BRAKES For Electric Bikes | What's Necessary for E-Bikes?

Hey everyone, Peter Kaltreider here at Sixthreezero bike and e-bikes. Today, we'll talk about brakes for e-bikes. It's not very complicated, there's not a whole lot you need to know, but stay tuned.

All right. So in the bicycle world there are several types of brakes. But on e-bikes, you're mostly going to find one kind, which is the disc brake. You may also find a v-brake.

So I'm going to have Nate come up here. And I'll show you the v-brake first, just so you know what it is. And then we'll talk about the differences in disc brakes that you can get.

All right. So this is a regular bike. It's not electric. And it has the common v-brake, which is typically what you'll find on most recreational bikes these days, or on older mountain bikes. It's a great brake. And you'll actually find this on some e-bikes.

I don't think there's a problem with it, but some people feel like it doesn't have enough braking power. I've used caliper brakes, which are even weaker than v-brakes, and taken my road bike up to 60 miles an hour and it stopped me just fine. So I think v-brakes are great, but the brake conversation in the bike world is full of opinions and everyone's got a preference.

So, anyway, I think v-brakes are great, if you find a bike with that, an e-bike. But most use disc brakes. And we use disc brakes as well on our e-bikes. So let's move over to an e-bike. Here we go.

So this is what a disc brake looks like. It's exactly what your car has or what a motorcycle has. But come around on this side, Nate. We'll show them the rotor.

So this is the rotor and it spins with the wheel. And there's a caliper, which is actuated by the brake lever up here. So it just pulls it, and it just squeezes onto the rotor and stops it. It actually works the same as the v-brake, except it uses the rotor for the stopping surface instead of the rim.

And there are advantages to that. It can stop better, also it's better in nastier weather. So mountain bikes have gone exclusively to disc brakes at this point. A lot of road bikes also use disc brakes on the higher end. In elite competitions, they're almost also all-disc brakes as well, although some still use the caliper brake for the rim.

So, within the disc brakes, there are a few variations. This is called a mechanical disc brake, it's because it's actuated by a cable. Just like so. You can see when I pull here, just a cable just pulls up on this lever and it squeezes the pads onto the rotor and stops it.

Some brands also use hydraulic, which is typical for mountain bikes. So we have an example of that over here. It really looks almost identical. So here we have the rotor and then the caliper. And then, instead of a cable line, we have a hydraulic line, like you might see on any sort of hydraulic system, like on a bulldozer or something. So there's the hydraulic fluid in here. And instead of a cable, that's what actuates the caliper and squeezes the pad. So when I pull the lever it pushes a master cylinder, which pushes a slave cylinder, and squeezes onto the rotor.

So there are advantages to both. Our bikes have the mechanical type. And we do that just because, on a recreational bike, it's for the consumer, it's simpler and a little bit easier to work on. However, the hydraulic brake also has a lot of advantages in that it's an enclosed system, so it can't get grime in it like a mechanical system can.

But really, at the recreational level, I personally don't think it matters which one of these brakes you get; hydraulic or mechanical or even v-brake. The v-brake will stop you just fine, I think. Actually, a lot of people would probably disagree with me, but I can't imagine ... because these used to work great on mountain bikes, even back in the day before disc brakes were brought in as an improvement.

So, anyway, those are the different kinds. I wouldn't sweat it too much. Just get a quality bike. And it's going to be mostly a matter of how good the components are not, not actually which type of brake you get. So, hope that helps.

All right, thanks for watching. I really hope that was helpful. If you need any more help, please don't hesitate to contact us at (310) 982-2877 or theteam@sixthreezero.com. Sixthreezero is spelled out. Also, subscribe to our channel. And remember, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.