Motorcycle Brakes on a Downhill/MTB Conversion?

Hey Guys,

I've heard people talking about conversion kits but I couldn't find any.

Do you guys know about something like that (caliper and disc adapters to fit the frame and hub holes)

That would be a lot of extra weight added.
I personally have never seen, nor read anything about this.
The closest thing was someone using a motorcycle front suspension fork.
Perhaps an e-bicycle that is purely electric would benefit from a true motorcycle brake setup.
It would beat eating through mountain bike disc pads and rotors.
I bought some organic pads for my one and only front brake, lasted a week or two. Need sintered brake pads, and both front and rear brakes hooked up.

Next up, and talked about recently on this Endless Sphere board was a double bicycle brake setup, Amberwolf had one of those.

Then there was a "Y" adapter for the cable instead of the two brake lever setup AW did.

Dual front rotors is awesome but it's a mess since you need a new special hub (a more narrow one which makes the wheel weaker), a special mount on the fork on the right side, reversed caliper, y adapter and lots of tuning to get them to bite evenly.
The hub is the toughest one...

There's at least one member here on ES who made adapters to mount MC discs and calipers on his bicycle hub and fork.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65628


Something I had planned on trying;
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28410
I built some of what I needed for it, but the fork to be used for it is gone (taken after the housefire a few years ago?), so I didn't get any further. Someday I'll get back to it, or something similar.

I think I still ahve some MC calipers and discs; if so I'll probably do something along those lines at some point, just to test if it can be done.

I like the idea with the rotor around the hub motor but the major braking force should be on the front wheel and I never use a front hub motor...
Looks awesome though...

You know, with my heavy Strong GTS ebike frame, everytime I think about motorcycle brakes, I think it could be good to have.

Thinking MXUS 5KW motor, laced into a 17"(21"bike) or 19"(24"bike) motorcycle rim, and to make shit easier, a frocking motorcycle fork for the moto front brakes. Those are the ones that wear down the most. Add the in frame battery, which I am stacking more and more into. Its a heavy bike to begin with.

You don't need clunky motor bike brakes. You need Hope six pots with 225 rotors

Considering my monster weighs 125 pounds, cruises at 55mph, and carries my 190lbs butt around, I can tell you with certainty that motorcycle brakes are unneeded. dual front brakes are also unneeded (they do look cool, though). I use an Avid BB7 with a 9" Hayes H9 rotor on the front, and an 8" in the rear. it's more than enough stopping power for my beast.

You can have too much brake. Disk brakes need to have heat in the pad to work properly. a normal ebike isn't going to be able to generate enough heat to get the motorcycle pads up to working temperature.
You can run into the same problem even with bicycle brakes. too large of a rotor for your riding conditions, or too big of a pad, and you can end up with brakes that don't build enough heat and therefor feel wooden, have little bite, little modulation, and generally have poor performance compared to a smaller brake.

BB7 with 9" front and back is the way to go then for my ~350lb ass.

Drunkskunk said:

... you can end up with brakes that don't build enough heat and therefor feel wooden, have little bite, little modulation, and generally have poor performance..

Click to expand...

You've never ridden Hope brakes I assume because you're wrong. It might be the case with Avids which I've used once before (absolute garbage but it was a rental). Shimano are also bitey but have less modulation and also suffer from inconsistency.