Rear brake sluggishness

Evening,

As a result of lack of mudguards and shitty british weather, the rear brake (ultegra 6800) has been caked in shite. Have flushed it out etc. but it's still really sluggish compared to the front brake, any tips on how to get rid of this?

Cheers,
Milo

Front brakes do 70% of the stopping(you can't get around that). So long as the back brake can lock the wheel(visible by a skid) you are getting the maximum you can. Lube the brake cables, check for kinks, change pads ect.

It's more that it feels nasty pulling the lever. Will have a look over and regrease etc. Only done 180km so far you see, that's why i'm confused as to why they're acting up.

reason theyre playing up is because theyve been caked in shit.

strip them right down and make every pivoting surface clean and smooth, some silicone lubricant on it all, do it up so its not sloppy and loose but equally not tight, new inner and outer cables and all will be good.

Cheers, any guides on how to take apart the calliper?

Start here: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/dual-pivot-brake-service

how sluggish is it if the cables are disconnected?

you may find that replacing the cables is all you need to do

+yoav thanks for that
+dancing james I might do that if the problem persists, I'd just rather not redo the cables if I have to - as I mentioned earlier it's a new bike.

Will buy some mudguards as well.

Replacing a cable > stripping and rebuilding a caliper.

to echo @M_V

pulling a caliper apart is much more complicated than recabling

if your caliper is covered in crap there is a good chance grime has got into your cables

if your caliper moves fine when not connected to the cables the problem is most likely in your cabling

Also, check the cable housing bends, if they're too sharp they'll make your brake feel sluggish, especially the release. I find my rear cable housing (exiting from top-tube near seat post) gets a bit tight after a lot of readjustment (sp?) to the barrel on the calliper to accomodate for the wear to the brake pads.

if the cable bends are too tight, @miloas, guess what you have to do?

replace them

Will have a look at everything when I get home. What's it like recalling internally routed rear brake cables?

http://www.artscyclery.com/learningcenter/replacingroutedcables.html

google is your friend

try and work out a way to drag the new outer in as you pull the old outer out
gaffer tape or something similar ?

Had a look at it, calliper seems to be very very slightly sluggish but that's not wear the probem is. The main area is the the cable leading from the rear of the top tube to the rear calliper. Performance isn't affected hugely, so won't bother replacing anything yet.

not really a surprise

Thanks mate. Forgive me for assuming that it was the brake calliper that was causing the sluggishness, how foolish.