After seeing the mud collection from the UCI cyclocross worlds, disc brakes just keep looking better and better, and these performed well.Ībout my set up: I used these calipers with Shimano Ultegra drop bar road levers and they worked flawlessly. I was fortunate enough to start the day’s race in the first wave, and conditions were still slick and dirty. Now, let us have a moment of silence for the death of Gore cables, they will be missed.
While there’s something to be said for all-in-one packaging, being able to adjust while riding is nice, too. Unlike the Hayes CX5, Avid’s doesn’t have a barrel adjuster built into the caliper. With the Hayes brake, you need an allen wrench, but you can adjust it as much or as little as you want.Īvid recommends installing the inline barrel adjuster. The downside is that the adjustments are indented into fixed increments, and yes, sometimes it’ll seem like it’s either too far or too close to the rotor, particularly on the inside pad. Compared to the Hayes’, you get the convenience of tool-free adjustments.
#Avid bb5 review full#
The pad adjustment knob on the inside is huge and easy to turn even with full finger winter gloves. It also allowed room for quick adjustments while riding. The result was having the barrel adjuster in the middle of its travel, giving me full range of arm pull on the caliper, instant movement when I pulled the lever and plenty of modulation and leverage to go from feathering to lock up. Ultimately, I’d put them about 1mm to 1.5mm off the rotor on either side, which provided clearance for any wobble in the rotor and a good feel at the brake lever. After setting the cable tension, then I’d fiddle with the knobs to bring the pads in. That meant closing down the barrels almost to their shortest position, pulling the cable taut with a third-hand tool, then clamping it down and using the barrel to ensure tightness. That said, I found getting worthy performance from the brakes meant setting them up with no slack in the line. This helps get the pads as close to the rotor as possible without having to use up cable pull by twisting the inline barrel adjusters. The BB7’s benefit from dual contact adjustment knobs (one on each side, for each pad). I needed the rear only since ENVE’s disc ‘cross fork is designed around a 160mm rotor. The included adapters for front (18g), rear (13g) and bolts (10g, x2 if you needed both adapters) would add 51g to the bike.
Other stuff you may need depending on your bike’s set up are mounting adapters. Standard BB7 brakes get the older Clean Sweep rotors. I ran both 160’s, so total for the test was 206g. Weights for the 160 is 96g and 140 is 80g. They’re available in 140, 160, 180 and 200mm sizes. You’ll also need a rotor, and the BB7 SL’s ship with the newer HS1 rotors introduced in 2011 with the updated Elixir hydraulic brakes. Weight savings, claimed at 25g per caliper, primarily come from using titanium hardware, better rotors and different brake pads that aluminum backed with a lightweight organic material, versus a standard metal backed sintered pad on the regular BB7 Road.Īt a minimum, you’re going to be installing the three parts above: Caliper (159g), mounting bolts with their “Tri-Align Caliper Positioning System” washers (16g) and the inline barrel adjuster (4g). Functionally, they’re the same as standard Road BB7 brakes, which I’ve had Introduced last year (but spotted before hand at Eurobike), Avid’s BB7 SL replace some of the steel hardware with titanium to bring the weight down, and they get a nice dark metallic “Falcon Gray” finish to set them apart…and match up with the new Red group. In other words, perfect testing conditions.
#Avid bb5 review series#
As fate would have it, they got here just in time for our NC cyclocross series finals, which was covered in snow, mud and crud. So, we requested a few things to test, and Avid’s new BB7 SL calipers were the first to arrive. Learn more.Īfter reviewing the Hayes CX5, people asked how they compared to some of the other mechanical disc brake options out there. Support us! BikeRumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article.
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