This article made great sense to me, and also helped stop me buying hydraulic too, as it demonstrated the negative side of hydraulics:-
An electric bike can help you climb a steep hill with ease, but it is your electric bike’s braking system that will help you descend that same hill safely.All of the bikes we build at EVELO have braking systems selected specifically to match the bike’s performance, but there are still important...
evelo.com
Regards
Andy
I watched the vid, and at no point did it favour one over the other.
He certainly praised hydro's as more maintenance free, and on that note I can say that vast majority of people buying a bike these days, whether electric or manual have little idea about how to maintain or service a bike or for that matter the brakes.
When i worked in the bike shop repairing peoples bikes, the vast majority of servicing required were things like mech adjustments, brake adjustment, pad replacement, but also it seems many customers were clueless in even being able to fix a puncture. Or for that matter able to take up the slack on a stretched cable
He did mention about how a downside for hydraulic is you need some 'special' tools to bleed them. Special tools are in fact a piece of clear plastic tubing and a spanner. Hardly 'specialist'.
But from my experience working on peoples tatty bikes that they have done nothing to since buying, even needing to adjust cable disks, they'd still take them into a shop and have us do it for them.
A company speccing cable brakes is the cheapest option for them. All the cheap bikes use cable, because they are cheaper to buy than hydraulic for their bikes that are priced at the lower end.
And at slow pottering through the town they are more than adequate, and better in the wet than v's, especially the low end V's many cheaper bikes have.
But for a bike that weighs 50-70lbs, doing any sort of speed, in an offroad setting, cable brakes arent up to the job. Were they as good as , all MTB's would have cable, or even a portion, but the truth is none do, and they dont because they simply dont have the power needed in that setting.
Your argument is simply based on town pottering being good enough, and from that all hydros in all settings is a waste of time.
From the vid. I took Hydro's are fit and forget, cable are maintenance hungry. Again hardly an argument against their use or fitting.
" PS One local colleague, who changed to hydraulic brakes a good 12 months ago (at least!), who was telling us how he liked them after his previous mechanical disks, has recently (I have no idea when, as he is apparently trying to keep it secret for some reason!), removed them, because he had a close call when fluid got lost from the front brake, and he did not notice, till he used the brakes in an emergency stop. "
Odd story. Cant think of a time ive got on a bike and not used a finger on the front lever just to steady the bike. And ive never ever had a system suddenly fail by all the fluid leaking out of its own accord. Either he forgot to do up the bleed nipple or something like that, butt either way a fail of a single brake isnt any sort of argument against that type of brake.
Cable brakes use a cable that could snap if not maintained and allowed to rust int he housing, or not tightened at the brake clamp end. Again, something the user or mechanic did, and in no way testimony to the capability of the brake system itself.
