i have about 160 miles on my new vsett 10+ with the zoom hydraulic brakes and the pads grab real hard no matter how easy the brakes are applied. it is just at initial braking then they act normally but it kind of throws you forward which is unsafe. i removed and cleaned, sanded the pads and cleaned the discs. everything is true and functioning perfectly but it staill has the initail hard grab. any thoughts?
triprop have you try changing the p-settings with the regen brakes? My mechanical disc brakes on my 9+ kinda does the same thing
triprop I agree with @ItsAqua . It sounds like your regen brakes. Can you hear if your brakes actually make contact? My Vsett is set so that the mechanical brakes don’t engage until about halfway, the first half is mostly regen. one way to test this is to find a hill and start down at a moderate/low speed. apply the brakes gently. Hold, then slowly add more pressure. My guess is you might be able to feel somewhere where the mechanical brakes contact, as opposed to just the regen brakes…
Sounds like you may have resin or organic brake pads. Those types of pads give maximum bite when cold but will fade pretty quickly as they heat up. Getting multi-metallic, semi-metallic, or sintered brake pads will help with the grabbing as they need to get a little hot before they deliver their full bite. Their main advantage is that they don’t fade as much or at all when hot and they last a lot longer. My ES19 also has Zoom hydraulic brakes that uses pads that are rectangular in shape. Very similar to what Shimano and Tektro uses but are slightly narrower. Replacement brake pads for Zoom brakes are pretty hard to find, particularly in different pad materials. The Zoom pads are around 30mm wide while the more common Shimano and Tektro pads are 31mm. That 1mm difference prevents the pads from sliding into the Zoom calipers. Here is an example of pads meant for Shimano and Tektro: These are the pads I bought in the multi-metallic material. I filed about 0.6mm off each side of the metal backing plate to bring down the width of the backing plate from 31mm to around 29.5mm and reused the Zoom spreader spring (Shimano/Tektro springs are also too wide). I also replaced the brake rotors with ones that have a little less surface area for the brake pads to bite on. The particular ones I got are known as “floating” rotors in which the part of the rotor that the pads actually squeeze on is not solidly attached to the center part of the rotor which is bolted to the wheel hub. This reduces squealing and uneven braking by allowing the outer portion of the rotor to move around just a little bit in relation to the center. Mine also happens to have additional heat sinking to help the rotor cool down quicker.
thanks for the replies. the brakes worked fine for the first 100 miles and then gradually developed this problem. i guess ill try to bleed the system and then try different pads. shouldn’t be doing this with only 160 miles on it. i’ll call rev rides and see what they say. it really is unsafe escpecially when you’re going 30+.
triprop
Did you check your regen setting as ITsAqua suggested as well. It can usually be adjusted up or down for 1 to 5 in your displays settings. A too high setting can be very unsettling if you aren’t prepared for it. It’s like downshifting in a standard gearshift car from 3rd gear to 1st gear, you get a jolt when you let out the clutch. As you get experienced riding they can get dialed back up when you want to take advantage of the motor braking feature more.
JacobHorton Option 2, to determine if it’s regen, 1) Squeeze the brake enough that the brake light turns on. 2)(the exclamation point will also indicate that the regen brakes are applied) 3)holding the brake in the position, look at the disk brake to see if you can see a gap between the pads and the disk
If there’s daylight, as shown here, it’s likely the regen brakes throwing you forward, which you should be able to adjust/disable in the settings to your desires. Hope that helps!
