Avid Mechanical Disc Brake Review - Stronger than Dirt

SET UP Aligning the rotor and caliper on most disc brakes requires fumbling around with a handful of paper-thin shims. It’s a tedious process that involves dropping countless shims on the floor of your garage and having them then roll into oblivion under cabinets, spare tires and bags of dog food.

I hate the shimming thing with a passion. Avid, however, has completely bypassed this whole painful process with their Tri-Align caliper positioning system. In a nutshell, the Avid’s are equipped with a mess of conical washers that allow you to shift the caliper side to side and to tilt the caliper, just precisely so.

It’s a great system that takes the headache out of achieving that elusive drag-free braking performance. If you own a pair of these disc brakes, there is no reason at all (aside from a warped rotor) that your rotor should be rubbing against the caliper.

ADJUSTMENT Most disc brakes do not feature a ton of adjustments. The BB7s, however, give you a ton of options. For starters, there are those two big red dials—the dials allow you to vary the distance of both the outboard and inboard brake pads.

The barrel on your brake lever? You use that to take up cable slack and you’ll have to eventually, since your cable will stretch and you’ll then develop play at the brake lever (don’t try to use the brake lever barrel to adjust spring tension).

Want to achieve a snappier feel at the brake lever? You can adjust the system’s spring tension by dialing in the spring tension adjustment screw with a 2.5-millimeter allen wrench. Finally, folks running Avid brake levers equipped with Speed Dial adjusters can increase or decrease modulation by spinning that little Speed Dial adjustment knob. In short, if your braking starts to go a little soft, you’ve got plenty of options for firming things back up.

Reader Comments 

Posted Sat Sep27, 2008, 10:36 PM — By Jim

Thanks for such an extensive review of this product. I replaced my "v" brakes with a set of the BB7's and I have not been disappointed. Thanks agian!

Posted Fri Feb27, 2009, 11:35 PM — By Bill

My first good mountain bike was a Specialized Hardrock (I got to the point where I destroyed 2 wal-mart specials in 3 months); came with Avid BB7s, I was very impressed with the performance of the disk brakes over linear brakes. Long story short I just upgraded to a Giant Reign X2 with Hays Stroker Ryde hydraulics. I was disappointed with the braking power of them in comparison with my old cable BB7s. The BB7s have about 2200 hard miles on them. I have ridden them in Moab 3 times and up on the Seven Summits trail in B.C. They have never failed me in any regards.. One other thing, they will finally break in and the noise will fade after about 1900 miles and countless vertical feet...... All in all EXCELLENT product

Posted Thu Apr 2, 2009, 2:10 PM — By Soren

I just got a pair of these brakes and I cant wait to put them on my new bike I'm building, ('05 Kona Dawg). To top that off, I also ordered a great Marzocchi Z1 to slap to the front. Thanks for the great mag.

Posted Fri Jun19, 2009, 5:48 AM — By Ana

My mountain bike has this sort of disc brakes. It is better than old wire brakes. colors combination of brakes are also fantastic Being a interior designer it is very difficult for me to suggest colors & places in home for Fire Places & other things.

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