high quality 2-piece 160mm rotor recommendation?

[wallymann]

i bought what i presumed to be a premium sram/avid rotor, the XX.
but it's got a sine-wave in that i cant for the life of me get out. it's INFURIATING.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzU2WDU2Nw==/z/ZBoAAOSw8lBToSEn/$_12.JPG

so i'm looking for a recommendation for a 2-piece 160mm rotor that will be straight and true RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. just like my powertap disc rotor. straight.

[mcallen]

That sounds infuriating. I'm new to disc brakes--what's the advantage/appeal of two-piece versus one piece?

[oldpotatoe]

i bought what i presumed to be a premium sram/avid rotor, the xx.
But it's got a sine-wave in that i cant for the life of me get out. It's infuriating.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/nzu2wdu2nw==/z/zboaaosw8lbtosen/$_12.jpg

so i'm looking for a recommendation for a 2-piece 160mm rotor that will be straight and true right out of the box. Just like my powertap disc rotor. Straight.

XT/XTR Icetech..the standard..

SRAM bent outta the box, imagine that.

[45K10]

I have had these rotors on my bike for the past 4 months:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/us/en/s?q=clarks+floating+rotor+-+160mm

Teamed up with some nuke-proof pads the work great. Not sure if they are compatible with Avid brakes though.

[wallymann]

...what's the advantage/appeal of two-piece versus one piece?

better potential to minimize squealing. 2-piece rotors generally have a stiffer aluminum carrier along with the riveted interface between the rotor and carrier that change the harmonics -- instead of 1 big homogenous plane of metal that's just waiting to harmonize and shriek, it's a stiff & somewhat complex structure.

but the stiffer carrier also makes them tougher to true, so the mfg has to have tight production QC -- which apparently is where SRAM falls on their face. i just fitted up a 1-piece avid rotor for grins, and while it was also out of true i was able to get it super-straight in a couple minutes.

[vqdriver]

Shimano icetech

[Kirk Pacenti]

Shimano or Scrub Components (http://www.scrubcomponents.com/).

[11.4]

There shall be only one.

Shimano IceTech.

I was using others and gave up. The IceTech's have been bang on every time, never fail, last longer, you name it. No reason to go anywhere else.

[45K10]

So, you can use IceTech rotors with Avid brakes?


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[Cicli]

So, you can use IceTech rotors with Avid brakes?


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Yeah, they will work fine together.

[Vientomas]

I have had no problems with Hope rotors.

[p nut]

Shimano icetech

Another vote for Icetech's. Has been flawless for me.

[Mark McM]

There shall be only one.

Shimano IceTech.

Aren't those the rotors that if they heat up to much, the aluminum core softens (melts) and gets extruded out from between the steel outer layers? You don't have to search too far to find multiple examples of this happening.

[peanutgallery]

Another vote for the IceTech's. You honestly can't be surprised that ScRam would deliver a bent rotor?

On another note, ScRAM should just give up making bike parts. Would love to see a class action lawsuit that reflected the frustration of customers and dealers alike. Imagine all the time, $ and customer goodwill shops have lost because of ScRam? Be funny if someone figured out a dollar amount per bike or per part sold

[malcolm]

I have had no problems with Hope rotors.

Good luck with Hope as well.
No trouble with shimano either though.

[wallymann]

Aren't those the rotors that if they heat up to much, the aluminum core softens (melts) and gets extruded out from between the steel outer layers? You don't have to search too far to find multiple examples of this happening.

interesting:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/q71/s720x720/1069865_512381345506859_12509604_n.jpg
http://i2.wp.com/www.flowzone.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DSC_0054.jpg?resize=700%2C500

[11.4]

Aren't those the rotors that if they heat up to much, the aluminum core softens (melts) and gets extruded out from between the steel outer layers? You don't have to search too far to find multiple examples of this happening.

I've seen a few photos, but from downhillers. And the Shimano tech notes I've seen have observed that the rotors were already toast before this happened, and it only happened in downhill mtg situations. Those have been the bane of every rotor system since caliper first touched rotor. If you don't transfer heat to the rotor, you boil the caliper. Take your choice. What Icetech does is conduct as much heat as possible away from the braking area so the caliper doesn't get fried. And if it does, it doesn't recover without at a minimum a proper bleed, and you are toast for brakes.

By the way, those photos look like a very early generation IceTech rotor. And they show a lot of scoring on the braking surfaces, suggesting that they were already worn to the point of needing replacement.

[zap]

I've seen a few photos, but from downhillers.

Several road tandem teams experienced problems last year.

But we remain happy with 203 ICE rotors on our tandem.

[DRZRM]

Another happy Shimano IceTech user here. perfect braking from day one.

[11.4]

Several road tandem teams experienced problems last year.

But we remain happy with 203 ICE rotors on our tandem.

I can imagine road tandem riders having problems with road disc systems. Frankly, they've had problems with most disc systems that have been implemented on tandems. They have the same issues as downhillers -- crazy speed, larger amount of mass, and a need to effect big speed reductions quickly. I've seen lots of tandem riders who boil off their hydraulic fluid and lose braking power. The heat has to go somewhere and many riders lost braking because they let it go into the caliper. Someone who tries to lock a disc brake on a steep and very fast downhill, especially with a lot of mass in play, is guaranteed to break something, simply because the energy transfer creates more heat than the system can handle. I had a chance to read some investigations of disc brake failures, and in almost every case the rider locked up the system and provoked the failure. We don't have antilock brakes on bikes (yet), so until we do, one simply can't lock them up.

And if one has a solid steel rotor, what happens? It can't dissipate the heat as well and it warps. Then it locks against the warp. So functionally, you have the same failure.

The OP asked for high quality rotor recommendations. I could have recommended several good rotors, including one-piece rotors, but a recommendation is meaningless if the brakes are misused and caused to fail. Whether you warp the rotor, melt it, boil the hydraulic fluid, or burn off the caliper pads, you still have a failure. The reason there's still a lot of support for rim brakes is that heat buildup can be limited. As Beloki will attest, it can still be excessive, but it's a lot harder to do serious damage with rim brakes.

[Mark McM]

I can imagine road tandem riders having problems with road disc systems. Frankly, they've had problems with most disc systems that have been implemented on tandems. They have the same issues as downhillers -- crazy speed, larger amount of mass, and a need to effect big speed reductions quickly. I've seen lots of tandem riders who boil off their hydraulic fluid and lose braking power. The heat has to go somewhere and many riders lost braking because they let it go into the caliper. Someone who tries to lock a disc brake on a steep and very fast downhill, especially with a lot of mass in play, is guaranteed to break something, simply because the energy transfer creates more heat than the system can handle.

It's not short, hard braking that causes brake overheating - its long, continuous braking that does it. As, for example, using a disc as a drag brake on a steep descent. There are many riders who are afraid of high speeds on steep descents, and who stay on their brakes continuously - these are the ones who will have problems with overheating brakes, not those who brake hard but infrequently.

[zap]

Discs are certainly not designed to be used as drag brakes. But, in the tandem world, some of the teams with melted ICE discs swear they did not drag their brakes. Some of the descents reportedly were pretty steep with switchbacks-some with pretty short straight sections. I believe teams were using BB7 calipers-as are we.

On long descents with many switchbacks, I check speed on longer straights before turns alternating between front and rear discs, pause to cool some then hit the rear brakes first then the fronts to negotiate the turn. The same technique that I use on our canti/rim tandem in order to prevent tire blowouts. Not the fastest way down a very long descent but safe…..sucks if both wife and I go down. Ohhhh, that happened once………..

I don't have a problem going down shorter descents at 55mph then hitting the brakes hard just before a stop sign or traffic light at the bottom. But man…..the noise of the expanded hot disc :crap:

Additionally, I don't think there is a tandem team out there that is able to lock up disc brakes-at least not with mechanical designs. The canti/rim brakes on our old tandem out performs our disc equipped tandem.

Lastly, both ICE discs on our tandem are not true but certainly better than Avid discs we had before. We are running the pads mighty close as we have Campy 10 ergo levers on our tandem.

[wallymann]

the problem was that i was using improper tools to true the rotor: an 8" crescent wrench.

crescent wrench was fine for the more pliable 1-piece rotor, but the stiffer 2-piece rotor requires the leverage of an honest-to-goodness rotor truing tool. a few minutes with that and my XX is good-to-go.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMDYz/$T2eC16JHJGoE9nuQeVsBBP4l2YVd5!~~60_12.JPG