Cane Creek ee Brakes

The Cane Creek eeBrakes are super-light and do the job of stopping you well, but they might also damage your bike frame.

• Pros: Incredibly light while still offering really strong performance
• Cons: Incredibly expensive and may damage your frame

eecycleworks is a small US business that's developed a handful of boutique bike products of which this, the eeBrake, is the best known. In August 2016 the brand became a part of Cane Creek, which today manufactures and distributes the eebrake. The product has evolved since its launch in 2008 via a number of versions into what you can buy today and is now available in a conventional and a dual-mount design.

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The headline here, without doubt, is the weight. These are very lightweight callipers. We weighed them at 163g the pair (excluding pads), which is dramatically lighter than any mainstream competition. Shimano Dura-Ace callipers are 160g each, SRAM Red are 262g the pair; both of these include pads but that's a pretty remarkable difference nevertheless. A set of four pads is typically around 21g.

These aren't the very lightest brakes that money can buy – knowledgeable readers pointed to the THM Carbones Fibula at a claimed 120g per pair excluding pads when we did a 'coming soon' story on the eebrakes.

However, designer and co-founder of eecycleworks Craig Edwards maintains that his focus was on making the best brakes possible, not just the lightest. We've tested very light brakes round these parts before and sometimes the weight saving comes at the unappealing cost of a reduction in braking performance. Here, the performance is strong, and the weight saving comes at the cost of, well, cost. The looks are also somewhat divisive.

Fitting

Fitting rim brake callipers is generally a fairly straightforward affair, and so it was here. It's slightly more fiddly to thread the cable through to the pinch bolt than on a standard brake, but not massively. I really liked the patented tool-free pad shoes – a smart design that does away with that pesky little screw. The slot is shaped such that you can push the pad home by hand but it stays firmly in place.

Once you've approximately centred the brake and tightened the mounting bolt, there's a further (theoretically) tool-free adjustment to precisely centre the calliper, via the long, thin screw which emerges to one side. However, on one of the callipers I found this impossible to use as the thread is quite tight and the head is so small and sharp that I couldn't move it.

Rather more to my concern, this small, sharp, metal screw head is the first thing that comes into contact with my bike's down tube when the handlebar is turned as far to the right as it'll go. Obviously this isn't something that happens while riding the bike, but it can and did happen while manhandling it in the garage or putting it onto a car roof-rack. The first time it happened it took a tiny chip out of the paint, and I applied a couple of layers of heli tape to try to prevent further damage.

The Shimano Ultegra brakes I had fitted previously have small plastic bumpers which avoid this problem. I discussed the issue with Cane Creek tech support, and the feedback was that it wasn't an issue they had seen before. Certainly, as my bike has Di2 gears, this means there aren't mechanical gear cables and this lets the handlebar turn freely until something bangs into something else. If you've got mechanical gears it may not be an issue; likewise, if you're always careful with your bike then you may be okay with this, but I'm not. I spent my own hard-earned on my race bike and I'm pretty uncomfortable with things that might bang a hole through important bits of it.

Stopping power

These brakes are compatible with levers from Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo; I used them with Ultegra Di2 levers. In terms of outright braking performance, I would say these are at least the equal of top-end Shimano or SRAM brakes. eecycleworks claims that these brakes have "dramatically higher" stiffness when compared to a conventional brake, and if you pull the lever really hard with the bike stationary, it is pretty remarkable how little the calliper flexes – hugely less than my Ultegra callipers.

The spring (which keeps the brakes "off") is a bit undersized in my view. I found that with my internally routed cables, which are a couple of years old, the back brake would tend to rub as the spring wasn't strong enough to overcome the cable friction and open the calliper when I released the lever. I'm confident that fitting nice new cables would improve this, but if my existing cables work fine with my existing brakes, I'd like them to do the same here.

Open wide

There's a wing-nut where the cable outer meets the calliper, which works pretty much as in other brakes, allowing adjustment for different wheel widths and for pad-wear.

The quick-release function is pretty different to elsewhere, though, with a long slender catch across the top of the calliper which disengages from the rest of the mechanism to open the calliper. This lifts more easily if you squeeze the pads together with your other hand while lifting it, and it's not as simple to operate as the cam arrangement that you'll find on Shimano brakes. It does open the calliper nice and wide, though, making it a cinch to fit 28mm tyres (even when on narrow rims).

With a price for which you'd get a decent first road bike, there's no doubt that these are aimed at a pretty niche market: elite hill-climb specialists and those with particularly deep pockets. It's very impressive how the manufacturer has removed so much weight and actually improved stiffness.

> 12 tips for better braking

Without mechanical gear cables on my best bike, I was keen to finish the test and get my Ultegra brakes back on, which is hardly a ringing endorsement, but this has nothing to do with their performance. If weight saving is a priority and you can afford them, they are a good set of stoppers, but I could only really recommend them if you can be sure that they won't damage your frame.

Verdict

Uber-light brakes for crazy bucks, but the risk of damage to your frame makes them hard to recommend