Trickstuff Direttissima Brakes - Review
Trickstuff have been machining overly sexy, intricate and geeky mountain bike parts in Freiburg, Germany since 2003. Their first product was a humble brake pad, and they have added innovative and useful metalwork to their range ever since. The Direttissima is the king of their range, boasting massive stopping power, low weight and proudly marked with a 'Made in Germany' etching. Trickstuff even describes the Direttissima as"fiercely expensive" which I cannot argue against at €375 each.
Trickstuff Direttissima Details• Intended use: downhill, enduro, slowing down quickly
• 4-piston caliper
• Mineral oil
• Goodrich or standard hose options
• Average Power [Nm]: >150
• Weight: Front brake 277g / Daechle 203mm rotor 192g (actual)
• Pick your own colour options
• Made in Germany
• Price: €375 each / $396 USD (approx)
• www.trickstuff.de
• 4-piston caliper
• Mineral oil
• Goodrich or standard hose options
• Average Power [Nm]: >150
• Weight: Front brake 277g / Daechle 203mm rotor 192g (actual)
• Pick your own colour options
• Made in Germany
• Price: €375 each / $396 USD (approx)
• www.trickstuff.de
Construction
The Direttissima is machined in the Trickstuff house in Freiburg, Germany. The part-time environmentalist in me likes the buy local theme, joining Hope and Formula as the few remaining brake manufacturers still producing in Europe.
An 11mm-wide, band clamp connects the lever to the handlebar. There is an extra support, which braces the lever again the bar, decreasing flex, but also widening the total width of the lever clamp 24mm. This width could cause some problems for riders needing the levers close to the grip. It might also make it hard to find space for other controls. Trickstuff, however, has a range of mounts to combine the brake clamps with shifter or dropper post levers.
The lever has four cartridge bearings on each side for super smooth action and durability. There is lever reach adjustment from "I like my lever hitting the grip before it works," all the way to "I have giant hands and want the lever miles away from me," via a 2mm hex key. There is no bite point adjuster or tool free option.
The main lever reservoir capacity is 3ml of mineral oil, Trickstuff boasts that this is the largest on the market and will give the same power even when the brake pads are worn and the pistons are extended further towards the rotor.
The caliper is a two-piece, CNC-machined, alloy unit. There are four Teflon coated pistons to lower friction and avoid lazy piston retraction.
There are nine anodized colors to choose from, and customers can pick their shades of the lever, lever body, top cap, bolts, and caliper to suit all of their wildest `90's ano dreams.
Rotors, Pads, and Housing
The Daechle discs have a trick stuffed up their sleeve that makes slotting wheels in a breeze – the outer edge of the rotor is beveled on each side at 60º, so the rotors won't catch on the brake pads when installing the wheel. Does this turn the rotor into a sharpened cutting blade? No, there is still a flat edge on the outer surface of the rotor, this gives it a rounded feel to the touch, and is less sharp than two 90º edges.
Discs are available in 140, 160, 180, 200 and 203mm sizes, in a six-bolt pattern. A few other weird shapes and sizes for Rolhoff'ers and Coda hub riders are available.
The Daechle discs are beveled to simplify wheel installation.
Trickstuff's NG+ brake pads share the same shape as Shimano, to make finding replacements simple.
Trickstuff's NG+ brake pads also share the same chamfer as the rotors. The plus sign of the NG+ relates to the pads which are thicker than most brands at 2.3mm, compared to 1.5mm-2mm on many brands (SRAM Guide pads are 2mm for reference). It may not sound like a big deal, but Trickstuff claims that difference can provide you with 15% to 50% more pad life than you currently enjoy (depending on which brand of brake you currently employ). The pads handily share the same shape as Shimano XTR-XT-SLX brake pads, so finding replacements should be easy wherever you are in the world.
The Direttissima lever and caliper are connected via a standard kevlar hose, though I opted for the legendary Goodridge hose upgrade. Goodridge hoses are renowned as the strongest on the market; they're basically unbreakable, uncrushable and provide a more solid feeling since there is almost no expansion of the hose under brake pressure.
Bleeding
The brakes arrived pre-bled with the hoses cut to the consumer-requested length, so installation was a breeze. After a few months, I decided to change to internal cable routing to tidy up my frame, which required bleeding. Trickstuff provides an in-depth bleeding manual on their site, with two options: the 'Quick and Clean' method and the 'Slow and Dirty.' The first method should be used for emergency use and the second for a 'perfect bleed.' Cornelius Kapfinger, from Trickstuff, suggested that most bleeding manuals and methods are only 90% accurate, where the Trickstuff method, although seemingly complicated, will achieve 100% accuracy and provide many years of trouble-free braking.
I went for the Slow and Dirty method. Slightly complicated by the number of steps, the repetitious failsafe method, the need for two syringes with different size threads (one M4 and one M5) and only having two hands. With the help of a friend and some spare minutes, we managed to bleed the brake with success first time.
I suggest adding the €29 Heinzelmann bleed kit made specifically for this brake. I made my own from various other syringes, but adding another few euros to the shopping cart won't hurt. You might even manage to get to four figures just for your braking setup.
On the Trail
The Direttissima's have an unparalleled, lightweight lever throw before the brake pads contact the rotor. There is no noticeable pressure or friction to overcome, giving a weightless feel. The lever's pivot placement provides a great ergonomic angle, not bending my index finger out of line. The contact area at the fingertip is larger than that on most levers. It's also flat and smooth, which provides a sensitive feel.
And to the power. The power is huge. I think they generate more power than Shimano's mighty Saint, and are getting close to Magura's superb MT7. But, power is nothing without control, thankfully the modulation of the Direttissima is light, followed by superbly progressive. The angle of the piston in the lever changes throughout the stroke, giving a true progressive curve and increasing power with more finger power.
The bite point is solid, but not grabby, and builds through the stroke. Cro-magnon style fist-clenchers may have an issue feathering the power, but for the masses, controlling this brake should be safe, easy and intuitive.
Issues
The original pair of Direttisma's I received last June did spring an oil leak at the top cap. Trickstuff said that this brake was an earlier model that didn't use thread lock on the top cap screws, which led to it coming loose. I lost some oil, and in the process of re-tightening, the seal got damaged. I returned the brakes, and they were upgraded to the thread locked screws and a new version of the seal – the Direttissimas were trouble free afterward. All production brakes have since been upgraded.
I also broke a 180mm Daechle disc; luckily I spotted this before anything untoward happened. Trickstuff says they did have some problems with earlier Daechle discs when riders performed trials-like maneuvers and the rotors were stressed in a rearwards direction. These rotors have all been replaced by a new version with improved strength.
Tiny hex bolts. The 2.5mm bolt for the lever clamp is too small, and the brakes wouldn't tighten enough for a solid fix on the handlebar without risk of rounding off the bolt (this is more of a problem with carbon bars). In the end, I could the tighten the bolt enough to make the levers stay put during riding, but it was still possible to move them easily by hand. I'm sure there are reasons for tiny bolts, like stopping people overtightening things, saving weight and letting the levers move in the event of a crash, but fiddly is frustrating. I had a similar gripe with the Trickstuff Deckele 'star nut.' In total, the brakes need 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 and 5mm hex wrenches, plus a Torx T10 and T27, then an 8mm wrench – of course, this is what's required for a full, nut-and-bolt rebuild of the brake and not the general adjustment, but I like simplicity.
Pinkbike’s Take:
 | The Trickstuff Direttissima's have really set a standard of performance and power in the braking world. The price and lack of tool-free adjustment puts them out of line of the general consumer, but racers and serious riders will love the feel and power, as will anyone who purely wants to add a touch of class to their machine. - Paul Aston |
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*Dental Hygienists ride Capra$.
That said, the only bicycle specific floss I ever got was from Planet X. So Planet X and On One must be the brand of dentists I guess.
So much money they can even shoot the lion king in Africa.
"These are awesome brakes made in Germany that retail for $800 USD a set. Unfortunately the top cap leaked oil, the screws are too small, the levers rotate on the bars all the time and the rotors will break if you put a backwards load on them"
I'll stick with Shimano.
They may look good on paper and pictures, no so much in real life.
"oh yeah, we know the bolts need lock tight and we've addressed that...just not on yours. and, oh yeah, the rotors break and we've addressed that...just not on yours"
how many "just not on yours" end up leaving the factory?
Have you met anybody in the bike business that wants to be critical?
Any small manufacturer won't out-Shimano Shimano, but they have other qualities that some may value, also as highlighted in the review.
Can't hang out with the big dogs
Bad sets happen, even to the big players; it wasn't long ago that Yeti chainstays were snapping in tests, Reverbs are STILL pieces of garbage, Cane Creek inlines regularly foul up, the Kronolog almost sank CrankBros and Evil couldn't seem to put a bike together that would stay together.
The problem here is the Big claims and the Big price.
For those reasons they needed more testing and time. We all know what happened to Avid
And yeah, sram got their shit together, had avid start fresh and now builds some of the best and most popular brakes on the market. What's your point?
Unless we were to ask them directly we won't know if any production models even left their factory before they fixed these two issues.
I'm curious if any brake manufacturer actually tests a rearward braking force on their rotors, besides maybe Echo, Hope and Magura since they make trials specific brakes. Maybe they don't have a trials nerd (I ride trials, yes I'm a bit of a nerd) working for them who would have thought of testing that. In a world where we as riders are weighing our purchases (literally) by how how many grams something weighs, maybe they were just trying to shave a few grams.
And as far as the top cap bolts go, maybe they assumed that the elasticity in the seal would act as a dampener and that the bolts wouldn't require loctite, I had a set if Hope M4s and they didn't have loctite on the top cap threads. Maybe when this guy noticed it starting to leak he over torqued the bolts. How else would he have damaged the seal? Torque much?
Maybe we should be happy that someone is trying to make a sweet new brake and be happy with the fact that they are addressing the issues instead of not fixing anything for years on end and just warranting every other set of brakes like sram did. I know someone who started with sram's something-5 brake and was warrantied all the way up their line to the X0 because all of their brakes sucked. He then sold the X0s and bought something else.
Hope brakes for life. (But interested in what these guys are doing.)
My nipples explode with delight!
Normally hear "f*ck these [Insert brake Brand]. I'm gonna fit my Hopes!"
I want to know why these reviewers got a different result than Enduro-MTB's dyno tests.
enduro-mtb.com/en/best-mtb-disc-brake-can-buy/2
I also spoke to another brake manufacturer with no connection to any of the brands mentioned. They suggested with their testing process the Magura was more powerful than the Trickstuff brake.
I say this making an assumption that these braking systems are simple. It is still possible, with the help of a student of physics, to calculate the mechanical advantage in more complicated systems.
NASA wrote up a guide to these sorts of calculations back in 1996. Worth a gander.
www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/WindTunnel/Activities/Pascals_principle.html
The problem is that that still only shows you the maximum, ideal-case braking force. In my personal experience as a pretty heavy rider who lives somewhere that is generally steep, the biggest problem my brakes face is dealing with heat - once you cook the pads, they glaze over and never have the same amount of bite again. The result is that managing heat becomes as important as outright clamping force, because that is what keeps your coefficient of friction up high, and right now Shimano are unquestionably doing a better job of this than anybody else in the bike market.
@ExxonJuan hose stiffness affects the feel of the brake (as in, rider's perception) but actually doesn't have any real effect on the braking power on offer as a function of how hard you're pulling the lever - it just means you have to pull the lever further before you're pulling it as hard. It's a bit counterintuitive, but it's kind of like standing on scales whilst holding a spring in your hand, vs standing on the spring on the scales - obviously the scales will read the same thing even though standing on the spring means you compress it a certain distance before it builds up that same force.
It is enlightening to hear about the heat management problem. I am only suggesting that we could be more scientific about this process. If one brake has a mechanical advantage 1.5 times higher than another, that puts to rest the question of comparative force amplification, although practical power - power by the definition of physics - is another question because of considerations you've raised.
My only point here is that it wouldn't take superhuman effort to make more accurate - and independently repeatable - descriptions of these products, as a tester. What good is it to me as a consumer to have 5 reviews whose conclusions are all more or less random re-orderings of each other?
SAINTS
For just $800? Fantastic stuff.
I love fancy stuff as much as the next guy, but logically there is little reason for these to exist unless they are the best in all areas.
Ano options, braided hose availability? Check.
Call me a fool but I will stay with Hope's power, modulation, build quality, and proven reliability for life regardless of what they want to charge me. They had me once I had to bleed (once, years ago, after crash damage to the hose) and the thorough lack of needed maintenance. The incredible performance is unmatched if you are talking feel and power together. Wish they made brakes for motorcycles & autos, they'd have me all around.
Classic! I like companies that have a sense of humour. They know they are expensive and they roll with it!
I mean really?
I know quite a few guys with 10K+ bikes and none of them run exotic brakes, forks or suspension that's seems incredibly cool and marketed to the "dentist" crowd.
The part-time environmentalist in me likes the buy local theme, joining Hope and Formula as the few remaining brake manufacturers still producing in Europe.
"
A few years ago all Magura stuff was made in Bad Urach (Germany). Currently a lot of their production moved to Asia but the top end brakes MT7 and MT8 are still being produced in Bad Urach. Then again North American west coast environmentalists are probably better off with something made in east Asia than in mid/west Europe
And to think that my Hope V4's came with the very same hoses, yet I haven't had any rotors come apart on me, nor had any leaks due early production "errors", and I only paid 1/2 of what these cost, thus I'm not left walking bowlegged or farting blood indefinitely.
WIN-WIN!
The described problem with our clamp, which is said not to clamp, is no big problem. It only occurs on handle bars which do not feature the standard diameter of 22.2mm. Our clamp works great on handle bars from 22.1 up to 22.3mm. As you know, handle bars should have 22.2mm.
If the bar is thinner, you can easily help yourself by adding a thin metal sheet (coke can).
The clamp bolt is - by far! - strong enough to hold the BMC in place, don't worry about that!
We designed the clamp this way because it acts as predetermined breaking point and thus protects the BMC from breaking in case of an accident. Even if the clamp breaks completely the BMC can be fixed to the handle bar by using a simple zip tie which may be crucial if you are far away from civilization.
We experienced this clamping problem only a few times, mainly on low quality carbon bars. But, as I said, the problem is easy to fix.
Greets, Klaus Liedler, CEO, Trickstuff
felt decent but not worth the price at all. modulation seemed nice , but not overly better compared to my xt sets. i would say somewhere inbetween xt a and hope e4 in terms of modulation.
I've always valued modulation over raw stopping power, I run Guides, but am curious how these compare in both stopping power and modulation to Guides.
Inconsistent piston travel?
Too narrow a rotor slot?
Don't know how to set up brakes?
Or you bent the rotor?
He probably tested a Monday model..
This thing is f*"%ing nice!! Its worth every single cent!
They're definitely not the same pads as current or even previous generation XTR/XT/SLX pads.
As you say @shmoodiver, they actually look like the very first generation of 4pot XT's from the late 90's.
I wonder if this is because the patent on the shape of these has run out.
Whatever the reason, I can't see them being easy to find, as claimed