Quad’s Nano intro brake needs careful setup but it’s cheap and new pads have added an impressive amount of power. It’s early days, but they're lasting well too, making it even more of a bargain.
The master cylinder uses a contemporary radial design. The crooked lever is only attached on one side, but is reasonably firm under fingers. The calliper gets a fixed hose exit angle, but it’s single piece rather than two bolted halves, making it impressively light.
Limited pad retraction means getting the calliper aligned accurately is crucial to stopping rub, squeal and binding when conditions get dirty. Extensive bedding in is vital to overcome low initial power levels but new pads on our latest sample made it significantly more powerful than previous versions we’ve ridden.
In fact the steeply rising torque rate through the pull was almost enough to stop the dyno, and you need to adjust to the noticeable progression of power for a given lever pull in slippery conditions.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.
