Solid Brake Discs vs. “Floating” Brake Discs | The Shop Manual

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I use my feet and sandals as brakes

I like Ari’s clear and accurate presentations of technical topics in contrast to so many on YouTube that are simply making stuff up.

Not a motorbike guy but I'm an MTB fanatic. We have this argument all the time. Floaters say "but heat dissipation, weight, looks pretty" while solids say "budget friendly, simple". Some of you may not believe it but on a good DH run discs get hot, even on a push bike. They will offer burns and boil the rain. As a result, floaters are becoming more popular and we're seeing DOT 5.1 brakes becoming the most in thing with Hope and SRAM being incredibly popular choices. With that said, the simpler and less maintainance heavy mineral oil brakes have picked their game up, both Magura and Shimano have really upped the formulas for their mineral oils while ensuring they won't hurt older models. My initial thought going into this video was, "yeah, obviously a 200kg bike doing 100km/h and over will want floaters, those beasts make a brake glow". Just like MTB, solid discs on motorcycles seem to be a budget offering or a lower performance offering. It makes sense, sure a set of £50 Tektro solid rotors work but a pair of Hope floating rotors at £100 a pair do it better, seems very intuitive that as speed and mass increase, that superior performance becomes less of a desire and more of a requirement. Overall a very informative video and very well produced. No guff, no gimmicks, just pure information and some beautifully engineered examples, I wish MTB had discs as sexy as those.

As someone whose only gotten into bikes in the last 5 years, videos like this are super interesting. Maybe not something i think about when im working or riding my bike - but very cool to know all the advancements we have made over time.😁 Also just general bike knowledge is crazy helpful!

I've been riding two wheeled motorized vehicles for over 50 years and, honestly, I've got underwear that are older than Ari. But I always learn something from the little (ok BIG) twerp, and this one is something I've always wondered about. Thanks for the always great, and informative, (and entertaining) vids!

THANK YOU. I can't believe the number of posts on bike groups where someone will show their discs from a street bike and there will be lateral movement, and SO MANY of the replies are "it's a floating rotor, it's fine bro". NO. Full-floating and semi-floating are different and when your semi-floater becomes a full-floater, that's when it's time to replace it. Thanks for giving me my new go-to video on this topic!

Blow my mind. I've been riding for 30 years and always though "floating" referred to the caliper, not the disk! You are doing God's work, Ari. Thank you, thank you, thank you.....

Thank you Ari, for a clear no-nonsense video on how discs work in motorcycle brakes. Les in UK

Would be cool to see a video on maintenance of semi-floating discs, especially for people who live in cooler/wetter climates.

This is goood. I don't delve into MC related stuff that much nowadays (despite having 269 HP bike power in the garage) but when the quality is superior (or there is lovely recorded exhaust sound), I listen. This seems to be a superb channel.

I Have been watching this guy since 2016 on motorcyclist, good to see he is still doing great!

My '04 Vstrom has these types of semi-floating discs. I've always wondered why, it's nice to know now. Awesome content.

nice presentation there ..Ari !..for so many years, I knew of the ventilation aspect (ventilated discs) but not of the expansion aspect (floating disc). Now I know that.. and thanks for differentiating between semi floating and floating!

And I’m not ashamed to say.. now I know, and it only took 4 minutes 46 seconds. Thank you Ari

Absolutely EPIC video! This had to be so dang hard to record and catalog. Great work by Ari and editing team!

I was actually wondering about this but not enough to do my own research. And here we are. Short video. Perfectly explained. Thank you!

So very interesting that just yesterday I was looking at my bike and considering my floating disks and how very far we’ve come since I first started riding sports bikes back in the late ‘70’s, brilliant leaps in technology with this definitely not being the least. Maybe a general tech comparison between the two times would be interesting, brakes, carbs to injectors, fluids, tyres, there’s been quite a bit in my time. Thanks Ari, you and your mate Zac put out the best videos of what you do and you have no equal there mate. Take care and come on down back down under mate, we’ve got more than just the great ocean road, tho it is pretty schmick lol, the old road, the forest road, the putty road, all surrounding Sydney and enough to blow anyone’s mind with the beauty and sheer intensity of the corners, you’re always welcome mate, stay cool and take care Ari, thanks again mate, 11 out of 10 👍😎👌👅

Abosolutaly love this series. "The Shop Manual" is the only reason I had subscribed to this channel. Unfortunatly though, I dont understand why you guys started bombarding our subscription feed with riding-gear review videos which no one is interested in (reflected in views of those videos). I then had no option but to unsuscribe. Please make more of such great informative videos and less of riding gear videos. There are millions of riders like me, who wants to learn more about their bikes but aren't interested in any of those gears you review, simply becuase we don't live in USA or Canada.

This show never disappoints. Great job guys!