TRP Spyre: "Modulation" or "Contamination"?

hnefi

So two months ago I splurged and bought a new bike - Speccy Diverge DSW. I know, not exactly the thoroughbred of race machines, but I am a doctoral student and my money basically goes to rent and food, and I don't have space for the MTB, winter commuter, and Canyon CF SLX 9.0 I wish I had. I was really really excited to ride a bike with disc brakes for the first time, and right from day 1, I have been very disappointed with the braking performance of the TRP Spyre cable-actuated discs, using 160mm rotors.

After riding it from the shop home, I actually rode back and asked them if the brakes were set up properly, since they had maybe half of the stopping power as the 11 year old rim brakes on my old Spec Allez from 2005 (bought used for $200 and basically NEVER maintained it other than washing the frame after it got caked with crap from riding on wet roads). LBS told me about the "bedding in" process, and although the performance did improve after a few rides, I can literally pull the levers as hard as I possibly can from the hoods and barely lock the wheels. And this is on the flats. Going down descents, I am timidly riding the brakes all the way down for fear of not being able to slow down for a corner. In the drops of course there is more braking power, but it is not even close to what I expected from disc brakes. In the rain, the performance drops further, which is exactly the opposite of what I expected from finally buying a disc bike. I purposely picked a budget bike with discs because of the wet weather performance, combined with the fact I live in a hilly region now.

The only problem I can think of that might be causing this is that I clean the bike religiously and potentially the degreaser I am using is getting splashed onto the rotors and contaminating the pads? But this would not affect the front brake, nor do I believe that spraying a tiny blast of degreaser on the cassette from a purely vertical angle is going to make my rear brake almost useless.

Has anyone else had a negative experience with TRP Spyres?? My search on the forum found mostly positive comments, or perhaps my cables need to be taken in or replaced? The bike does probably have 500-600km on it now.

veronese68

Something isn't right. How did you bed them in? To do it properly get the bike up to speed and brake hard until you are almost at a standstill, get back up to speed and do it again, and again, and so on until you get a good brake. It may take a dozen goes but suddenly the braking will improve markedly. If this doesn't do it you may have contaminated or glazed the pads. Best not to use any spray lube or degreaser near discs. If they are just glazed you may be able to just rub them back and then bed them in as above.
If you can pull the brakes hard the levers don't reach the bars and the calipers move and then it all retracts it shouldn't be the cables. Doesn't sound like a cable problem. Good luck.

The Rookie

To be that bad it sounds like you got a contaminant on the pad.

Best solution is new pads and cleaning the discs with a degreaser (not one leaving a residue, so rubbing alcohol is best).

I've had some success recovering pads by soaking them in petrol for 24 hours and then baking in the oven on max for half an hour to burn off the petrol residue.

hnefi

Veronese68 wrote:

Something isn't right. How did you bed them in? To do it properly get the bike up to speed and brake hard until you are almost at a standstill, get back up to speed and do it again, and again, and so on until you get a good brake. It may take a dozen goes but suddenly the braking will improve markedly. If this doesn't do it you may have contaminated or glazed the pads. Best not to use any spray lube or degreaser near discs. If they are just glazed you may be able to just rub them back and then bed them in as above.
If you can pull the brakes hard the levers don't reach the bars and the calipers move and then it all retracts it shouldn't be the cables. Doesn't sound like a cable problem. Good luck.

I did the bedding in on a repeated descent - went down maybe 5x and braked extremely hard near the intersection at the foot of the hill. At that point, the brakes were good but the performance has just slowly degraded over time.

Still can't figure out whether or not it's contamination or potentially cable stretch? It doesn't make sense to me. Next time I need to buy degreaser I am going to buy the liquid kind you need to paint onto the chain rather than an aerosol... But in the meantime, I've cleaned the rotors with IPA and scuffed the pads with sandpaper. Probably will change them next time I am in the LBS.

It seems to me that having to be a freak about pad contamination is a significant negative for the overall disc brake system, but I suppose it's the only one besides a 200g weight penalty, which is not really going to affect any one of us not riding the TdF.

prawny

Doesn't sound right, I've got some boggo TRP brakes on my commuter and they're much better than rim brakes.

If new pads does't fix it, the next place I would be looking at is cables, my rear brake felt much better after replacing the original cable with a fresh inner and full length outer, and that was just with cheap cable, now I know the routing works I'll redo it eventually with decent quality stuff.

timothyw

I'm a frequent recommend-er of Spyres, i use them on 2 bikes with great success.

Without wishing to teach grandma to suck eggs, first thing is to check the pad adjustment - using a 3mm allen key, adjust the pads so that they are just short of rubbing the disk - with the outboard side this is easy, spin the wheel and tighten the allen key until you can hear it rubbing then back it off a bit. For the inboard side, a bit of trial and error is required.

Once you've done that, repeat the process with the cable barrel adjusters - it shouldn't take much after having done the pads, tighten them up until you can hear them rubbing, then back off a bit.

You'll now want to give the brake levers a good squeeze - you should find they engage fully long before you reach the bars, and feel firm. If the feel is spongy, your brake outer may be damaged, or may simply require replacement with compressionless outer, which will work much better.

Jagwire compressionless outer is good and fairly easy to fit - eg this kit here:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/jagwire-kit-ext ... brakegear/

The lifeline stuff also works well, but is heavier and less flexible so harder to fit:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/lifeline-perfor ... sram-road/

Assuming that the brake lever feel is firm however, and brake performance is still poor, then the three possibilities are that the brake pads are contaminated, glazed or simply worn out. Either way, easiest approach is to get some new pads in there - I've had great success with the Clarks Elite semi-metallic pads - they're listed as for Shimano Deore but work with the TRPs also.

If you suspect contamination, might be worth cleaning your rotors with some proper disc brake cleaner.

Glazing is a possibility if you have a habit of dragging your brakes (which it seems you might be doing from what you say about riding on the brakes from fear that they won't stop you) - try to brake hard, or feather the brakes rather than drag them (so squeeze-release-squeeze-release rather than just squeezing a little bit and holding there).

kajjal

Good post above, my guess would be contamination.

tsarouxaz

No, it is not contamination, I had the spyres with my 105 5700 shifters and they lacked the bite, the initial friction, it was like there were no brakes. from the drops, forget it! it wasn't bad with descends but for the bite at small speeds, awfull. others say they are fantastic. well. I SOLD them and got a pair of HY/RDs from the same brand. and here we have brakes!!

so the question is, what is your weight in kg and what are your brake levers?

Hinaultscrapcousin

When building my Monster Cross I spoke to a mate who told me to get BB7s instead of Spyres. He said they worked much better and the Spyres he's just put on his CX bike felt spongy, even with compression-less outers.

I've very impressed with the BB7s, loads of stopping power for a cable brake.

timothyw

I weigh 120kg or thereabouts, and have used Spyres with 5700, 4600, Tektro RL-340 and Sram Drop Levers and have had good results with all of them.

The Hy/Rd uses the same pads as the Spyres. If the spyres are set up well, they'll brake just as well. What they won't do is adjust themselves for you, where the HyRds will.

There's nothing exactly wrong with BB7/5 incidentally, except that they are even harder to set up than the Spyres, and are prone to having the static pad seize, preventing adjustment for wear.

tsarouxaz

spyre vs the HYRD? day and night difference! hyrds "feel" hydraulic and behave like hydraulics.the spyre was a disaster for me. the bb7 was more powerful than the spyre but it lacked modulation. I have tested and sold both of them in three months!! got the hyrd, saved my day!

cycleclinic

Spyres work well if setup properly with shimano levers. With campag levers there is more lever travel and more frequent adjusment is needed. Compressionless casing are a must.

I had the hyrds and the pistons went skewiff after a year. I might try them again though as they are a better brake.

hsiaolc

Colleague had TRP cable pulled disc and he finds it troublesome and not happy with the performance.

If you get GT85 all over your disc and you will have a very hard time braking.

I say that contamination is one probability and the set up. Disc should give you better braking than rim. If not something is wrong.

jazzkailey

I bought a quality cyclocross bike with these brakes and like you was very disappointed with their performance, especially over rim brakes.
However, after some fettling and adjustment I got a massive improvement out of them.
Firstly I invested in a pair of Swiss Stop sintered pads on the basis of Internet forums. Not cheap at around £23 per wheel but worth it. If cost is an issue I'd advise just replacing those on the front wheel.
Once fitted, tighten each pad using the Allen key slot on each side of the calliper. Push the pads as close to the disc as you can without the pad rubbing against the disc. This is the saving grace of these brakes in that each side of the calliper can be individually adjusted.
As the pads wear and the brakes weaken, periodly readjust the pads towards the disc with the Allen slots. Don't use the cable adjuster as this uniformly brings the pads in and you will never get both pads to sit close to the disc. You'll find that no matter how central your wheel sits locked in the fork (or frame in the rear), one pad will always need more adjustment inwards than the other.
I think my Swiss stops have done about 2000 miles of commuting and they still have plenty of life left in them and they were well worth their cost.

Hope that this is of some help.

cycleclinic

I use EBC pads as the tekro pads are pretty rubbish.