Until the day I win the lottery/persuade the missus to let me buy a NoSno Pro Downhill with Hope disk-brakes (*drool*), I will have to make do with my (admittedly rather splendid and quite effective) ABS brake.
I’ve had very few problems whilst using the ABS (I had the mountings slip a little during some extended and particularly vicious braking and lack of power on Skiddaw…which was stupidly steep) and on the whole I think they are absolutely awesome! But then…nothing ever got worse by making it that extra bit awesomer…did it?
In advance of the Five Passes Mountainboard Challenge next week, I thought I would beef up the ABS a bit more, just in case the passes are a bit too steep/quick. Goofymark over on the Surfing Dirt forum first had the idea of looking into custom brake pads for the ABS so I decided to follow in his footsteps.
Heatsink Bikes produce custom Trial Biking braking solutions – specialising in Magura compatible parts. Word in the biking community is that they are pretty good. Since Goofymark first tried out the pads, Heatsink have come up with a few different pad compounds so I dropped owner Steve an email and he gave me some advice on what pads to try first.
Excellent first impression – Steve emailed back with some suggestions on pads and modifications to the brake disks. The pads arrived quickly and turned up with some Haribo! Winning!
I went for Heatsinks Yellow Magura pads (£18 inc. P&P). Fitting them was a piece of cake – wheels off, pop out the old pads, stick in the new ones and put the wheels back on! The pads are slightly longer and thicker than Magura pads, so the brake then needs to be re-aligned.
The easiest way I have found is by putting a 1p piece (or something of similar thickness) between the pad and the wheel and then tightening the mountings up. Knock out the 1p and the pads are a perfect 1mm away from the wheels.
As I said – the pads are slight longer than the standard Maguras and I found that I had a tiny part of the top corners hanging over the edge of the brake disks – but that shouldn’t matter. Rinse and repeat for the other brake.
I took my rig for a very quick test by rolling down my street and the Heatsink pads are definitely more effective than the standard Magura’s and that was in the wet (although they aren’t NoSno brake level yet..). They were also bloody noisy! Hope that stops soon….
I’ll be testing it out properly at the Test Track this weekend, so will post an update on how they do.
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