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Mountain bikers! WTF??

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  1. #1

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    Mountain bikers! WTF??

    Riding on Tai Lam Chung today on my hard-tail and had to brake pretty hard to avoid a group of zombies, I mean hikers.

    BANG! Rear rotor seems to have melted?

    It's stripped the thread out of the brake bridge...aka, the frame is a write off...the wheel and the brake are obviously trashed too.



    Anyone seen anything like this before??


  2. #2

    When was the last time you changed your brake pads?

    DirtyHairy likes this.

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by civil_servant:
    When was the last time you changed your brake pads?
    It's a very good question. But it wasn't that long ago and the brakes felt great...I always test them before I ride.

    Hard to say if the pads were on or not when it happened as the brake is pretty much destroyed.

    The heat must have been terrific.

  4. #4

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    That rotor doesn't look like it has enough surface area, or material in general, to be safe in the first place.

    Is that a Ti Alligator rotor? Off memory, Ti is not a good material to use in a rotor. Can't remember why, possibly because it doesn't transfer heat well, mixed with so little mass, that can't be a good thing.

    What's with the weird black sections on the rotor?

    100LL likes this.

  5. #5

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    I would have thought the wheel would have locked up into a skid before that much damage could be done due to friction! :O

    Was this one hard braking incident or a follow on from a number of lighter braking periods?


  6. #6

    Were your wheels spinning freely or were the brakes rubbing a little?


  7. #7

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    Honestly, I wouldn't trust this disc brake for a minute (not for serious braking). Chinese design?


  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by 100LL:
    Honestly, I wouldn't trust this disc brake for a minute (not for serious braking). Chinese design?
    Seems like it's a Chinese rotor...lesson learnt. Well I've posted this on the mtb HK forum as well...the wheels are a good set of DT Swiss...didn't occur to me to look at the rotors...seems weird to put shit gear with good..

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by civil_servant:
    Were your wheels spinning freely or were the brakes rubbing a little?
    I think they were spinning freely...I have a routine before I ride, tyre pressure/chain/fork/brakes (I'm human, I could have missed a small rubbing I suppose.)...I mean, logically, the pads must have gotten out somehow...had to be metal on metal to generate that heat...but, it still shouldn't have been that catastrophic a failure...plus, it happened kind of instantly if that makes sense...brakes on and BANG.

    Also...I was going fast...but not super fast...I'm guessing 20kmh...

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by DirtyHairy:
    Seems like it's a Chinese rotor...lesson learnt. Well I've posted this on the mtb HK forum as well...the wheels are a good set of DT Swiss...didn't occur to me to look at the rotors...seems weird to put shit gear with good..
    I remember that some (high quality) brake manufacturers have put out warnings against using their systems with very light aluminium discs or strange "Chinese" designs... (including pictures of what might happen).
    DirtyHairy and civil_servant like this.

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