THM Fibula Brake Calipers

THM’s specialty is making scary-light bicycle components durable and high performing. Their Fibula Brake Calipers are a perfect example of this. They weigh 120g for the set without pads: 59g for the rear, 61g for the front. Despite the pair weighing less than a single caliper from some other competitors, the pair are also excellent stoppers. THM has been working in carbon-fiber longer than many bicycle frame manufacturers. They’ve been making the Fibula for over a decade. This version is an improvement over the original. They changed their production method to RTM, Resin Transfer Molding, to improve consistency, strength, as well as reduce weight and waste. The caliper arms aren’t the only carbon-fiber parts, so, too, are the springs. They save weight everywhere they can without causing a penalty in performance. The design has also been upgraded. The caliper can be adjusted, without re-clamping the cable, to work with rims as narrow as 19mm and as wide as 30mm. Tires up to 30mm in width will fit as well, though your frame might limit you to smaller tires. It still fits on bikes designed for short-reach brakes, with the reach ranging from 38-48mm. While the single-pivot design might recall older brakes, the lever pull ratio is fully modern, allowing 1:1.5 of lever travel to caliper travel both front and rear. This is designed to be comfortably compatible with brake levers from the bigs—Campagnolo, Shimano, and SRAM—so you can have your favorite shifting and Fibula braking, too. THM includes their own brake shoes with the brakes, but not the pads. They assume that these brakes will probably be stopping carbon-fiber rims, and that the rim manufacturer dictates the pad choice. Shimano/SRAM-compatible pads fit these shoes. As always, there are limitations to bicycle componentry, and with a brake as feathery as this, you should heed them. They recommend a vehicle weight (rider+bike+gear) of not more than 110kg (243lbs). They also urge you to follow the recommended torque spec when tightening the bolts. THM’s Fibula Brake Calipers show that super-light brakes can also be high-performing stoppers.