Anyone know anything about disc brakes?

Yep, a vice, the little yellow gripper things and a rubber mallet was needed for mine. When I had to bleed mine to change onto a new frame (internally routed) I had to snip the last couple of cm off as there was no way of getting it out, or the olive over the end of the it.

i rode it for 26 miles and havent died .. there was a bit of rain involved too.

I'd be more worried about amount of times you've squeezed the lever and how hard. Maybe it'll all be fine but I wouldn't want it to explode when you grab and big handful of brake to try and avoid a problem going downhill at speed and with white bibs on.

Probably should've stuck to cantis.

#rep

Yeah I know what you mean, will replace as soon as I can .. it's a rear brake on my commuter so hardly anything above 20mph lols

Could keep it as a Bond style mod where you can pull a rad skid and leave a load of hydraulic fluid in your wake.

My wheels don't spin for very long when I check with them off the ground. I think it's the discs rubbing because I had to remove the qr skewer to fit a trailer attachment. How do I remedy this?

The wheels should spin for ages off the ground right?

At least a week. There are 2 5mm Allen bolts attaching the calipers to the bike, loosen them off a bit then move the caliper side to side until the pads are the same distance from the rotor on both sides, you need to look down through the caliper to check this, usually with something light behind it. If there is no clearance and they are hydros you probably pressed the lever with the wheel out and will need further instructions.

Obviously check the wheel is in straight and the qr done up properly first.

Ok so I just got the pistons unstuck and bled the v-twin brakes I got from spotter. First time working on hydraulics, seemed easy enough. Rolled the diaphragm back on like in the instructions but afterwards I noticed a wheezing sound like air escaping when working the brakes. Put some soapy water all around the MC bits and like in the picture, bubbling around a small vent or channel in the lid, when pushing the pistons back in. Wtf? Normal?

Edit: @dancing james @spotter

1 Attachment

Lol I filled it with washing up liquid!

Jk I have no idea why that's happening sorry. Fingers crossed

Hahaha, that explains it

I filled it with washing up liquid!

Brillant, just brilliant.

Should be explained by fluid being pushed back in to the reservoir. As it does so the diaphragm bulges out and pushes air under the cap out through a vent.

Sounds right Howard, thanks a lot. I arrived at the same conclusion late last night, the noise suddenly became audible because of the excess brake fluid in the vent. I expect it'll go away eventually.

What are the disc mount tolerances like between hub manufacturers? Am I likely to be able to drop in a wheelset from a different company with no rubbing? or even different models from the same company?

Same models: yes in theory

Other models: no. Unless you adjust the disc position with shims. The inverse ones are pricey.

I knew I could rely on the bicycle industry to fail to standardise something you'd think to be relatively simple.

Anyone have any experience with Shimano? I've currently got some wheels built with XT hubs. sometime in the future I'd like to build a second wheelset primarily for racing that's a bit lighter. So probably using the CX75 hubs. No doubt switching between the mountain bike and road worlds within Shimano will cause issues.

Six bolt?

I have a pair of Giant wheels that came stock on my TCX SLR 2, with 6 bolt discs, and a set of DT Swiss 350s with centrelock discs which I can change between without touching the gear alignment and the only pad adjustment is to compensate for the different thicknesses of discs. Not more than half a turn on Spyres. Obviously YMMV...

Training/spare wheel's XT hubs are centre lock.

Thinking aloud:

I was hoping to drop the spoke count down to at least 28, of which the only Shimano option without a weird lacing would mean the CX75. Which are double the price of XT, weigh the same and have the same seals.

I suspect the best route would be to forget the weight of 4 additional spokes per wheel, stick to the XT hubs and use some lighter crabon rims.

forget the weight of 4 additional spokes per wheel

This will be negligible when youre using heavy shimano hubs. I can't think of a situation where 28H could ever be the best option. If you want a light/aero race wheelset you'll be using 20/24H, if youre commuting on training 28H will just be weaker with no noticeable benefits. Aero and weight between 28 and 32H is minimal but strength and stiffness suffers with 28H

Apologies for the UTFS question, but what are the go-to pads for Shimano BR-M525 Deore?

I want the softer, kinder to rotors, shorter-lived pads: "organic"?

Organic = resin.

Shimano ones are fine.