Zero Gravity Brakes - Test Report

170 grams for a complete set of brakes including pads? That’s over 140 grams less than a set of Shimano Dura-Ace brakes, and leads to the question, if ZeroGravity’s Ti brakes offer enough power to stop your bike in every situation. A test over 18 months should shed some light on it!

Most superlight parts have the disadvantage, that they tend to compromise about something. Light yet well performing components are quite rare, thus one might be skeptical about these brakes. Frankly, only 50% of the weight of Dura-Ace brakes is a good argument…. And they aren’t even made out of carbon-fibre, but normal 7075 aluminium. Titanium and aluminium hardware drops the last few grams.

Let’s not rush…
ZeroGravity brakes are delivered in an unimpressive little cardboard box with the Zero logo on it. The standard brake-pads provided with the brakes are made by Corima. No bad choice, since they work very well on most carbon-fibre rims – as long as it’s dry.
Claimed weight of the brakes: 167.5 grams, including Corima pads. I don’t mind that my scale displays a bit more.
A pair of brake-pads for aluminium rims (e.g SwissStop RACE 2000) increases the weight by 12grams.

Installation:
First impression? Not as troublefree as Shimano, Campa and Co. The centering of the caliper-arms is the biggest issue. While Shimano brakes have a tiny 3mm allen screw, that provides easy and fast centering, ZeroGravity calipers have a so called Center Bolt, which at the same time is the main pivot bolt. This bolt is either made of titanium (Ti-version) or stainless steel (SS-version). The manual says something about an adjustment bolt, which is also shown in the exploded drawing, but on the brake itself: Nil return! ZeroGravity suggest to use a 13mm flat-wrench, to rotate the pivotal cylinder that holds the spring. I don’t recommend this way of adjusting your “0G” brakes, because the cyclinder can end up with some nasty scratches in it’s nice anodic coating.

Tiny M5 titanium bolts are used for the brake-shoe and cable-clamp mounting. Brake-pads/shoes touching the fork’s legs is a common problem, which appears when using e.g Look HSC5 SL forks. Adding a thin spacer between the brake and fork should add enough clearance to solve the problem. If you take your time for the installation, and don’t rush it, you’ll surely be pleased with the result.

So what are these brakes capable of?
First of all, we have to take a look at the new design. While the old Zero’s are said to offer rather poor braking performance, ZeroGravity claim, the brand-new Cam System increases braking-power by an incredible 30%. You can even go to such lengths to say they are more powerful than Dura-Ace brakes, although their pressure point is a bit softer and they show up with a rather progressive performance. Slightly more pulling on the brake-levers results in much more braking power, given that brake-pads, rims, cables and housings work together well. On our test bike, latter system is a Nokon Konkavex one, which, in combination with Campagnolo Record levers, is a big help to achieve such a nice result. Not only that the brakes stopped my bike early enough in every situation - the feeling of having to little braking power did not appear even once.
Thus the little stoppers from Nicholson – Georgia / USA are a great success.

There’s one tiny little drawback though: 450 Euro list price is a lot for a set of brakes. Compared to it’s carbon-fibre rivals from AX-Lightness it is a fairly good deal, but still…..
For those who are not willing to spend that much money on brakes, a cheaper, so called “SS-version” (385 Euro / 203 grams) with stainless steel bolts and some other varieties is available as well.

Summary:
Advantages:
-very good braking performance
-weight
-appearance

Disadvantages:
-expensive
-fussy installation and adjustment

Update:

After about 13.000km, some alp-marathons, tours under all possible weather conditions, stop and go through the city and much more, it’s time to draw an interim conclusion:
Michael’s very first impression has been confirmed throughout the whole year – the brakes always give you the feeling of having your bike under control. No situation pushed them to their limits - not even the up to 30km long descents in the Ötztaler Radmarathon.

The only minor drawback is, that due to their design - edges and cutouts everywhere - ZeroGravity brakes get dirty much faster than Campagnolo or Shimano ones. Thus regular cleaning and maintenance is required.

The price of the current version - which is easily recognizable by the new blue brake-pads made by Corima - is a tad higher than last year (Stainless steel-version – 385 Euro / Titanium-version 450 Euro). After a slight change of the geometry, there now is more clearance between the pads and rim when the quick-release is open, while the brakes also offer even better dosing of their enormous braking-power. Furthermore, the newly designed cable-clamp has become more gentle – good news for all of you using PowerCordz!

For those who want something extraordinary, ZeroGravity is the right choice. The brakes aren’t cheap, but there aren’t many other companies offering such a nice all-around package: Low weight, superb braking performance and a nice appearance with a great finish make them real contenders to other high-end brakes currently on the market.