Growtac Equal brakes review

 When I saw the Growtac Equal cable brakes come onto the market a while back I wondered how good they would be and if they could be a worthy replacement to the randomly dragging Sram Force hydros on my OPEN UP.

My buddy was doing one of his many trips to Japan for work so the timing was right. There are no agents for Growtac in NZ and buying locally in Japan was a smart move.

As soon as he saw mine he decided he needed a pair for himself, his being gold anodised post mount, vs my blue flat mount variants. 

Flat-mount front

Flat-mount rear

All the reviews I'd seen had been good and at least one of them I trusted. I had several sets of Sram red cable brake/shifters in 10 speed mode so I would need to swap the shifter ratchet from my Force hydro 11 speed into one of the 10 speed cable shifter bodies if I was to retain 11-speed life. Easy peasy. I could have also dropped in a 12 speed Ratio-Technology ratchet, but having an extensive collection of 11 speed cassettes and compatible wheels, I was not that keen to dive into 12 speed life, where the cassette spacings are all different. Sram wide, Sram Road, or Shimano - I don't even know if Shimano MTB is the same as Shimano Road, but I do know that Ratio-Technology makes different ratchets for the first 3. But I digress, this story is about brakes, mostly.....

Sram Red 10-speed cable levers with an 11 speed ratchet borrowed from the Hydros. Very light.

The Growtac kit comes with two sets of cables, compressionless and standard. 2x 170 cms of compressionless and 2x 100 cms of standard. They advise you to use combinations of the standard and compressionless (with a joiner) if you are worried about lots of bendy angles or internal routing paths that might make it tricky. I went with full compression-less, which was a bit wider in diameter than the standard.This made it a bit more of a challenge, forcing it through the cable exit holes in my OPEN, compounded by me not having a proper cable routing tool. I got there in the end with the help of the Rides of Japan OPEN building tutorials which are way more extensive than OPEN's.

Growtac's instructions are precise and very simple to follow, although I used the Japanese instructions rather than hunting down the English versions which are online here. The set-up is very simple. Visually align the "notch" in the brake caliper over the disc rotor by tweaking the inboard and outboard pads. When the caliper is centred, tighten down the caliper's mounting bolts - whether it's flat mount or post mount. Then you back off each pad until there is no dragging. The inboard pad is fixed and the outboard pad moves as you apply the brake. With adjustments via a 3 mm allen key here, and via a nut at the cable adjuster. Dragging brake pads are now a thing of the past.

The inner pad adjuster can be tricky to reach with a multi tool if you are running a large cassette so it's best to carry a small 3 mm separate allen key in your kit.

Although the brakes have a small rubber o-ring inline to stop water ingress the rear brake might benefit from a rubber boot to stop water running down into the cable housing.

Of all the tweaks I've done to my OPEN I think this is the most satisfying. The brake lever action is very light and the braking strong - at least the equal of my old hydros. Maybe that's where the brake's name comes from - "Equal" ? 

I have given these brakes a good thrashing on my local trails over the last month and so far they have performed faultlessly. The kind of riding I do is mostly as I would on a hard-tail, running 2.0 inch 650B tires, often linking up Wellington's trails via our urban short-cuts. For gravel riding and commuting I use the 700 c wheels. 

The Equals are running the stock organic pads, completely silently, but I expect to change to sintered metal when the organics wear out. I haven't ridden the bike with a full Bikepacking load on but my gut feeling is that they would be great. I do not feel like I am missing out on any performance compared to my hydros with these brakes, they are strong and predictable. I am running 160 mm rotors and the silence that comes from this set-up makes it worth every cent. 

Some people ask, what about adjustment, hydros do it automatically as they wear, cable brakes don't. Thats a fair point, but you won't be getting any surprises when your pads do wear out, as often happens with hydros, because you will be more aware of the amount of wear, because it's you that is doing the adjusting. I know a lot of people used to bad-mouth BB7s for this, I suspect they are using organic pads. In the Tour Aotearoa which was 3000 kms long I tweaked my BB7s once.

If you are someone who worries about potential issues with hydro brakes while bikepacking then they are totally worth considering. I know people say this does not happen, but I know it happened to a few of us on the first Tour Te Waipounamu, with air in our brake lines.

The Equals should be compatible with any mechanical rim-brake groupsets brakes out there, and there are many.

The brakes are short-pull only, so compatible with road levers or specific flat-bar levers that are built for using with road disc, road calipers, mini-vees, or canti's. Shimano makes many of these levers as do some of the boutique makers.

So far my buddy is really happy with the post-mount versions he has installed on his Singular Gryphon singlespeed, using Tektro singlespeed levers, replacing the BB-7s.

Post-mount front

My bike is set up with Sram Red cable brake/shift levers, probably the lightest road levers there are, so your mileage will vary with the overall weight if you use something else. 

I carefully weighed both the Sram hydro brakes and the Equals as I installed them and was impressed to see that the Equals/Red combo were around 7 grams lighter than the hydros on my medium sized bike. The larger the bike, the more your cabling will weigh, by comparison hydraulic hose is very light.

Weight information

Growtac Equal - front brake:
Front cable (80 cm)
Outer - 46 grams
Inner - 12 grams
Lever - 140
Caliper - 136
Tiny bits - 2 grams
336 grams

Growtac Equal - rear brake:
Rear cable (140 cm)
Outer - 79 grams
Inner - 17 grams
Lever - 140
Caliper - 136
Tiny bits - 2 grams
374 grams
Growtac Equal total = 710 grams

 

Sram Force hydro - front brake
Front sram hydro lever + hose - 246 grams
Caliper - 100 grams
Tiny bits 7 grams
353 grams

Sram Force hydro - rear brake
Rear sram hydro lever + hose - 257 grams
Caliper - 100 grams
Tiny bits 7 grams
364 grams
Sram Force Hydro total = 717 grams

 

Pros

• Strong braking
• Light weight
• Great colours
• Field serviceable
• Shimano compatible pads

Cons

• Inner pad adjuster tricky to access with multi-tool allen key.
• Rear brake cable might benefit from small rubber boot.
• The outside brake adjuster's tiny rubber grommet could be easily get lost

Cheeky Quail during photo session

Related links

https://theradavist.com/growtac-equal-brakes-long-term-review/
https://www.bikegeardatabase.com/gear/growtac-equal
https://bikerumor.com/review-growtac-equal-mechanical-disc-brakes-bicycle/
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/growtac-equal-mechanical-disc-brakes

Growtac Equal brake adjustment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwINFSxrizI&t=265s

Growtac Equal Brake full break-down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWGguSAWM0s