YOUR LETTERS
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★ STAR LETTER ★
Back in Easter 2017 whilst on holiday with my then 12-year-old son in Mid Wales, we visited BikePark Wales. We were on poor quality hardtails, inappropriately dressed and underprepared. We had no idea what we had stumbled upon. Cue a journey of discovery, of great expense and of great fun. All with so much father and son (and then later, father, son and daughter) bonding over riding, improving and getting better bikes, parts and gear. All the way through guided by mbr and your reviews.
Both my teenagers now leave me for dust on any trail and indeed ride trails I wouldn’t dare to. But what fun it has been and how lucky I am to have found a shared love of mountain biking with my two teenagers.
It may have left me with an empty wallet but we have all gained so much along the way – and I am so pleased that they look forward to weekends away with dad, and of course our mountain bikes, whatever the weather.
TAKE A BRAKE
Why oh why do mountain bike brakes squeal and howl so much in anything other than bone-dry conditions? And before anyone wants to lecture me on looking after them, I’ve been there and done that for many years. For 30+ years I’ve had motorbikes and cars and it’s never been a problem, whether that’s road bikes, MX bikes, enduro or trials machines – not once have I suffered squealing brakes. Ever. For some reason with mtb brakes, as soon as they get slightly damp or cold, it’s howling banshees. With new pads I bed them in, if I use any sprays like GT85 and the like, I cover the discs. I have Isopropyl alcohol to clean the discs and have tried all the different pad compounds; it might be OK for one ride yet the next time I take the bike out they squeal.
Surely there must be a solution that manufacturers can agree on to get round this problem, we have so much tech on bikes these days yet brake noise seems to be ignored, we have ABS now yet no anti-squeal brakes!
I’m not the only one with this problem as there are plenty of videos on YouTube with the likes of McTrail rider, Tommy C Hype, Street Pigeon to name a few where you can hear squealing brakes quite often.
We have bikes costing upwards of £10k yet as soon as it’s wet they sound like a cheap kiddies bike from Halfords!
Ed -Iguess it’s the last great frontier, silencing harmonic resonance. The trouble is those rotors are so skinny in comparison with moto brakes, and much larger than CX brakes, that they make perfect amplifiers. On that note, I’ve noticed SRAM’s HS2 is quieter, probably thanks to its thicker and stiffer construction.
BUSTED
Just
