Big H - a Q for you and others about disk brakes

[mdk555]

Trust is a big issue on a tandem. My trust was exercised this morning when we went out with the new disk brakes. I am still waiting for the longer hydraulic pipe and the brake is jury rigged on M's handlebar. I had to trust her to operate the rear brake!!!!!!! She handled it like the pro she is!!!!!!!

  Is this the first time you are using disk brakes? Big H (and others who have disk brakes) I would love to know more about tandems and disk brakes as seems like from other forums is that this is an issue with huge conflicting answers.

 

Scary thing is that at the 94.7 is shocked me to see just how many tandem (while I was in the start shutes) had their brakes rigged up incorrectly.

[Mudsimus]

Most tandems got mechanical disc brakes. The most reliable ones are Avid. In this case you dont have the problem of a to short a hydrolic hose. If you want to go hydrolic I'll say go for Shim XT or Avid Jucy7 and replace the hoses with a custom lenght goodridge hose. This is needless to say not possible on a road tandem.  We still use XTR v's on the tandem and they work awesome.

[Guest Big H]

Hi MDK I am no fundi on the actual use of disks. All I know is that the virtues pro and against have been discussed ad infinitum. Same as the Shimano / Kempperkkenoglia debate. After a lot of soul searching we had three short listed namely Avid Juicy 7, Magura Gustav (beauts!!!) and the Hope Mono M 4 disks. We decided on the hope disks and imported from www.chainreactioncycles.com There is no problem with obtaining lenghts of disk hose and I would not look at cable operated disks because they are NOT tandem rated. Of the above three the Avids are NOT tandem rated. Their downhill disks (cannot remeber name) can be used but are verrrry expensive. The Maguras are beautys but also prhobitively expensive.The Hopes are well made, are fixed disks with a four pot system. (same as expensive sports cars) They stop awesome, but we have only done about 100km with them and no dirt riding yet. We decided on 185 mm rotors. I would have preferred a 203 mm rotor up front but that is not preferred without using a 20mm through hub. Skewers can break due to the twisting in the fork on normal hubs. We can upgrade to 203 when we buy the Maverick DUC 32 fork one day. Lenghts of hydr pipe are easily obtained and it is fairly simple to install and bleed. I did buy a bleed kit that is charged with compressed air from the tube, works very nifty.