Hydro brakes for your TT superbike

TRP launches solution to lack of hydraulic disc set up compatibility

The caliper is based on the existing Hylex, but with heat managing Hybrid pistons

Warren Rossiter / Immediate Media

Warren Rossiter

Published: March 24, 2017 at 4:30 pm

The latest trend of way, way out there low-pro aero bikes that ignore the UCI’s constrictive rulings all look pretty special (depending on your aesthetic standpoint).

However, the only problem we’ve found with this latest raft of TT/Tri superbikes like Cervelo’s P5X, DiamondBack’s Andean and Parlee’s TTiR disc is that none of the big group manufacturers — SRAM, Shimano, and Campagnolo — offer their hydraulic disc set ups in a TT/Tri compatible form.

So TRP has stepped in with a very neat solution, the TT Hydro, which is designed to work with either 160mm or 140mm rotors. The TT brake weighs in at 352g per wheel and the brake caliper itself is based on the existing Hylex RS, but uses a heat-reducing hydrid piston.

The lever is ergo-shaped and the soft-touch textured grip hides the master cyclinder underneath its rubber - Warren Rossiter / Immediate Media

The brake lever houses the master cylinder underneath its outer grip and the lever has been designed to ergonomically suit a low-pro braking position.

Its one hell of a niche product, but still meets a need and you could always use TRP’s TT hydro set up for a singlespeed, disc equipped, low-pro custom build.

Warren Rossiter

Senior technical editor

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).