Wayne from Ashima had on display a set of their new brakes, and some colored rotors.

Their new brakes are very radical and innovative. The PCB or Pancake Brake has no pistons, and instead operates using a diaphragm seal. The design is very simple, lightweight, and has very thin calipers (25mm). The piston less design, gives an excellent response, simpler manufacturing, and has an equivalent area of a 20mm piston. Wayne has another brake in the works,the 4 pot APV (Ashima Power Valve System). The PCB just became a Design Award Winner at the Eurobike Show, congratulations to Ashima.

The lightweight AiRotors brake rotor now comes in red, black, blue, yellow, and white! I got a trick set of the red ones to test out, and I must say that the colors really added to their uniqueness.

I met Wayne of Ashima last year when they were just starting to roll out their product suite. This year they have a whole line of disc and rim brakes pads, rim brake pad holders and disc brake rotors and a very new disc brake system. Their parts are being distributed by J&B Importers so their stuff should be easier to get this coming year.

They have some interesting features on their brake pads. In the disc world, they have a multi-compound pad called the SOS. Basically, the pad has an Organic section in the middle of the pad flanked on either side by sintered sections. I have not tried them, but it sounds like a great way to combine the 2 different properties of each of those materials into one pad. They also have some pretty trick rim pads that have multiple sections on the pad to do different functions. An example is the top of the line Pro Range-4Fun which starts off with a crud removal section, then a water removal section, then the maximum braking contact section followed up with a progressive rim release section. Whew!

(continued…)