Floating rotors on a Santa Cruz high tower

Caddy Nabz

Hi guys I've fitted Hope E4 brakes to the 2018 high tower but if I fit hopes floating rotors the rivets foul the post mounts the hold the brake on, also on the fox 36 forks too! Just wondering if I get rid of the hubs and fit hope hubs would this free up some room to fit floating discs? Looking for someone with the same bike who has had this problem

cooldad

Floating rotors are pointless on bicycles, and often cause issues.

Just get some normal rotors.

JBA

What he says. ^^^
Floating rotors look flash but don’t bring any benefits.

shindig

Floating rotors for normal bike use make very little difference. However if you do long downhill / descents and heat the brakes they prevent the disc warping. I warped my hope 200mm fixed disc. Swapped it out for a floating disc, item fine for the past 4 years. They do look cool though (I've had floating disks on all my motorcycles since 1998)

steve_sordy

I got this from elsewhere, by someone called Frank4short in 2010.

In the simplest way to describe it mtb floating rotors aren't true floating rotors like they use on motorbikes. Which are designed to move laterally independently of the wheel on motor bikes where at high speeds any wobbles in the rotor can affect the wheel balance.

They are however essentially constructed out of 3 different parts which leads to the use of the term. The bolt circle, the braking surface and the rivets that separate the 2. What this means is that the braking surface is thermally isolated from the hub.

My understanding is that the use of them is more relevant in downhill or alpine situations where rotors can get really hot after long hard descents. In these situations as i understand it the thermal isolation is advantagious as it prolongs the life of the bearings in the hubs from the grease frying with the heat of the discs. Plus you can save weight in the construction because you can make the bolt circle out of aluminium which you can't do with a full disc. However this second one is nothing that can't be bettered with good design of a steel rotor. Other than that i believe there is no other specific advantage for mtbing in having floating rotors.

I'm prepared to proved incorrect on this one though.

I think the hope ones are pretty light & they look pretty so if you've got money to burn why not. However don't buy them thinking they'll make a massive difference they won't.

I had some on my last bike (Shimano IceTech), they looked great, but I can't say that I noticed any difference in braking. I do accept that they run cooler and that this heat (albeit less of it) is less likely to be transmitted to the bearings. My riding weight is just over 200lbs.

Caddy Nabz

I know the benefits are minimal and I have fit solid rotors any way but wanted to start colour coding things and the floating rotors do look sexy, any body overcome this problem on a high tower before?

The Rookie

steve_sordy wrote:

I got this from elsewhere, by someone called Frank4short in 2010.

In the simplest way to describe it mtb floating rotors aren't true floating rotors like they use on motorbikes. Which are designed to move laterally independently of the wheel on motor bikes where at high speeds any wobbles in the rotor can affect the wheel balance.

They are however essentially constructed out of 3 different parts which leads to the use of the term. The bolt circle, the braking surface and the rivets that separate the 2. What this means is that the braking surface is thermally isolated from the hub.
.

I had some on my last bike (Shimano IceTech), they looked great, but I can't say that I noticed any difference in braking. I do accept that they run cooler and that this heat (albeit less of it) is less likely to be transmitted to the bearings. My riding weight is just over 200lbs.

That's rot, some are indeed 3 piece (Icetech and A2Z for example), but some like Hope are proper floating.

And of course if they are rivetted then heat can transfer to the hub anyway, so its double BS!

cooldad

Caddy Nabz wrote:

I know the benefits are minimal and I have fit solid rotors any way but wanted to start colour coding things and the floating rotors do look sexy, any body overcome this problem on a high tower before?

It's just a general problem - you are having issues with the forks as well, which have nothing to do with the make/model of bike.

If you want to look sexy, ride naked.

Or not.

swod1

I've had floating disc rotors and gone back to one piece stainless steel.

They weren't touching the caliper just put off as they arrived warped and a pain to get straight and then wouldn't stay true so i was getting every so often a rubbing on the pads.

£7.99 or whatever they cost and no issues with the one piece discs.

I'm not doing descents in Morzine or anything like that so i don't need ice tech and all the other fancy stuff. I do like the uberbike race matrix pads though.

mattyfez

Think I agree with the above, I went from cheap generic tektro disks to ice tech, the only real difference is they look better.

Unless you're doing long hard decents, where they may come into play with heat /fade I'd just buy whatever disk you prefer the look of.

Caddy Nabz

I wondered if fitting hope hubs would free up some room, that's why I wanted someone with the same bike to see if they have done anything with the brakes

Caddy Nabz

It's got cheap Novatec hubs at the mo so will need to be changed eventually

02gf74

mattyfez wrote:

Unless you're doing long hard decents, where they may come into play with heat /fade I'd just buy whatever disk you prefer the look of.

. But what if the op likes the look of hope saw rotors

The Rookie

Caddy Nabz wrote:

It's got cheap Novatec hubs at the mo so will need to be changed eventually

Why? Perfectly good hubs. You seem to be more a label junky than actually considering why you are buying something?