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180mm vs 203mm


alastair34

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I recently went 203mm -> 180mm -> 203mm.  The smaller rotors made things feel a little lighter (although not much, I imagine it was largely placebo effect), but felt like they reached their limit of power/hold way earlier than the 203s.  With the 203s, you can have the setup a little on the sketchy side and they still just deal with it and work.  There is the weight penalty, but it's not much of a price to pay for knowing that your brake's going to do what you want it to do.

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Have 180 on my pure trials and 203 on my street bike... Both on the front.

 

Pure trials 180mm rotor with Jitsie pads- Great on off, not so great feeling when going very fast- the whole bike doesn't feel very good when going very fast, so I'll take the little less weight.

 

Street trials with Chinese no name performance pads- great on off feeling and modulation, especially at speed. Makes you want to just do nose manuals all day.

 

both are bbdb/ sd7 / odyssey linear slic.

 

there is a change in power when it comes to high speed things. 

 

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Since I've ridden street bikes,any disc I've run (front or rear) has been a 180mm. I've read a number of people who have had similar issues to what Mark has described above, but can't say I've ever had the same problems. 

When I ran M800 saints, I had the standard sintered pads (also used the uberbike sintered pads) on these bad boys in 180mm and they worked amazing. More hold then I'd ever been used to with any other brake before that. 

Now running Magura MT7's (after a pair of MT5's) and 180mm rotors have worked perfectly for me. I think the standard Magura rotors are a little on the skinny side, and I did bend one landing a sideways gap recently. I'm now trying a set of these beasts with some Trialtech MT5 / MT7 pads and so far they feel awesome.

 

Back to the original question, my issue with 203's is that there is more chance of catching them / landing on them and they are much easier to bend from my previous experience. The weight doesn't really bother me, but it is a detraction for some people. 

I would go with 160mm rotors but don't think they offer quite enough POWERRRRRRR and my frame has a +20mm disc mount which makes 180mm rotors perfect.  I think Ali has fettled with 160mm rotors on the back, but not sure of his conclusions on that...

 

/warandpeace

 

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