Anyone know anything about disc brakes?

..it says road on them..

And I read on the interwebz campagnolo ergos and mechanical discs should work a treat..

I'll throw some more money to the problem and buy a single bb7 to see if it at least solves the braking up front.

If not then I'll throw on a 180mm front.

Throw your money at juintech R1s. Although you should be able to make bb5s work OK, set up properly they're not complete shit and are fine for general commuting use.

+1 for juintechs if you're spending money. Zero maintenance, and nice upgrade even from bb7s. Although my front caliper sized completely after a whole winter of riding in the mud. Maybe should have cleaned them more often.

Too little too late. Single Bb7 on order. Should be there before the weekend, leaving on Tuesday very early for a tour Zadar-Ancona-Firenze-Tuscany-Venice just in time to tinker and set up.

The Campagnolo cable pull mean it end up pulling too much cable to engage the brakes sometime.

Also there can be fault with mechanical brakes as in the way the pads sit in the piston, if they're not 100% straight, they will be spongy no matter what, this go for nearly all the cable operated brakes, such as the Haye, the Spyres, right down to the entry level Promax.

Personally, a BB7 work better as you're able to dial in the moving pads in without adjusting the cable and losing the mechanical advantage, I liked BB5 but I find I have to try and move the moving pads as close to the rotor by moving the whole calipers so I can keep the arm open as much as I can and just move the static pads closer.

Also ordered a set of new pads for the other bb5, I should be covered..

Re cable pull I don't understand. They work for normal brakes, why the headache with mechanical discs?!

Re cable pull I don't understand. They work for normal brakes, why the headache with mechanical discs?!

Disc brakes are really sensitive to changes in mechanical advantage because...reasons

(extremely high force between pad and rotor, extremely low distance travelled or somat')

does anyone know about setting up TRP HY/RD's? I bought some second hand calipers, put new pads in, new rotors on the wheels, the rear one constantly rubs and the front one rubs once per rotation. I'm using Shimano road levers. I tried using a tyre lever to force the pads apart as much as possible but it didn't really do anything.

The lever arm needs to retract fully to work properly, so make sure that's back and locked in place with the little nubbin, then try spreading the pads again. If that doesn't help then they may need a bleed or you should've bought juintech's.

Is all Shimano hydraulic hosing the same? i.e., can I use XTR hose with my RS685?

There's 2 kinds, BH90 and BH59, BH90 tends to be on the newer/higher end stuff and has a slightly different bore size, which matches up to when shimano changed the bore size needed for the lever/caliper on the MTB stuff and when it's trickled it's way down the range. Both hose types can be bought with different ends depending on what the caliper needs. Google says you need BH59 with a straight end.

Lovely, thanks.

How careful do I need to be with disc cleaner? I'd added it to my bi-monthly deep-clean routine, where I will carefully treat the rotors after I have cleaned both wheels, removed from bike.

I don't have time to do this after every shower, but my brakes could literally wake the dead in anything beyond a light spitting.

I'm wondering how effective it's likely to be if I can just douse the rotors (and pads?) in situ, and give a vigorous scrub with a microfibre cloth?

For additional reference, this is with a TRP Spyre OEM set of calipers and rotors. I've replaced the pads that came with the set with a couple of different replacements and the current ones are basically silent in the dry, but much, much worse in the wet. It's literally given me a headache it's that bad.

I just wipe the pads and rotor with acetone, they only get noisy when they pick up oil from road esp in the wet

QR/Bolts on wheels done up correctly?

Didya bed the rotors / pads in correctly?

Hmm. This is almost instantly and every time it is wet. Could any spray from any road surface likely cause that sort of oil contamination?

As far as I know? Could there be give in the QR skewers? Maybe I will try some different ones...

Yep. And I've gone through the procedure of removing the pads, lightly sanding them, cleaning the rotors as described above, and re-bedding them in. No problems until it rains and it's made zero difference.

Earplugs. Or in ear headphones :)

Bend the pad holders back a little , your getting vibration from somewhere . Tighten everything and get a steel front qr or A dt one where you can hang on it.

Think I'll bloody have to.

Yes, definitely seems like vibration coming from somewhere. Maybe the cables need renewing too.

This thing? http://www.wiggle.co.uk/dt-swiss-rws-mtb-steel/