Review: KCNC CB1 Brakes

June 19th, 2009 by Review Man 2,097 views No Comment

Our friends over at Fairwheel Bikes sent us a pair of KCNC CB1 road brakes to review this spring. If you are a lighter weight rider looking for a lightweight set of brakes that offer a different look that what you find in a standard component group, I’d definitely recommend you check them out.

I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with them as they belonged to one of the shop’s employees, but the brakes made an very nice impression as they were very light, and they shipped with a good selection of mounting hardware so you don’t have to fish around for parts to mount them on your bike.

This lightweight caliper set is manufactured from CNC’d 7075 T7 aircraft grade aluminum, with aluminum and titanium hardware. The brake arms and pad holders are black anodized and etched with the KCNC logo. This brake set includes aluminum mounting nuts, pad holders, and pads for aluminum and carbon rims.

KCNC’s patented dual pivot design features a unique channel-guided pivot to ensure both arms move at the same rate with an ample amount of stopping power. The metal quick release is indexed to hold the arms open where you need them without slipping.

The brakes went on very easily and I was able to get them correctly tensioned and centered with very little effort. Some have called the cable clamp “awesome” but I viewed the (over) simplicity of it as a little unnecessary weight savings. It struck me as very similar to very low end calipers you’d see on a Wal-Mart bike. I felt I had to take it easy so I didn’t overtorque anything.

Once the brakes were mounted, I used them for a couple of rides. It took a little bit of tuning to get them to the point where they felt comfortable on the flats, but I honestly never felt like I had enough stopping power on descents. I should add, while I’m not a clydesdale, I am a fairly big guy (190 pounds). While my usual SRAM Red stoppers don’t offer the modulation of the KCNC CB1’s I always feel that I can stop when I need to without skidding.

I let one of my lighter weight friends try my bike with the brakes mounted and his experience was different. He liked the modulation as well, but had a little more stopping power than I was able to achieve.

We concluded that these might not quite be the ticket for the larger rider. A little research on forums across the internet seemed to back up this assertion.

Specs:

Materials: 7075 T7 aircraft grade aluminum with aluminum and titanium hardware
Weight: 168g for the pair with pads and holders
Colors: Black, Red, Silver, Gold
Price: $320
Rating: 4/5

Conclusion:
If you are looking to save some weight on your bike and you want a custom brake, the KCNC CB1’s offer a very competitive cost to weight ratio when you compare them with the offerings from Ciamillo (Zero Gravity), EE, M5 and AX Lightness. At only $30 more than SRAM Red, they do offer a degree of value. I was going to give them a 3 out of 5 rating based on the performance, but factoring in the cost and my weight, I’ll bump them up to 4 out of 5.