Caught On Trail: FSA Disc Brakes For MTBs.

Caught On Trail: FSA Disc Brakes For MTBs: by Grannygear

We looked at the new hydraulic brakes from FSA at Sea Otter 2013 here and they looked very promising.  So during a recent local So Cal ride, I happened to run into FSA Dude In Good Standing, Ivan, on his custom 650b hard tail sporting a set of the new FSA disc brakes.  They were not even broken in yet as he had just put them on for this ride.  They run mineral oil for fluid, which is nice to live with, and this set looks good with a K-Force level spec and graphics.  I see reach adjust and pad contact adjust on there.  There is also an Afterburner level brake with the same features.

The spider mounted rotor is pretty cool and the counter sunk brake rotor holes in the rotor are a nice touch.  That should line up the rotor perfectly on-center when mounting it.  The levers can be used on either side of the bar as the master cylinders are not R/L specific.  Interesting and less costly to produce, I would imagine.  Oddly enough, while the “flip flop’ levers can be run on either side, the brake hoses are rear and front specific.  Huh!

I rode the brakes and the control lever felt nice to the hand but it was obvious the pads were not bedded in to the rotor yet.  The feature set looks good and FSA brings things to market at good prices, so we are looking forward to getting on a set of these ASAP.  Expect pricing to be around $369.00 for the for the K Force level brakes and $289.00 for the Afterburner set.