Given that SRAM already officially acknowledged forthcoming hydraulic brakes when they unveiled the new 2012 Red group, we thought we might see some leaked images. We just didn’t think we’d see them quite this early!
Did you miss them? Yep, we had some nice glossies up. They’re probably floating around a forum somewhere now, but at SRAM’s request, they’ve been pulled. Call us lackeys or whatever, but occasionally we have to make concessions to avoid biting the hands that feed us all the goodies we post here. Sometimes the leaks are forgiven, other times they need to be plugged. Rest assured, we don’t take these decisions lightly and try to balance the relationships with getting the news out first.
UPDATE: Apparently they’re willing to let some fuzzed out images slide.
In the images were both the hydraulic rim and disc brakes. The rim brake appearance is much closer to traditional road calipers than Magura’s new RT8TT center pull design. The key visual difference is the flip flop of the push/pull parts to the opposite side of a cable-actuated brake. Looks like a large quick release lever will make wheel changes easy, and a simple push piston to actuate the brake arms. Overall, it’s a pretty slick looking package.
The disc brakes are full hydro, fuzzy image after the break. We didn’t see any mention of a mechanical counterpart, but wouldn’t rule it out as a future Force level option. Hoods are slightly taller than the new mechs, but with the same new ErgoGrip surface texture. As they’ve told us already, 160mm and 140mm rotors will be on tap. If everything stays on track, look for a full launch in a couple months and availability in summer.
