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Your take? A minor consideration I know...
Best: Magura MDR-P, looks so serious and engineered.
Worst: Magura MDR-C, the center looks so messy and wrong, it's probably the only one I'd replace on a new bike.
Best: the Shimano one with 5 arms:
Worst: there are some horrid ones once you start looking, these are pretty bad:
Tough to look past RT-86s, or black Hope floating.
Or Intend Aero for one piece ones
Worst being Hope floating in anything other than black, or silver at a push.
I've always liked the classic steel rotors - they're just elegantly functional. The two-part rotors just seem like a solution looking for a problem.
best..
Do people even look at brake rotors? I think mine are SRAM.
I'm not sure I ever notice them, other than for the wrong reasons. The Uberbike finned ones with coloured centres are particularly revolting.
Do people even look at brake rotors?
Bolts, washers and caliper mounts too, apparently.
Quite like an SRAM centerline rotor.
On the other hand the HS2 looks awful. Looks like two rotors stuck together with misaligned spokes/arms.
Those uberbike radiator rotors are tacky as well as revolting, yet their 220mm 2mm rotor is really nice, the galfer shark rotors look amazing, shame there's no 200mm, 220mm versions.
Do people even look at brake rotors?
Not here. I go for price and function, hence have Magura Storm HC 2.0mm on most bikes - seem to resist overheating better than the one- or two-piece Shimano rotors in the hands of this brake-dragging muppet:
Worst: any number of cheap stuff on eBay/Aliexpress, but these rival the Uberbike finned for ugliness IMO:
the galfer shark fin look pretty cool
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-galfer-shark-disc-rotors.html
Best: hard to choose between any Shimano centrelock ice-tech one, I think they have this on lock.
Worst: this isn't the *worst* (I agree the various garish Chinese floating ones take that crown), but it does look weird and bloated and RRP is £91!
Ooh - here's a good one 😉
Normally I am a sucker for chucking unnecessary colour onto a bike, but silly rotors are a step too far. Yeah, the standard storm HC rotor ^ works well for me too.
I'd love to see some thermal modelling of that SRAM one for how much SFA the middle bit does.
I like the Galfer - simple design, with a dab of matte black
Today I learnt that I have an opinion on brake rotors.
I recently got a pair of these and they're very nice. Those intend aeros look lovely too:
Bad ones are garish colours and eccentric shapes and drilling patterns
Just remembered that hope used to do custom engraving of their rotors years ago. Remember a valentine's themed one with hearts.
Which made me think about the mini rotors with the bubble pattern on the braking surface. Always liked those.
Can't be arsed finding pics but best, definitely the early Hope floating ones with the engraved flowers (think they did matching pink calipers) and the original DH4s with lightining bolts engraved into them.
Anything with too much cut out and actually circular.
Was it Magura that used to do solid rotors with grooves machined into them to disperse water/gas?
Those drilled Intend ones look nice though, are they any good?
On the other hand the HS2 looks awful. Looks like two rotors stuck together with misaligned spokes/arms.
I quite like the look of them, the spokes are odd but I can look past that as they fulfill the brief of actually looking like a circle.
The current HD Hope ones with Ebikes in mind having little lightening bolts on them. Very appropriate.
Otherwise a rotor is a rotor and maybe not about what looks best as to what looks most capable, in which case the Magura MDR-P wins hands down.
The current HD Hope ones with Ebikes in mind having little lightening bolts on them. Very appropriate.
I was going to suggest the hope lightning , but from the first time round in the 90s!
Those drilled Intend ones look nice though, are they any good?
As good as anything else, pretty quiet in use.
I've got some of those Hopes with the lightening bolts and I've just sold a 205mm Hope with Orange engraved in it 3 times and lightening bolts.
I've got a soft spot for the Hope Pro3 XC3 3-bolt rotors, I've got a couple of sets still, one on an old-school XC bike and one for my gravel bike.
I never did like the Shimano ones with the wavy cooling fins inside the brake surface, just looked like the tray a supermarket pie comes in...
Those drilled Intend ones look nice though, are they any good?
I have some of the BrakeStuff version of them & they arnt bad, not worth the cost IMO compared to the HS2 rotors, or the 2.3mm TRP’s.
They feel ‘softer’ in terms of bite against other thicker rotors. I wouldn’t buy them again.
The various carbon fibre rotors look awful IMO and work even worse!
I use Trickstuff and like their simplicity
The big question is - which rotors SOUND best?