Under what circumstances would I need a 180mm rotor up front on an XT setup? I see a lot of 180/160 combinations about and wonder if I’m missing something.

I went from 160/160 to 180/180 on a 100mm travel frame with 120mm forks. 180 on the rear is overkill with XT in my experience, but I found the 180 an improvement on the front, gives you more confidence on down sections mainly because you don’t have to work your hand/brake as hard.

Similar question here, but not really deserving its own thread.

I recently built up a scandal 29er and am currently running elixirs 180 front, 160 rear. What are most peoples rotor size preferences for their wagon wheelers?

I have one 29er Scandal with 183 floating Hopes with M4’s front and back and another with 160 Aligator’s front and back with Hayes 9’s. Both are fine for the 29er’s.

I have XT’s (2011) on both HT and FS with 180/160. I did have a 180 on the back of the HT for a try but the frame resonated (853 rock lobster) and i never felt that i needed the extra power. 12.5 stone outta the shower !

I’m running 203 on the front and 180 on the rear with XT’s. I’m a heavy rider and like to let the bike run pretty quickly on the downwards slopes so the more stopping power the better. If you can get away with the smaller/lighter rotors then all good 🙂

tk46hal, how do you find the alligators? Just waiting for some to arrive…

Fenred!

How’s the bike doing?
The Alligator’s are very keen. Great stopping power from a small, very light rotor and also a great range of fancy colours to pick.

Its great thanks mate! Costing me a fortune and its gradually losing weight 😀

Blue Aries should be here tomoz with fitting this coming wkend…niner flatop bars have made a huge difference as have formula brakes and xt cassette (cheers khani)

Overall VERY happy with it.

I also run a 180/160 combination and have done as long as I’ve ever had disc brakes. Interestingly, when I first opted for a 180 front rotor a lot of my riding mates told me it was overkill – 160/140 was the norm for XC then – but I reasoned that for a few grammes extra I’d rather have more powerful brakes. This combination seems almost to be the industry standard now though.

I use my bike for both XC riding/racing and commuting (with a set of 700C wheels on disc hubs) and I’ve never felt the front to be ‘overbraked’. At the end of the day, I’d rather have lots of power and only have to pull the lever lightly, than to be squeezing the lever hard but still wanting more braking power.

Ta for the reassuring bits, I was just wondering if the extra rotating mass affects the performance. Not enough to bother, I guess. 😀