Bike Brakes Review

With most of the innovations in bike design aimed at making the bike go faster, it’s equally important to be able to it all stop when you need it to. That's where bike brakes and shifters come into play. Fortunately, the evolution of mountain bike brakes has evolved in line with the rest of the technology. Now we can stop just as quickly as we can accelerate. Cane Creek brakes are a popular brand to check out.

In the early days, mountain bike brakes shared the same design as road bike brakes. We only had cantilevers to work with, then V-brakes came along and shook things up a bit. The V-brake offered much more controllable power, which suited mountain bikes but still depended on a straight wheel, and strong rim for stopping power.

The problem with V-brakes is that they don’t work too well in wet and muddy conditions. Seeing as that’s when a lot of mountain biking takes place, this was a significant compromise. In the late 1990’s bicycle disc brakes entered the market and shook things up a little more. These were simply a lighter, simpler version of their motorcycle cousins, offering much more stopping power at the cost of a little more weight. Discs also work better in wet and muddy conditions so immediately addressed the main disadvantage of V-brakes.

Despite the radically different design, mountain bike disc brakes still uses brake cables, brakes pads and accessories, just like V-brakes. Mountain bike brake levers and road bike brake levers diverged when mechanical and V-brakes were introduced, with mountain bike brakes becoming much beefier to cope with the extra load requirements. The bike brake cables were still the same design, but eventually you could have hydraulic fluid or steel cable to power the brakes.

The use of fluid was something of a departure for mountain bikes and took a while to take off. To begin with they were restricted to downhill rigs which could make the most of the advantages of using fluid. Advances in materials and lightweight design, manufacturers were soon building lighter, cheaper versions that you find on many mainstream bikes today. Some popular produced brakes include Shimano and Campagnolo brakes. 

The downside of using bike disc brakes rotors is the weight and expense. They are much heavier than V-brakes, but offer stronger, more predictable braking in return. They do cost quite a bit more, because instead of buying some cable, a pair of brake arms and some pads, you need specific brake levers, a wheel that supports a rotor, forks that support the calipers, the calipers themselves and cables.

Cable disc brakes are fairly straightforward to fit and maintain, but hydraulic disc brakes take a little more care and attention. Hydraulic disc brakes are still something of a niche market and only appear on higher spec bikes, or as upgrades. They offer the ultimate in stopping power and an improvement in overall performance and predictability. Once fitted they can be left alone and need the minimum maintenance to work efficiently. As a trade off, they are more expensive, heavier and are a little more complicated to maintain when you do have to do it.

Mountain bike brakes are the most important piece of kit on the bike. If you’re hurtling down a mountain at breakneck speed, you need to know that you’re going to be able to stop at the bottom, or maneuver around obstacles on the way down. You can spend as much as you like on the rest of the bike, if you don’t have a decent set of brakes to help you control it, it’s going to end in tears.

Other notable brakes include SRAM brakes and  Tektro brakes

Models

Pricing

Brake prices vary massively depending on the type and manufacturer. For Rim brakes, a decent set would be around $35 a pair for a set of Avid Single Digit. Discs can be bought from $48 for a basic cable disc kit, right up to $380 for a hydraulic kit.