Disk or that, you decide.

Have you noticed that everyone seems to be switching to disk brake these days? It's certainly the latest thing in the mountain biking world. Disk brakes have been popular with Downhillers for sometime now and the benefits are obvious. Downhillers rely heavily on their brake systems, which are pushed to their limits on long, high-speed descents on ski resort mountainsides.

Neither I, nor the people that I ride with do a lot of downhilling, two or three times in a year. Yet more then a few of my cross-country riding buds have switched, to the disk brake system. Granted, at least one of the people in my club just bought a new bike and it came with the disk brake system. This turned out to be a great opportunity for me, because I got a chance to have a ride on a new bike and get feedback from the owner. The owner loves their new bike, brakes and all. This is no real big surprise to me because 1- they just dished out two and an half grand, 2-it's a big step up from their old bike, and 3- Did I mention that they just dished out two and half grand? It's interesting to note that just a few years ago they would have paid about the same for a bike with V brakes. Oddly enough, when I asked the question, "If the Disk brake system was a option, would you have spent the money on some other part of the bike?" I was told, "No, I would have just kept the money because everything else on the bike was the top of the line and I don't know if I would have seen a difference between the Disk brakes and V brakes." This leaves me asking, "why there is such a big push by the mountain bike manufactures to sell bikes with Disk brake systems."

The test ride went well, I didn't break it and it didn't break me. The whole bike performed well, but you probably want to know how did the disk brake system performed, how did it compare to V brakes? The disk brakes system worked as well as the V brakes system with ceramic pads and rims except that the disk brakes seemed to make a lot noise after a few stream crossings and mud events, but it did go away after a bit of time. It just so happened that we embarked on a three-day riding event not too long after my test ride. It appears that the disk brake systems also require more care then V brakes when loading and unloading the bike from a car or a rack. Damage to the caliper, which is attached to the fork can happen when the bike is being moved around without the wheels. The rotator can get very hot after only a few minutes of riding, as my friend found out when he cooked his forearm on the rotator, while removing something from his front wheel. I'm sure he won't make that mistake again. Another thing worth mentioning is that sometimes the brakes dragged a little bit, because of temperature changes between the rotator and the brake material in the caliper. This can be fixed by adjusting the cable tension. I've been informed that this is not the case with all Disk Brake Systems.

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