The last couple of posts have been more or less rants. Here's a rave.TRP recently came out with a heavily machined skeleton brake that, while it lacks the beautiful form of say, a forged aluminum brake or the Campy Delta brake, is probably the best road bicycle brake ever. Why? The design is light, stiff and powerful. It has the modulation of the dual pivot design unlike M5, it's got a quick release so you can use it with Shimano levers, it's lighter than Campy Record, and it will be manufactured, which can't be said for the Ti2 brake. There's something to be said for a company that produces a product that fires on all cylinders and looks like a piece of mechanical jewelry.
Of course, all these products are really race hardware. I can't condone spending $629 on a set of brakes for a recreational bike that don't work as well as a pair of $39 Tektro calipers. And, if you look at the list below, you'll see that you can get really fine quality stuff for less money. I don't know about you, but I'd say, now that TRP is in the game, the small market of ultra-high-end skeleton road bike brakes is pretty much saturated.
Record Brake image from Campagnolo.com, all others linked to their source.
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