CHICAGO (BRAIN) — SRAM’s replacement hydraulic brakes began to ship to dealers globally last week, and the company hopes to complete shipments of the redesigned MY15 road hydraulic brakes next week. There are 19,000 bikes around the world — at suppliers and with customers — waiting on the updated hydraulic brakes.
“Consumers, via dealers, are receiving brakes from the initial shipments. That will be complete next week,” said Michael Zellman, SRAM’s road public relations and media manager.
“The shipments are going out constantly. The first of those registering for the recall are receiving the brakes first,” he added. Hydraulic rim and disc replacements are shipping together.
With five stores in the Baltimore metro area, Race Pace Bicycles had four customers affected by the recall — all of whom waited for new hydraulics rather than accept mechanical brakes as permanent replacements.
“All of our customers really enjoyed them and opted to stay with hydro,” general manager Nikolas Obriecht said. “It seemed like the product was great, other than not testing it enough in sub-Arctic temperatures.”
As of Tuesday, Race Pace had received one set of disc brake replacements. Bike n Sport in Santa Fe, N.M., is still waiting for four bikes’ worth of brakes, while Fat Tire Farm in Portland, Ore., received all of its replacements.
Although Obriecht has noticed a drop-off in communication from SRAM over the past month, he still gives the company high marks overall for its handling of the recall.
“I think their process has been very good,” he said. “They kept people riding on great-quality stuff. They’ve sent a lot of Red shifters and high-quality [mechanical] disc calipers. So from a service standpoint the recall was unfortunate, but I think the process has been about as fair and flawless as it could go, given the situation.”
