68 wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

There is often talk of 'set up' when you moan about cable discs, but personally I feel thats irrelevant when rim and full hydraulic just seem to work out of the box.

Really? What about toeing in the pads a bit and lining them up so they meet the braking surface of the rim? Plus making sure the caliper is lined up centrally to the rim. The BB7s I had were way easier than that. The caliper needed aligning when first fitting then I had to adjust them as they wear. I'd say they were easier to set up than rim brakes. People are just so used to rim brakes they don't think about all of those little adjustments.

Yes, Really, but you have a point about people not making the effort to know how to use the stuff they have gone out to get.

Anonymous

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

Bigger discs showing through huge alloy wheels are completely different to bigger discs on a road bike IMO.

Brakes are not just for the descents you mentioned. That may be a great (the best) test, but good brakes are useful in plenty of other situations

Why are they different? They do the same thing... they slow down a body of mass M from a speed X... the bigger the M and the X the bigger they need to be. If a 50 Kg rider can be happy with 140 mm rotors, surely a 90 Kg rider will not. If the same 50 Kg rider can happily stop from 60 Kmh, maybe he can't do the same from 90 Kmh.

Brakes are also useful to stop you on the flat, of course... I don't think the need for hydraulics (if there is one) comes from that though. They were introduced in MTBikes which is clearly not flat going... you can find them on commuters, bu they are a waste of money.

I don't think you have much of a point to be honest... :roll:

Well I think my points are more valid than yours for the point of this thread, but people can make their own minds up

We will just have to wait a few years to decide who won the cable actuated hydraulic calliper v full hydraulic debate, and the smaller disc v bigger disc debate.
Not that I am trying to 'win' anything in the first place, or disagree with you on the bigger discs for bigger descent thing anyway :roll: :roll: :roll:

Let us all know what you go for OP.
Would you buy a stock road bike with Hy-Rd's?

cookeeemonster

My full hydraulic shimano disc brakes on 160mm rotors are funking amazing and I couldn't care less about this argument or anything anyone else says on the matter.

THEY.

ARE.

GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8)

ugo.santalucia

Carbonator wrote:

We will just have to wait a few years to decide who won the cable actuated hydraulic calliper v full hydraulic debate, and the smaller disc v bigger disc debate.
Not that I am trying to 'win' anything in the first place, or disagree with you on the bigger discs for bigger descent thing anyway :roll: :roll: :roll:

Of course hydraulics will win... but they will also become much cheaper than they are now. The advice to the OP is: don't buy them now... they are too expensive for what they are... in 5 years they will be better and much cheaper. For now HyRD is a very good alternative and much more reasonably priced. I think you can buy two for 190 pounds (and you only really need one at the front) Vs 390 pounds for the lowest rank Shimano hydraulic offering... of course if you also have to buy the shifters, then you might as well go full hydraulics... but the OP wants to use the Chorus he already has IIRC.

Disc size will always be a matter of controversy, as it still is in the MTB world. I occasionally feel undersized with a 160, so would not want to go 140... I have tried 180, but it warps too easily and there is a question mark over the life expectancy of a fork fitted with a disc which is not designed to support.