Hydraulic v mechanical discs

waxon-waxoff

I was looking at some beginners mountain bikes around the €500 mark with disc brakes. Is there much difference between mechanical discs (hayes) and hydraulic? The same bike costs about €100 more with the hydraulics but im not sure if i would notice the difference?

penexpers

Welcome to the holy grail of disc brakes. My understanding is that hydraulic brakes give better stopping power but mechanical are easier to maintain.

Gavin

Have a search through the mtbr.com forums. It's a fairly confusing mess of opinions. There are people who prefer mech and people who prefer hydraulic. I think it's pretty much as penexepers says, although I've seen people dispute that hydraulics have more stopping power. As I understand it from just reading, not actually using either (!), hydraulics give more sensitive control.

If you have the extra cash may as well get hydraulics, but if not, then just stick with the mech. You can always upgrade to hydraulics and probably upgrade to a better set than comes with the bike now.

The MAD crowd, Morgan/Drapper/Ollie should be able to give better info.

sean_d

The general concesus would be that hydraulic would be far superior, and require less maintanance. No cables to get gunked up, no need to adjust for cable stretch, etc etc.
I'd spend the extra hundred now, and not the 150-200 it may cost to upgrade later...
Cables only really make sense to me if you're planning on doing a lot of biking in far-off places or 'round the world tours, where spares could be more easily cobbled together...

Enduro

Sean D is spot on. I can go years without maintaining hydrolic disc brakes, bar changing pads. In fact my commuting pair (shimano XTs), started out on a freeride bike for a year, and have since been commuting daily for over 2 years, and all I've ever needed to do was change the pads (twice, for reference). Cables take a lot of maintanance, particularly if you mountainbike.

I rate the brakes as being the most important single component on a mountainbike (followed by forks and frames), so its worth getting the best set you can.

ob

Some of the entry level or OEM Hydraulic brakes are rubbish and can require a lot of maintenance, due to leaking, poor pad life etc.

My mountain bike came with Hayes So1e hydraulic disc brakes and I've had nothing but grief with them. They've gone from being very responsive to absolutely no power at all in the space of a 3 hour ride!

I'm waiting for my Hayes Stroker ones to arrive in the post today or tomorrow, which should be a marked improvement.

CheGuedara

Hi there,

I'm new to boards.ie but I agree with Sean D and Ob.

I've a hardtail with Magura hydraulics and just parted company with a commuter bike that had mechanical discs. The difference is staggering, both in terms of power and how easy it is to apply it (hydraulics will stop you on the head of a pin with little effort at the lever whereas the mechs are just not in the same league and req' way more effort at the bars) and regards maintenance (cable stretch does come into play in a big way and ingress of kack into the cable housing can cause issues).

At the same time if you stack the bike and pull the hose/housing, sorting the cable discs out is an easy job - the hydraulics, def. not so easy.

That said there is supposed to be little difference between a good set of cable discs with sealed compressionless housing (the Avid ones are supposed to be good) and entry level hydros, which may have more difficult maintenance issues if you happen to be unfortunate with what comes on the bike.

If you could hold off I'd recommend saving just a bit more to go for a rig with a good set of hydos, a month of extra patience could see ya with decent brakes that'll be hassle free and more effective for the longer term