Why are bike companies telling consumers that disk brakes are maintenance free?

ZMC888

I've been working on my own disk brakes for over ten years, first on motorcycles and then on mountain bikes.

Recently I have gotten into hardcore angry flame wars with new hydraulic disk brake adopters with new disk road, CX and gravel bikes. They seem utterly certain that their bikes are maintenance free, seemingly they have been told this by whoever, but in my experience this just isn't true.

Firstly bicycle brakes don't get as hot as car or motorcycle brakes so you'll need to remove the caliper to clean inside occasionally. Also you'll need to partially eject the pistons to give them a proper clean and stop them from sticking now and again.

Secondly the pads are prone to glazing especially if they are not bedded in well. Pads are also prone to contamination any oil can ruin them. After removing pads you need to align them properly align them to the disk. Simply holding the brake and tightening the bolts rarely works well you'll need a proper alignment tool.

When installing new pads you'll need to force the pistons back into the caliper body with a soft plastic tire removal tool.

Then we have bleeding. Over a year or two your brake fluid or oil if you are using Shimano will get old and discoloured and you'll need to bleed the system and replace the fluid.

Also you may need to true the rotors and clean them with isopropyl alcohol.

Yes disk brakes are low maintenance and work amazingly well in the wet, in fact I'd recommend them for nearly everything unless you are into having an ultralight climbing type bike. But I have no I idea where this zero maintenance sunshine and rainbows bs comes from. Like anything there is a cost in new tools and spares and a certain amount of time in a learning curve if you want to do your own servicing.

imafatman

Marketing rubbish of course, everything needs some maintenance.

That being said I haven't had to touch the brakes on my XC bike for like 3 years.....I replaced pads once and that was a 2 minute jobby.

However when I did need to bleed and replace fluidand that was quite a bit of faff.

Will have to see how long my ultegra hydro goes.

meanredspider

Yes - I'd agree that they are NOT maintenance-free. Equally, though, after many (6+ years on road bikes alone and MTBs before that), I don't recognise much of the maintenance you describe. I understand what you're (OP) describing but have never needed to do it.

mercia_man

I agree with ZMC88. I was an early user of disc brakes on motorcycles - a Rickman with Lockheed discs in 1974 - and used them extensively until I gave up motorcycles in the early 90s.

The main issue for me - using motorcycles for year-round commuting and touring - was binding of pads on disc due to the pistons getting corroded or dirty. Dealing with that was a question of pushing out the pistons to their full extent and cleaning and polishing them to get them sliding smoothly again. Double piston Lockheed brakes on my Rickman and later Brembo on Ducati, Laverda and BMW bikes were a lot better in this respect than the single piston brakes with a caliper sliding on pins found on many Japanese bikes. The pins were prone to seizing up in winter. Binding disc pads on a motorcycle is annoying enough. It's even worse on a bicycle as one of the joys for me of a good quality bike is the way in which the wheels seemingly spin for ever.

Bleeding hydraulic discs and changing brake fluid was also regular maintenance for me. I found it easy to do with the right technique and equipment. It would make a big improvement to the feel of the brakes.

I've never owned a bicycle with disc brakes but I've ridden a few mountain bikes with discs and liked the power. I have no great desire for a road bike with discs as I'm happy with what I've got - Campag cantilevers and dual-pivot calipers with Koolstop and SwissStop pads.

veronese68

As with the others I agree they are not maintenance free, but they are pretty low maintenance. I just had to change the pads on my road/CX bike after 2 years. I bled the front at the same time but I think that was down to user error when initially fitting them. It's a used Parabox converter thing so my fault there. My mountain bikes cover fewer miles, but harsher use, and I've only ever replaced pads, not had to bleed either of them I find I have a tendency to glaze the rear pads on occasion, I think that's down to not using the rear as hard as the front. I usually just brake hard with the rear a few times, as when bedding in, and it comes back.
I'm in the motor trade and have been dealing with discs on my own cars, motorbikes and now bicycles so I'm quite happy with the principles and know what to do and what not to do. Bicycle discs are a little fussier as they don't have the power or generate as much heat to burn off any contamination, but I've certainly not suffered all the problems some people seem to have.
I like the sound of Mercia Man's Rickman.

fat daddy

ZMC888 wrote:

Firstly bicycle brakes don't get as hot as car or motorcycle brakes so you'll need to remove the caliper to clean inside occasionally. Also you'll need to partially eject the prisons to give them a proper clean and stop them from sticking now and again.

I have never done this in a over a decade of using disk brakes, I don't even know what prisons are, and nothing sticks ?

. Simply holding the brake and tightening the bolts rarely works well you'll need a proper alignment tool.

I simply hold the brakes and tighten the bolts, its always worked, I didn't even know you could buy an alignment tool

When installing new pads you'll need to force the pistons back into the caliper body with a soft plastic tire removal tool.
or a screw driver or any flat object, you are replacing the pads just push the pistons back with the old pads still in there, it doesn't matter if you damage one

Then we have bleeding. Over a year or two your brake fluid or oil if you are using Shimano will get old and discoloured and you'll need to bleed the system and replace the fluid.

yeah, this sucks

Also you may need to true the rotors and clean them with isopropyl alcohol.
never trued a rotor

.

I get where you are coming from though, since commuting with disk brakes I faff with them far more than rim brakes, the constantly need fecking cleaning to get rid of the road grime build up that makes them hoooonk ... and rim brakes are far easier to clean

ZMC888

Mercia Man wrote:

one of the joys for me of a good quality bike is the way in which the wheels seemingly spin for ever.

^^^This^^^

I agree totally. The clearances on bicycle disk brakes are tiny. Any bit of dirt on a piston can cause binding. I feel the industry and new adopters are running in where angels fear to tread. Sure a nice new system probably isn't going to be a problem, but I worry about rubbing with a not well maintained system scrubbing off a few watts. No problem for a mountain bike but when you think about how insanely easy rim caliper brakes are to work with and the vast clearances you can dial into them you really wonder if we really need disk brakes and if R&D money wouldn't be better spent on rim and pad technology upgrading what we have.

trek_dan

..and that's just hydraulic disc brakes. In my experience of cable disc brakes (which a lot of bikes do come with for some reason) these basically need constant fettling and work worse than rim brakes 90% of the time.

mercia_man

Veronese68 wrote:

As with the others I agree they are not maintenance free, but they are pretty low maintenance. I just had to change the pads on my road/CX bike after 2 years. I bled the front at the same time but I think that was down to user error when initially fitting them. It's a used Parabox converter thing so my fault there. My mountain bikes cover fewer miles, but harsher use, and I've only ever replaced pads, not had to bleed either of them I find I have a tendency to glaze the rear pads on occasion, I think that's down to not using the rear as hard as the front. I usually just brake hard with the rear a few times, as when bedding in, and it comes back.
I'm in the motor trade and have been dealing with discs on my own cars, motorbikes and now bicycles so I'm quite happy with the principles and know what to do and what not to do. Bicycle discs are a little fussier as they don't have the power or generate as much heat to burn off any contamination, but I've certainly not suffered all the problems some people seem to have.
I like the sound of Mercia Man's Rickman.

My Rickman Interceptor was bought new from Elite Motors in Tooting, the exclusive dealers, and was one of the last to be sold from a single batch of around 150 using the Royal Enfield Interceptor Series II 750cc engine, considered by some to be the finest British vertical twin ever made. They were built up by Rickman in 1971 using engines left over when Royal Enfield went bust.

That big long-stroke engine was shoehorned into Rickman's nickel-plated racing frame built of 531 tubing, with orange fibreglass tank, mudguards and seat, and was the first production road bike with discs front and rear. It was as light and low as a 250 with incredible torque and was fantastic for blasting up Alpine passes in top gear. My wife and I gave up our jobs in 1974 and toured Europe on this bike for three months.

My main issue with it was fast cylinder bore wear. It had open bell mouth carbs. I had to strip it down and get it rebored a couple of times. The engine was such a tight fit in the frame I had to undo the mounting bolts to drop it down a fraction, tilt it one way to get off one cylinder head and tilt it the other way to get off the other cylinder head (they were separate).

I sold it in 1977 to a chap in Birmingham who was building up the collection for what became the National Motorcycle Museum. My bike was restored and put on display. I went to see it when the museum opened. Not sure whether it was destroyed when the museum had a disastrous fire some years ago. Rickman Interceptors are now extremely rare.

veronese68

Mercia Man wrote:

My Rickman Interceptor

Sounds lovely, I hope it survived the fire. A guy round the corner from me sold them a genuine Thruxton Bonnie when they were replacing bikes lost in the fire. A customer was bought a Rickman Metisse Steve McQueen replica recently, I do lust after that a little.
Back on topic, I have taken to being a bit obsessive when washing the bikes not to get any chemicals near the discs. Easiest way to do this is not to wash them.

apreading

I think that if you see the phrase 'zero maintenance', you should take it as figuratively speaking, rather than literally. Nothing on a bike is truly zero maintenance. What is meant by that is that they dont require ongoing maintenance. Forget cable disc brakes in this - they seem to be a faff for most people. And bad hydraulics the same, like the Avid Juicy's I had a few years back. But my experence with Avid Elixirs and Shimano hydraulics has been that other than changing the pads when they wear out and bleeding every couple of years, I have not had to do anything else. No adjustment needed EVER on these and in the case of the Elixirs that is through maybe five years, in all weathers, abused over maybe 20,000 miles. The calipers are now showing pitting and corrosion on the outside surfaces, probably from riding salted roads over several winters, but they still work perfectly.

Even replacing pads, alignment is usually not necessary. If you switch to thicker pads, sometimes you need to let a little fluid out of the system though.

I agree that alignment, when necessary (and it hasnt been on my Elixirs or Shimanos as I said) doesnt work well just by holding the brakes and doing up the bolts. What happens is that the torque going through the nut rotates the caliper slightly as the force you are using is more than the system can hold against just by applying the brakes. It is simple to compensate though - work out which way it will twist under load and start the adjustment with it offset to the other side so that this slight twist brings it into line. No tool required and easy to do on the trail (I did it maybe 100 times on my Juicy's as they kept going back out of line every couple of rides!).

My Juicys were utter s**t. Constantly going out of line, pinging against the rotors, sticky pistons, all sorts. My son's BB5 cable discs worked well until it rained, then they seemed to lose power and we had to twist the adjustment to bring the calipers back in - seemed to keep slipping when wet. Since then, the other brakes I have had have been totally free of any ongoing maintenance.

ugo.santalucia

I've only had mechanical and semi hydraulic... I've always had to do more maintenance that standard rim calipers... being that adjusting the pads, removing the pads to clean the pistons, remove and inspect the pads, which is not as obvious as in rim brakes, adding copper paste to the back of the pad to reduce the squealing... realign the caliper which for some unknown reason has slightly gone off

There are several advantages in using discs, but surely low maintenance is not one of them... if you want low brake maintenance a track bike is the best solution, then cantilever/V-brakes, then rim brakes and disc brakes are last

apreading

even cantilever/V/Rim brakes require ongoing maintenance - just that many dont perceive it as a chore.

They constantly need adjusting as the pads and rim wear down. Swap your wheels for some with a different width rim and they need adjusting. Wheel goes out of true and they will keep rubbing or if you brake a spoke the bike is unrideable unless you disable the brakes altogether.

And rim brake pads get contaminated too, just as disc pads do. You need to clean them of aluminium bits and grit so that they dont destroy your rims. And you need to clean the rims of old rubber to keep them working effectively.

Decent (emphasis on that word) disc brakes should require less frequent maintenance but bleeding is a bit fiddly and if you were to get a sticky piston that is a pain but should be a rarity.

ugo.santalucia

apreading wrote:

even cantilever/V/Rim brakes require ongoing maintenance - just that many dont perceive it as a chore.

They constantly need adjusting as the pads and rim wear down.

Not really... the lever throw is such that you can do without adjusting the pads for months... if you only ride in dry conditions only and don't do a lot of descending, I would say it's more like years

With mechanical disc brakes it's more like days or weeks

ugo.santalucia

apreading wrote:

or if you brake a spoke the bike is unrideable unless you disable the brakes altogether.

YOU break a spoke, I don't... I build my own wheels, which are awesome...

Bobbinogs

V-brakes are the work of the devil! Forever faffing with those blinking things. Hate getting my hybrid out of the shed to find that, once again, what was perfectly aligned before storage now needs adjusting in some way...

cooldad

Back to the OP, I've never seen anything from bike companies, or brake manufacturers saying that they are maintenance free.

So are you actually referring to bike companies, or just random idiots on the internet?

One thing is not like the other.

apreading

and rim brakes need the cables replaced when they stretch.

Dont talk about mechanical disc brakes - they are the spawn of the devil and I dont think anyone could claim low maintenance for them.

As I say - both need maintanence but because people are so used to the maintenance for rim brakes they dont realise they are doing it.

My observation about broken spokes is from seeing lots of people on sportives and charity rides sidelined with them. All I could do to help them is to release the brakes completely. Most ended up walking. The one and only time I have broken a spoke was because something went into the wheel and we cut the spoke and I rode the last 15 miles with an out of true wheel but working brakes before getting it fixed overnight.

My son hit a huge pothole with his rim braked bike last year and the wheel went out of true but with no breakages. Fortunately we had just passed a bike shop literally a mile before, had both noticed it because of the A board on the pavement and with his brakes released we rode back and got it trued.

ugo.santalucia

Bobbinogs wrote:

V-brakes are the work of the devil! Forever faffing with those blinking things. Hate getting my hybrid out of the shed to find that, once again, what was perfectly aligned before storage now needs adjusting in some way...

I had V-Brakes om my Spesh Stumpjumper a few years ago... they were very good. Pad wear was fast off road as it is to be expected, but otherwise never gave me any grief at all

Anonymous

ZMC888 wrote:

seemingly they have been told this by whoever

'Seemingly'?

'Whoever"?

A bit unsure and vague :roll:

I don't think people are being told this, but so what if they think its true anyway?

You just sound like a hater lol.

Hydro discs (cable and semi hydro are plain shite) seem pretty reliable to me.
I don't have or want them on a road bike right now, but maintenance would certainly not be a factor in having them imo/ime.

Anonymous

oxoman wrote:

Cable disc better than rim

Which cable disc, and which rim?
In what way better?

Certainly not my experience.

Cable disc are the only brakes I have ever heard people say were faulty/did not work, when they were actually working as they were supposed to.

bompington

I'm getting a bit worried, because the cable disc brakes on my CX are about a year and a half old by now, and I must clearly be doing something wrong - they seem to stop me very nicely whenever they need to, and so far they have been literally - and I literally mean literally - zero maintenance.
Perhaps it's the mud, salt, grit and water that's between causing this problem, maybe if I took it out occasionally in better conditions things might deteriorate satisfactorily.
Perhaps my excessive weight is the problem, maybe if I was skinnier things would be back to their proper state of disrepair.
Who knows.

Anonymous

oxoman wrote:

105 rim brakes running swisstop blocks, SLX hydraulic, TRP Spyres and shimano BR505. Never had a problem.

5800 105?

5800 with Swissstops are way more powerful than Shimano cable discs IME.

Stoping a spinning wheel at the hub requires more force than at the rim.
Its as simple as that, and discs only work if hydro.

angry_bird

A few years back when I was putting serious mtb time in whatever the weather I'd say discs were by far the most time consuming component when it came to maintenance and most irritating. Even preferred servicing my suspension forks to sorting the brakes out. Rim brakes are much much much less hassle. Then again they were all Avids... my current SLX brakes haven't needed much fuss at all.

That said my next bike will have discs, but that's only because it's the only way I can justify getting another bike to the boss/gf...

meanredspider

Carbonator wrote:

Stoping a spinning wheel at the hub requires more force than at the rim.
Its as simple as that, and discs only work if hydro.

Loving all the pseudo science and engineering in this thread.

ZMC888

cooldad wrote:

Back to the OP, I've never seen anything from bike companies, or brake manufacturers saying that they are maintenance free.

So are you actually referring to bike companies, or just random idiots on the internet?

One thing is not like the other.

Actually the bike companies are touting them as 'almost maintenance free' or 'virtually maintenance free' or 'very low maintenance' but people seem to selectively remembering what they were told. ;-)

DeVlaeminck

My experience with road discs has been enough to make me wary of buying another disk equipped road bike. It isn't that they need maintenance it's that it's much harder to diagnose what is actually the problem compared with rim brakes.

Personally I don't see the advantage in them other than lack of rim wear and possibly a marginal advantage descending in the wet. In the dry I have more than enough power with rim brakes and I actually prefer the modulation and feel of a rim brake to that of a disc.

cooldad

ZMC888 wrote:

cooldad wrote:

Back to the OP, I've never seen anything from bike companies, or brake manufacturers saying that they are maintenance free.

So are you actually referring to bike companies, or just random idiots on the internet?

One thing is not like the other.

Actually the bike companies are touting them as 'almost maintenance free' or 'virtually maintenance free' or 'very low maintenance' but people seem to selectively remembering what they were told. ;-)

So, in *braking news, people are idiots.

* I know. It's a rubbish pun.

apreading

Angry Bird wrote:

That said my next bike will have discs, but that's only because it's the only way I can justify getting another bike to the boss/gf...

Never under-estimate the importance of this. Argument won!

Anonymous

meanredspider wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

Stoping a spinning wheel at the hub requires more force than at the rim.
Its as simple as that, and discs only work if hydro.

Loving all the pseudo science and engineering in this thread.

Ore could just skip the basic laws of physics (as people love to do on this forum) and go back to real life experience.......... cable discs are shite

apreading

Carbonator wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

Stoping a spinning wheel at the hub requires more force than at the rim.
Its as simple as that, and discs only work if hydro.

Loving all the pseudo science and engineering in this thread.

Ore could just skip the basic laws of physics (as people love to do on this forum) and go back to real life experience.......... cable discs are shite

The basic laws of physics are that it requires the same force to stop an object of the same mass, regardless of where that force is generated. What you probably meant was that it requires more FRICTION for a given surface area to generate that force from a smaller circumference surface (disc) as opposed to a larger one (rim). FORCE is the same.

Agree with you about cable discs being shite though. Not necessarily because they dont work but because nobody seems to have come up with a system that works consistently or reliably. On a mountain bike I would rather have them than rim brakes but on a road bike I am not sure it would be worth the hassle.