Review: EEbrakes G4 Replica

I purchased these in June, these were the traditional mount model. I’ll start off with the fact that I have never used the genuine model so I can only compare with other calliper rim brakes. These are my thoughts after using them for about 3-4 months. See this thread for the bike setup https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/384608/

Ordering and packaging
I had done some research on these on various forums such as weightweenies etc and it had some mixed reviews so not sure what to expect. As these were significantly cheaper than the real thing by several times, landed in the UK they were a bit over £100 or so, the real thing is about 5 times the price. They have been around for quite a while and have a reputation for being quite good, whilst very light at a claimed ~180g. The measured real weight 183g so true to claimed weight. After ordering they arrived within about 2 weeks. Packaging was pretty convincing with imitation EE boxes and branded pamphlets etc inside. They EE logos are etched into the bridge piece of the callipers looks quite nice, however on the Aliexpress website these are shown as blank, i’m guessing this is for copyright reasons. The telltale sign however that these are replicas is that the serial etched on each calliper is the same, HO5284. The real versions each have unique serial numbers.

First impressions , fit and finish
I had heard the general fit and finish was very high. This I can attest to, fit and finish is actually very nice, all the pieces are very nicely machined and the anodising is done quite well. There is a little bit of play in the main pivots, not sure how the genuine ones are but I bet they are slightly better. Although when squeezing the brakes and pushing the wheel forward you can see a little bit of play, it’s not enough, to say have the pads rotate forward and rub on the tyre.

However there were some details which were skimped such as the hardware that fixed the pads didn’t fit that well. Generally speaking the hardware that is included with the callipers is a bit poor, for example the brake pad holder bolts don’t have a perfectly flat bottom under the head and the washers inside diameter is too large for the bolt. The slots in the arms for the brake pad holders are quite large, both of these factors combined mean that pressure isn’t distributed evenly on the arms when clamped down and could cause gouging. Secondly the bolt that fixes the cable is a bit rough looking, generally functions well, but the square washer underneath is very thin and flimsy. The cable adjuster is quite unique as it has a curved sliding plastic washer with a barrel adjuster integrated into it, these are special to this design so don’t lose these!

Luckily the hardware is reasonably easy to replace, I ended up ordering black titanium bolts and washers to replace the pad holder bolts. Also I replaced the main fixing nut, the one that comes with it is an aluminium unit. Nothing particularly wrong with this, but as it is a safety critical part I’d prefer a standard steel bolt here, the weight difference is negligible.

Setup and installation
Initially these were setup with old Zipp rims which were quite narrow and did not work as the external width was too narrow (approx 19mm external). The way it works is that you use washers to adjust this so the arms are a the correct angle for the linkage to work. The linkage is quite unique in that it’s particularly linear, with a SRAM force lever it has a similar feel to the servo wave design, in that the initial travel the leverage is low but ramps up as it contacts the rim giving you better clearance when not engaged, but more leverage when it is. Basically in the end the old Zipp rims were much to narrow and I would have to get longer bolts and washers, I was planning on replacing these with much wider modern carbon rims anyway so left them until then.

I built new wheels for my CAAD5 which were 28mm external carbon Light Bicycle rims with the grooved graphene braking track. This time the callipers worked with only a single washer under each brake pad holder. Due to the unique design of the calliper, it relies a lot more on the flex of the cable outer feeding it, a lot more than a normal dual pivot calliper. Because of this it wasn’t straightforward or easy. Initially I tried to use compression less outers, these are a lot stiffer than traditional outers and do not bend easily. Because of their inability to bend, it causes one arm of the pivot to not move correctly so messes up everything.