I’ve been wanting to clean up the brakes on my Gulfstream commuting bike for a long time. I put a bit of time on this bike so I’d like it to present as good as practical.
The older SRAM Level levers that I’d been using had grown increasingly ugly as bar sweeps increased. They point forward considerably and don’t match what we’ve become accustomed to with the cleaner stealth setups.
I also wanted to keep the hose long so that it could be transferred to another setup well. Sure, I could have rectified this earlier but I figured that the change would have happened before now. I was waiting on SRAM to release a mineral oil flat mount caliper. I though that would happen this spring but it didn’t. I got sick of it.
Today, this changed.
It seemed to be a simple plan. Get some cheap SRAM DB8 B1 Stealth brake sets. Also, some Shimano BR-U6030-R calipers. These calipers are nice as they are designed for 160mm rotors and will mount directly to the frame. Then, connect the Shimano calipers to the DB8 lines. Simple. But here’s the point….it really was that simple.
Everything went as expected. No hicups. No drama.
I don’t really like the Shimano BO5s brake pads that came with the calipers. They are the B-Type (Wide) pad shape. I’ll replace them with some metals when the time comes. Jagwire Sport Semi-Metallic #DCA016 will probably be the first try. Still, the Pro E pad, #DCAB16 may be of use.
Due to the issue with the poor pad selection, I will next move to a Shimano XT BR-M8110 Flat Mount Brake Caliper. Then I can use the K04S-MX metal pad. They are the K-Type (Narrow) pad shape. But maybe this will work in either caliper. Time to order a Jagwire #DCA504 and find out.
I decided to remove the bar-ins from this setup. The new handlebars have worked out incredibly well. They make riding the bike so much fun and comfortable. The additional sweep of the bars now make the bar ins point almost straight forward. This feels terrible. So much that I don’t ever want to be in them. So I took them off. I’m still hoping to make an improved version similar to what is used on the Corsair. I just need to do a print run. This improved the look of the bike for now.
I also took this opportunity to swap the dropper lever for a matching SRAM RM-DL-A1 lever. This looks nice with the SRAM 90 shifter and is a great cheap lever.
This reminds me of a 2016 project where I replaced the DOT fluid in a set of SRAM Guide brakes with mineral oil. It was an experiment to see the effect in real life. It was pretty awesome. This time, SRAM and Shimano got to play nice.
