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105 Brifters for disc brakes?
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Thinking of putting together a cyclocross bike to try the limited races that we have here in Az. Is there any advantage to going with disc brakes, and if I take the 105 group from my current road frame, are the brake/shifter combos adaptible to disc brakes? Or will I have to go to a different setup?

John



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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [Devlin] [ In reply to ]
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I've got 105 shifters/levers paired with TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes on a Salsa Fargo I built up.

They work extremely well and I wanted mechanical discs on this bike for ease of maintenance when I'm in the middle of nowhere on that bike. No experience with hydraulic discs for cross, but I prefer the stopping power of the mechanical discs to the Avid Ultimate cantilevers I have on my cross bike.

Suffer Well.
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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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jmh wrote:
I've got 105 shifters/levers paired with TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes on a Salsa Fargo I built up.

They work extremely well and I wanted mechanical discs on this bike for ease of maintenance when I'm in the middle of nowhere on that bike. No experience with hydraulic discs for cross, but I prefer the stopping power of the mechanical discs to the Avid Ultimate cantilevers I have on my cross bike.

Thanks! It'll be somewhat dependent on what kind of cheapo frame I can pick up, it may not be an option. Just wanted to see if it was a possibility.

Joh



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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [Devlin] [ In reply to ]
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Just make sure the calipers you get are road/cross specific. MTB calipers take more cable pull to actuate.

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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [Devlin] [ In reply to ]
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the avid road mechanical discs are pretty popular and work OK. Sometimes, people have experienced a complete loss of braking in muddy conditions with the mechanical brakes, as the pad material wears enough that the levers are pulled all the way back to the bars but nothing much happens. I believe nationals 2 years ago had a lot of these issues.

I think a pad swap will solve this problem, I don't use discs so you'd need to research the issue. The hydro brakes self adjust so it's less of an issue with them.

Overall, discs are a nice option.
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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [Devlin] [ In reply to ]
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The TRP Spyre are road pull specific and both pads move with the lever pull.

Most mechanical disc brakes only one pad moves and pushes the rotor into the other pad. The Spyres move both pads towards the rotor like most hydraulic brakes. The Spyres are much better than the Avids in my opinion because of this difference alone and this is reason why many mechanical disc brake get a bad rap.

You can also use any Shimano 525 pad with them so for muddy conditions you can use metallic pads to reduce wear. I installed inline adjusters to allow me to dial in the brakes on the go, but not sure if that is necessary but

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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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jmh - are you running a triple on the 105? My husband wants to build up a multi-use bike and is quite focused/obsessed with having a triple.

And disc brakes.

I know the 105's support a triple, just curious if that is what you are running.

thanks,

Denise
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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [MrsTiki] [ In reply to ]
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MrsTiki wrote:
jmh - are you running a triple on the 105? My husband wants to build up a multi-use bike and is quite focused/obsessed with having a triple.

And disc brakes.

I know the 105's support a triple, just curious if that is what you are running.

thanks,

Denise

No triple, I'm running 2x10 with a XT RD-M771 9 speed rear and a XT FD-M786 double front derailleurs with 40-26 (not a Shimano "approved" mix of chainrings) XT crankset paired with a 11-36 XT 10 speed cassette gave me the high and low gears I needed. Pictured below.

Short answer: If you could find a road triple crankset with a gear ratio that works and pair it with a road triple derailleur and the road triple shifter it would work perfectly with no issues. But with the 2x10 gear options, I'm not sure you gain much with a triple front. A 38-24 gives you a nice bailout gear, but might be lacking on the top end. That's why I mixed chainrings.

Long answer: SRAM road shifters work with their mtn stuff just fine, but they don't have a triple road front shifter. So that leaves Shimano or a Shimano/Campy mix for a triple front. I'm not going to get into mixing Campy and Shimano...but there are obstacles with mixing Shimano road and mountian stuff.

The cable pull on the Shimano 10 Speed road shifters is a bit different than Mountain 10 Speed Derailleurs. This necessitates the 9 speed rear derailleur that works just fine with the 10 speed cassette and 10 speed shifter. The solution to get a triple mountain front mech to work with the road front triple shifters is more difficult. If you can find a J-Tek inline straight adapter (like this) it would work with a mountain crankset. The problem, again, is the amount of cable the road shifters pull compared to the mountain shifters and but also for the front the spacing on the crankset. I avoided this problem with a double because with only two positions the spacing and cable pull difference aren't that big of a deal to adjust.



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Re: 105 Brifters for disc brakes? [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for all this.

I've tried to convince the husband that a triple is not necessary unless he's going to do heavily loaded touring. But…he's only successfully ridden a triple touring set up (with bar end shifters) and his one and only bike with STI was SRAM on a Bike Friday. The cabeling on that bike was so horrible that the throw on the front crank was an epic mess of crap. So he has no good experience with STI shifters.

We just completed Ride The Rockies last month and while I had a compact Ultegra 6800 with an 11-32t in the back, he had his triple touring set up and felt it made the ride so much more enjoyable. He's got this fear that he needs to have that triple "just in case" (in case of what I don't know) and doesn't have enough confidence in his riding ability to realize that we can still hit some decent gearing ratios on a compact set-up if that's what he wants.

I'm currently looking for some sort of chart or list that will clearly show the overlap that a properly geared compact (like what you have) has alongside a triple.

Thanks for the input - this will be added in my "How to convince the husband he's a stronger cyclist than he thinks he is." folder. :-)

Denise
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