The Clarks Clout brakes seem decent for the money and reviewed quite well for off-road use and the Vulcan has a 180mm front rotor too. Trek charge £500 for a mountain bike with basic mechanical disc brakes and to get a bike with a similar spec to the Vulcan you probably would have to pay £800 or more. As for safety the Trek model has a basic freewheel which could easily break the quick release if used off-road and forks with only 28mm stanchions, the vulcan appears to be 30mm stanchions so significantly stronger. I don't get the criticism for the Vulcan as it enables you to get a much safer stronger mountain bike than many of the its competitors for significantly less money. Despite the huge sales of Carreras they haven't had the frame recall history of many other brands like Decathlon for example, where Rockriders had to be recalled for breaking frames some only weeks old.
Also V brakes can be good I mean they were used for competitive off-road cycling for many years. Well setup with decent pads they can perform well and of course if you have an ebike with regen braking like a direct drive hub motor you get a third braking system and many people find their brake pads hardly get worn at all as the V brakes are backup brakes to the regen braking for general riding and non-emergency braking.
Discover your next great ride with Marlin 4 Gen 2. See the bike and visit your local Trek retailer. Shop now!
www.trekbikes.com
I think theres a couple of points in there. Mainly the weight of the bike and the speed of the riding. BITD V's were fine, and a serious improvement over cantis, though we had years of counter argument from the canti lovers who would say things like 'Properly set up' blah blah. Thought the truth there was cantis were never great, or even good really. You really just need to watch the old xc racing vids on you tube from bitd to see how ineffective they were with most of the rider overshooting turns and ending up in a heap in the bushes. But you know how some folk are-resistant to change.
The weight of the bikes bitd could be easily half what an emtb is now.
Then theres riding style. Geometry is radically different and that difference haas led to speed and an ability to turn or hold a line that int he 80/90's or even 00's would be impossible. The speed and style of my riding when i did serious offroad (red/black)7 or 8 years ago are in comparison to a couple of decades previously so remarkable different, it seems like we were kids pottering about in the park
OK we were kids pottering about in the park lol but you know what i mean.
Prices of brakes are so far down in price now in comparison, i mean my first brakes were Hope C2's, and those still set me back 500 or 600 in the early to mid 90's when you inc the wheels, and you can get not dissimilar power* for a 1/3 of that today, or less if youre clever, use sales and check/research reviews.
*
No lol, not clarks clout.
difficulty bleeding, sticky pistons, and once heated up forget it. Their new M4 brake looks not bad. Reviews are ok, seems to be styling on a clone of others but for a commuter brake they're going to be very good.