Pinkbike Poll: Are You Satisfied With Your Brakes?
"I think mountain bike brakes are generally garbage... what's going on?" That's what Mike Levy asked me in a recent episode of the Pinkbike Podcast .
While I mostly agree with him, it's hard to know "what's going on". Is it just the uncompromising gram-counting that pervades the bike industry which leads many high-end mountain bike brakes to be inconsistent, spongey, unreliable or otherwise lacklustre? I think another problem specific to MTB brakes could be the high mechanical advantage required between the lever and the pads to get enough power with one-finger braking; any air in the system, flex or seal squeeze is multiplied at the lever by the overall leverage ratio, leading to more sponginess and bite point inconsistency.
A high leverage ratio between the lever and pads multiplies power, but may also magnify any inconsistency or sponginess.
Whatever the cause, it does seem to me that a ridiculously high percentage of brand-new, high-end bikes come to us with less than ideal brakes, and even after a thorough bleed, the inconsistency in lever feel that we've been complaining about for years can remain or come back after a few rides.
But are we making a mountain out of a molehill? Are you happy with the performance of your brakes?
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Only familiarity is with shimano and sram. Mostly meh.
To make matters worse, I gave hope ‘extremely satisfied’ because I’m a bit of a hope fanboi and ‘very disatisifed’ to hayes because they sell them in Halfrauds, who are sh1t!
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Buy 'em direct from Germany and they're an absolute steal. Total out of pocket for me was about $260 USD including shipping for a complete F&R setup (levers/ hoses / calipers/ rotors).
What I REALLY want to see, from any brand, is a saner way to adjust caliper/rotor alignment. This business of loosening/tightening post mount bolts is such a pain to get right.
Based off of the replies here. Think magura would’ve been a reasonable option to list haha
MT5s are a bit finnicky to bleed but the price is super low and they have ample stopping power.
granted, the shimanos we had before also were fine, just more expoensive.
Magura doesnt say that, I can definitely tell a difference between my mt5s and mt7s
Since we have a magura thread going here…
More options becoming available based around lever preference
www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/Magura-Releases-a-New-MT7-Variant-for-North-and-South-America,5532
Oak levers are a subtle improvement on the MT7s. They make a bigger difference on the MT5s where they give you bite point adjustment that allow you to tighten up the longer lever throw and make them feel a little more like the MT7. Before putting the Oak levers on my two sets, the MT7s felt significantly better than the MT5s. Now they are almost the same.
The only thing I don't like about the HC3 is how glassy they are.
My MT5s out of the box were good as well, but my riding style better favors a metal master cylinder body.
Still lots of room for improvement but a much better experience generally than both Shimano and SRAM. Broken a couple of lever blades in crashes but otherwise problem free.
I'm also tempted to just swap them out for some Codes or maybe try some Dominions. The Maguras feel great, but they're noisy and the bleed kit is pretty cheap and finicky. It's also difficult to align the calipers. If you watch closely, they move to the side quite a bit as you tighten the bolts. It's pretty frustrating.
The magura rotors tend to get a turkey garble squeal. I switched to galfer rotors which seem to help.
@dlxah After cleaning rotors with alcohol, sanding/baking pads, etc. go take your GFs bike down a 3 to 5mi road descent (gravel or pavement) and ride the brakes on and off on the way down (up to 15mph, down to 5, repeat). Should start to be less noisy and have more power once they cool at the bottom. If it doesn't work then shuttle back up and try again. I've done this on Tektro, Shimano and Magura brakes with great success. They have to get super hot during use and have consistent material transfer to break in effectively.
I feel the combo remedies what to me is Shimano's only weak point: the bleed nipple on the calipers and push on syringe, which has a tendency to flap out. With Shiguras you screw the bucket on top and the syringe at the bottom, comfortably bleed them, and happy days. And the feel of the lever is sweet.
Here's my 2 pence worth, peasants.
I've had a set of Piccolas. Extremely light. Strong enough fot XC but I felt they were not enough for me sometimes. Probably my own fault as it was tge first time I bled some brakes and maybe I didn't do it properly? (Before that my butler used to bleed my brakes, but he gave me a silly excuse to leave the position. Something like cancer or piscis...)
I sold them and got myself a set of Direttisimas. The difference in power was good. Good modularity and I made a better work bleeding them. Happy with them. Wpuld recommend them to my friends at the golf club.
Sold them because they were black and I NEEEDED silver brakes so I got a mix of Direttissima levers and Maxima calipers. I struggled to bleed them properly as it was late in the evening when I did it and I had had too much champagne.
Still, I enjoyed the best of both worlds: the feel of the DRT lever combined with the brute force of the Maxima calipers.
To my surprise, I soon started to feel an increase in the lever free travel which I did not like. The free travel must always be 21mms to the biting point or the bike will be unrideable.
Usually, I would buy new brakes or a new bike at this point. But due to availability issues and long waiting times, I decided to try and reduce the pads-rotor distance. This worked well for a while, but the issue returned after a few rides. It was when my new PA was washing the bike that he discovered that the pads were at the end of their life. Unable to find the 730 Power pads in stock, I thought about trying the Galper pads. Luckily, one of my friends in Cannes gave me the number of someone who had a few in stock. Obviously, I bought all of them so I could distribute them only to those who are worthy, at a slightly higher price.
Once my PA changed the pads and bedded them for me, the brakes feel amazing again.
So....Trickstuff. They can be a pain to bleed and definitely hard to find, but an absolut marvel. Just keep in mind that the Power (orange) pads wear quickly. They have a Standard version of the pads for those of you who struggle to make the ends meet. I have not tried them because they are for poor people but apparently they work well enough.
My Shimano XT 4 pots were complete trash whereas my fiancé's have been decent. How can a product be that inconsistent?
I'm glad you've had good luck with them though!
I still stand by the fact that XT's, with the weight that they carry in the industry/market, are too inconsistent. This is an issue that should be solved by now.
I'm glad they run great for you. I'm still curious to try Saints, I've never heard anything bad.
I've had multiple sets of Shimano brakes myself. Some worked fine, some didn't. Now I've ditched them all together.
I bought some XT 4 pots recently. No more stopping power, pads seem to get contaminated all the time, need bleeding after 3 months. Pads are like 5x times the price.
When they work, they're good, but my go to brake these days is the Magura Trail Sports.
By the time I sold the bike the brake system was a total frankenstein project of mismatched Shimano replacement parts. They always had non-stop wandering bite point.
Shimano's manufacturing consistency seems to be either perfect or total lemon, unfortunately the ratio seems pretty even for both.
Thats mad isn’t it. Complete opposite!
Maybe they draft in people from Shimano fishing tackle division to cover some days and everything goes to sh1t lol
I’ll take it though, every other set of brakes seems to have a different issue anyway, and shimanos are powerful, great feel and easy to bleed and not silly money (if you dont replace with oem finned pads)
But get an expensive XT build, and your 4 pots are like 50/50 hot garbage. Then another 50/50 if Shimano will warranty them. Pass on that!
My MT200's are solidly mediocre but hey, you pull them and they stop. I have a new set of wheels and they are non-centerlock so I'll have to get some new discs soon. Soon as I smoke the resin pads I'll throw on some metallic and it'll be happy sailing for the rest of this bike's life I'm sure.
Anyone had Avid Elixir 1's back in the day? They were lethal. I had a shop bleed them. I tried the regular Avid kit, I bought the "professional" brake kit, I sanded down the bleed block to get extra fluid in, I tried high end DOT4. Nothing could make them work for more than a few months.
I recently switched over to SRAM Guide G2 Ultimates brakes (as a new bike came with them) and I put on Galfer rotors/pads. Initially I did not like them compared to the old XTs, but eventually got used to them and ultimately liked them. Then I got another bike with low end Deore brakes and swapped them out with Code RSC with HS2 rotors/pads so they are similar to my other bike. Not so impressed with these. I find them grabby, noisy, and while initial stopping power is strong, I'm not finding the modulation that is so heralded for SRAM brakes.
Sometimes I wish I stuck with XT brakes but so many people rip on the current gen... Perhaps my 2012 brakes were the exception?
As to elixirs, I know I had a weird experience. I had CRs that ran like champs, despite abuse/poor maintenance, for years. But man, people had bad experiences in general with them.
Shimano "hey my xxxx is broken", OK mail it back to us. Drop it in the mail. Then you get a refund.
Never gotten great service from either, really.
Great to know the HS2’s are a noticeable performance gain. I’m a bigger guy @90kg who loves steep trails (one of my favs drops nearly 1000m in 3.5km) and I seem to be roasting my centerlines (220/200). Also need to upgrade my levers from R’s to RSC’s from the sounds of it.
My wallet is asking if I should just let ignorance be bliss
I thought the only difference between R and RSC was adjustibility. Is it more?
The “S” in RSC is for swing-link which I believe is similar to shimanos servo-wave tech. and then you also get the ball bearing lever pivot.
While possibly subjective, every RSC has felt noticeably better compared to the R’s I’ve had.
And the cheap OEM -R versions are garbage
I dont have experience on either of theose, but my Guide Ts are simply not powerful enough on my main bike. Nice modulation and feel on my proper “trail” bike though
I keep saying it everytime, please do not take as bashing, more like cautionary tale of someone who wanted the best (and didn’t want to pay for trickstuff).
Love them otherwise.
After bleed replace the pads w/ my normal pads. The results are pads that are closer to the rotor at full retraction. Less room for error for rotor rub, but it's doable b/c of the alignment adjustment screws.
Try some mtx pads next time you change. Takes the best to a whole new level.
He couldn't stop.
Maybe the 2018 production line team had a good year
Sorry, but this sentence is utterly unworthy of anyone claiming to know something about mtb brakes. Even a very superficial look at the market will instantly show you that there is no correlation between brake weight and performance. The undisputedly best brakes on the market (Trickstuff) are also among the lightest. While very heavy brakes can be total disappointments (E.G. first gen TRP Quadiem, or Sram Guide as a very overweight XC brake).
I'm not saying we need anything as big as what comes on a motorcycle. But something needs to be more I think: fluid volume, master cylinder, inner diameter of the hose, maybe all of the above? The first time I tried G2s, I thought they were broken. Code Rs were merely okay. I thought the SLX on the demo bike were pretty good, but then my bike with the same setup are pretty disappointing. Ironically, the best brakes I currently have are the budget Shimano 4-pots (MT520 I think?) that came on my Rocky Mountain Growler hardtail. Upgraded to a 203mm rotor upfront with Galfer pads, and it handliy outbrakes my SLX and Code Rs, which also run 203/200mm rotors.
I've also been happy with the Code RSC's on a few demo bikes I've been on. Similar in feel and power to my TRP's, no complaints there.
I'm not a huge fan of the less modulation of the Shimano brakes, but I really don't have much time on them in comparison to the others. So I can't really comment on their longevity.
Even though I hear good things about Hayes, and Magura, if I had to buy new brakes right now, I'd probably try to grab some TRP DHR-Evos (or Trail Evos).
SRAM brakes are also good but personally I’m not a fan of how they feel. And I also don’t like DOT fluid. I’m glad they came out with the DB8 brakes, which will be much nicer to bleed for all my buddies who like SRAM brakes.
One thing which I’d love to try would be XT or SLX levers with Magura MT5 calipers, Trickstuff standard pads, and SRAM HS2 rotors.
I ran Saint/H03C for many years and mostly quiet as well except under long hard braking runs would start to get noisy. The grabby-ness under slower speed tech riding made me switch after running them for several years.
The MT7 have a nice feel as well and mostly quiet using the Performance compound. This is my current go to.
The Mag Gustav was amazing, the floating brake caliper design worked so well, they should bring that design back in a scaled down version using the new materials.
Si tuviese que destacar algo seria la modulación de frenada y sobre todo el rendimiento en situaciones de mucha solicitud aunque soy un piloto y ligero y freno poco
My shimano's, while not the best (6120 and 7120's) have been reliable, and that's all i care about, i want to stop and not ride of a cliff.
Also worth noting, Shimano's cheaper brakes (Deore level) don't have the wandering bite point issue-the simpler hose routing and lack of (utterly useless) bite point adjustment makes for a better performing brake. Also, SM-RT66 SLX rotors work better/more consistently than their fancier ones.
SRAM has redeemed themselves, but only with the CODE RSC which is a great brake. Bleed is easy, they don't seep fluid but need a full purge/recharge once a year. Also annoying-SRAM still hasn't quite vanquished the dreaded turkey gobble/squeal issue.
Also worth noting, no other SRAM brakes have adequate power aside from CODEs. The rest are gutless on steep terrain.
Trickstuff brakes might be flawless, but I wouldn't know because they're too rich for my blood AND their backlog is absurd. Hopes are pretty good, Hayes are really good, Magura and Hayes have the same weep issues with hard use as Shimanos (it's a mineral oil thing).
I'd say if you're buying brakes, 4 pot Deores with 203 SLX rotors should get the job done. If you get a bike with Codes, I'd keep them though.
Code rsc - had many a pair. Work great, wish they went a little longer between bleeds.
TRP - pretty damn rad once you throw the trp pads in the trash and throw some galfer pads in. Wish the lever was a bit slimmer. Amazed (and slightly embarrassed) how long I’ve gone without bleeding them.
Maguras with aluminum master cylinder
High end Shimanos with aluminum lever blades without servo wave
High end Srams running mineral oil
Hopes that run mineral and cost half the price
All of these sound totally doable but non of them are in existence
sigh.
Magura rotors (also 2.0mm) can be sourced from ze Germans for €15-20
It sucks because there are no warranty replacement parts, so customers with relatively new bikes would just get fluid on their pads/rotors and then we couldn't even get a replacement caliper for them for almost a year unless someone bought one (if there was stock) or they wanted to basically purchase a different brake. You ended up in this huge multi-week or month cycle with a customer because of a brand new set of brakes that are not even worth the time to be spending so much effort on.
I get that their high end brakes work great and they have a good history in the bike industry, but I just cringe when I see anything below SLX on a bike because I know that shit has a really good chance of leaking fluid even when the customer did nothing wrong. It sucks selling a $3800 bike and knowing that the brakes are going to go to shit pretty quickly.
Don’t use mineral oil in their newer 4pots! Drain that and use putoline 2.5w. Use the bleed method from the Santa Cruz team on YouTube.
I swapped my xt rear lever for an xtr race lever with linear pull, and run 2.0mm rotors in 223mm-203mm (front-rear).
Finally decent brakes that don’t have a wandering bite point, feel balanced, and no shortage of power.
You’ll still have to deal with fluid loss and top them up sometimes. That could definitely be better!
I liked my Magura MT Trail brakes, but found they lacked top end braking power (with 203mm-180mm front-rear). Magura have been super reliable for bleed consistency. Last bleed lasted 4 years with no top up.
If I didn’t have a great working set of shimano (due to a lot of customization), I’d go for Hayes Dominion.
I've bled it at least 3 times now, new pads, new rotor, and it's still lacking power. No obvious leaks, lever stays consistent.
I'm using a jug of old shimano mineral oil because it's what I have around, so once my proper fluid gets here today I'm either going to love Formula again (and hate myself) or be off the Formula fan-boy listserve.
While I'm putting in "approved" mineral oil I'll give it a crack. Thanks for the tip.
This is not entirely consistent with your problem description, but all owners should keep an eye on the speed lock when the brake acts up.
Thanks for the tip. No speedlock on this version.
Good news, bled them with proper fluid along with cleaning the pistons thoroughly and I'm back to full power!
Fanboy status intact!
Xts are flawless. Never need attention.
Apex are about as good as the level tlms i replaced with the xts. Can turn to turkey calls easily. Seems like i have to sand them often to remove a glaze.
Spykes are ok.. Use them fatbiking, had cold weather issues with shimano and sram so moved to TRP. Not a lot of speed in the winter so they do the job, not sure i would want to ride trail/ enduro with them.
Also seriously just use proper brake lines for brakes and a large % of sponginess goes away.
Personally I’ve had good things to say about the past sram brakes I’ve had overall, but the rears on my current code R’s and a previous bike with guides have never quite felt great.
I love the power and feel of shimanos, but out of person preference i wish they had a pad contact adjustment on the higher end XT/XTR/Saint
I’ve had very good experiences with Magura MT7 and MT Trail. Modulation and power are to my taste - I’ve never experienced fade or significant changes in bite point. Lever shape and ergonomics are very good. Pads work well, and provide good life for the money.
Here’s what I would ask Magura to improve -> bleed ports… SRAM is the leader here. Shimano is very good.
With Magura you actually have to get the caliper above the lever - there are no short cuts.
I also am not a fan of the tool free adjust on the HC levers - the new Luic Bruni lever on the MT7 does things right.
I find those small faults trivial, and plan to keep riding Magura brakes because they work the way I want them to work- and are very reliable.
They were very consistent and easy to set up. There's a good place for them on touring bikes and dirt jumpers!
I notice it much less now with a more modern bike, but it still annoys me.
I would say the benefit is limited but there.
BTW Hope Brakes already have a dual control brake(for front and rear on one lever) so the tech is already there for the brake side, it is the fork side that needs to change.
Maybe Hope should make a fork now as well. Shit I should patent that first.
I'll be back to Shimano on my next bike or just go with SRAM and pay the local mechanic to bleed them for me.
I wrote up the procedure I have been using - www.pinkbike.com/u/everyheroneedsavillain/blog/formula-cura-4-bleed-procedure.html
The push/pull method with them works really well and rotating the MC around while doing that and having the caliper in a vertical position has been pretty money.
Currently, I’ve got a set of Shimano M520 brakes in my trail bike, they’re what came on it as standard and I wasn’t expecting much from them but they’re actually flawless. They’re essentially SLX 4 piston brakes without the SLX branding and without the tool free reach adjustment (although reach adjustment is generally set and forget anyway, I don’t see why you’d need it to be tool free). I also have a 2 piston SLX brake on my dirt jumper - again I can’t fault it. It lacks the modulation of a 4 piston brake but for the application I’m using it for on that bike, modulation isn’t really all that important. So I’m very impressed with Shimano brakes.
youtu.be/ys9bUOJ0qg0
A: They are worth the money you spent to purchase them
B: They work very well and perform flawlessly
C: They look really nice on yo bizike bro
BC you cant possibly have all three
sooo??
1 star. I would give 0 stars if I could. what a load of garbage these brakes I got lazy and failed to install properly are!!!!!!!
I've been more than satisfied with Tektro's 4-piston HD-M745's + 203mm rotors -- I'd wager than many people would find that going to a bigger rotor & a cheap 4-piston option would improve their braking performance far more than spending 2-3x more on brakes.
Besides the price, what is fundamentally different? Materials, manufacturing tolerances, design?
@sebstott, any insight?
Yes.
They seem pretty good, but the strpped blead port from delivery not cool, bung screw plug fixxed it.
Maybe it is the (tiny) 180mm rotor in the back but this brake loses confidance in mild rough conditions. They are butch enough to get me lookin at bigger rotors but:
I miss the codes with big rotors on the capra. Friggin amazing brakes. Like motocross brakes for a bicycle.
I only have a few real rides on the TRP "Q2.3 SE" which is the Quadiem Lever with the new 2.3 Caliper. (I wanted the beautiful DHR EVO 2.3's in raw finish but they were sold out"
The power is IMENSE with 203mm rotors but I have not been able to tame the brake rotor rub. Right out of the box the rotors weren't true and I've tried truing them by hand a little but I can't seem to get them dialed in. Obviously a regular rotor truing tool doesn't fit a 2.3mm rotor.
Any ideas?
Other than that, most brakes feel good except SRAM (Anything other than the Code RSCs in SRAMs lineup are feel horrible, their levers are hard to pull relative to all other brands, and their contact adjustment dial collects dirt and jams easily).
Code R - passable with mtx red pads
Formula Cura 4 - worked great never should’ve sold them
TRP Quadiem - not as powerful as the Cura 4 but just as reliable
The Codes feel amazing to me for ~1.5 rides after I reset the caliper pistons. After that they start to slowly feel mushy and like ass again. I can't tell if I'm just picky or they just suck eggs.
I did 40 days straight open to close on my DH bike with Code RSCs at the bike park and my brakes felt great through that whole 40 days with no bleed or reset of pistons… I’m just needing to deal with them now at probably 70+ days of hard riding. They could use some real TLC now but still good. Maybe I got lucky!
then what about Sram brakes? feels like you're trying to cut a tennis ball with a butter knife. no clear feedback of "bite point", because it's more like a "sucking some jelly point"....
www.pinkbike.com/news/formulas-prototype-dual-crown-enduro-fork-and-lightweight-brakes.html
There are too many “pros” to list and only two downsides I can think of.
- Heavy
- Don’t fit.
tbh, coming from old 2 pot xt's they were spectacular, now that i've been using them for a few years, well
Bicycle disc brakes have to generate a lot of stopping power at minimal weight with a few tablespoons of fluid-it's amazing they work at all.
If you want better brakes, bodge a set of moto brakes onto your bicycle. They'll give you zero trouble but add pounds to the overall weight.
pretty amazing and my life depends on them
Without the results are useless, because I want to see them…
You have Hope and want ??
What color and would you sell em outright?
That's common on pretty much all brakes.
I have mobilized enough brakes over the years. Be it Sram, Shimano, TRP, or what ever. They all do that.