Iain Treloar slams the brakes on and investigates ABS braking for bikes.
It’s rare that we come across something completely unique, but SABS’ anti-lock braking system for bikes gave us one of those moments. Developed over a number of years and winner of multiple design awards, the brake system is available for both V-brakes and road calipers.
The SABS brake isn’t controlled by computer or oil pressure; instead, it looks similar to a conventional brake pad, apart from the cylinder at the front. This protuberance is a weight that causes the frequency at which the brakes impact the pad to change; at 30 km/h, for instance, the brakes are contacting the rim 12 times a second.
You’d expect that this would feel a bit odd, but in terms of lever feel, braking doesn’t actually register as any different. Looking down at the front brake, however, you can see a little shimmying of the brake calipers. The pads themselves are of a fairly hard compound that is fairly abrasive on rims and lacking in tactility. Braking power is slightly better, especially in wet conditions, but not enormously so; a quality set of brake pads on a conventional brake set-up will yield similar improvement.
Where the SABS is wildly different is that it covers a multitude of sins when it comes to poor braking technique. All the things you really shouldn’t do on a bike—slam the front brake on by itself, or brake hard on the front going around a corner—are forgiven with SABS. I find this equal parts impressive and frustrating; its biggest safety benefit is to those who are new to bike riding and prone to grabbing the front brake when startled, but wouldn’t it be better still to learn the best way to brake in the first place? And how many new riders are going to splash $155USD on a pair of brake-pads?
There are many ways to judge a product, not all of them fair. When you strip value, appearance and weight out of the equation, and focus purely on the tech, the fact is that the SABS braking system works extremely well. I’ve never flipped my road bike over the front wheel braking correctly, and I didn’t with intentionally poor technique using SABS, even on ridiculous gradients, which is proof enough for me—but its necessity will vary considerably depending on the rider and conditions.
So where does that leave us? That depends. For many, SABS is a heavy, unattractive and expensive solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, but for some it has the potential to be a real game-changer.
For more info, www.sabs-global.com
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Price: ~$155 USD per end
Rating 68%
Function 33/40
Quality 28/40
Price 3/10
Appearance 4/10
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The exact same argument against ABS on cars and motorbikes was raised when those technologies were introduced (wouldn’t it be better if people learned to brake properly), and it is true that a skilled driver/rider can brake as well as ABS without the tech, but you wouldn’t dream of buying a car without it now, and it is an increasingly popular choice on motorbikes. At the end of the day, ABS is safer and more reliable in panic situations. Maybe with support/encouragement, bike ABS will become better, lighter and cheaper as it becomes more widely adopted?
I couldn’t agree with Peter more. For years I commuted on a non-ABS motorcycle and later switched to ABS primarily to help in wet weather. It allowed me to maximize braking instead of worrying if I was close to locking up in “panic situations.”
If these were cheaper I’d probably put them on everything – and I’m thinking they could really enhance an e-bike. I haven’t tried them but the concept is sound and the test results appear legit so they’re going on someone’s Christmas list.
This is certainly a pulsed braking system where the pulse rate varies linearly with the speed. We know we are supposed to pulse the brakes by hand, but actually that is very difficult and this may be a brake through towards that end.
However, I question whether “ABS” is the correct term to use. Here is an online definition I found for ABS as it is designed in cars and motorcycles:
“ABS uses wheel speed sensors to determine if one or more wheels are trying to lock up during braking. If a wheel tries to lock up, a series of hydraulic valves limit or reduce the braking on that wheel. This prevents skidding and allows you to maintain steering control.”
There are no sensors and feedback loop in this pulsed bicycle braking system. I would suppose that therefore it can not be expected to “know” when the wheel is trying to lock up
My feeling is that it would be better to accentuate the benefits of this system, and not try to equate it inaccurately to automotive ABS systems.
Practically speaking pulsed braking -might- give better traction than non pulsed braking, but if you hit a patch of ice both will fail. I would like to see more test results, with enough data so that others could try to reproduce the same results.
Furthermore, rim brakes often perform terribly when contaminated with water or greasy dirt. There is nothing written about how pulsing might or might not improve that problem.
Thanks for the comment Craig. I assume the manufacturers are playing off the ‘anti-lock braking system’ breakdown of the ABS acronym, rather than the mechanical specifics of automotive ABS; you’re correct that there’s no sensors and that the brakes have no ‘knowledge’ of what’s going on. Rather, the pulsed braking makes locking up mechanically improbable.
As for the brakes’ performance in wet/dirty conditions; our testing of these brakes included a wet, technical 30km+ descent, and the pulsing was not detectable. The compound of the pads is fairly hard, and I prefer the feel of SwissStop pads in a conventional system, but I’d judge performance as roughly equal.