I have Shimano XT hydraulic disc brakes on my Saracen and I’m fed up having to bleed them constantly. I’ve even taken them to a ‘proper’ bike shop and paid to have it done properly and literally 2 rides later they’re spongy again!

I’m getting to the point now where I’m considering settling for some ‘fit and forget’ mech discs such as Avid BB7s. Has anyone else done the same?

I have only one hydraulic brake on a bike (fron of my “biggest” bike), rest all (5) are cable – bb7. WInter SS has road BB7 with V levers so I can set pads well away from the rotor (people say this makes for pooor feel but no worries on a mud bike and feel OK to me anyway)

I don’t think they are better but they’re pretty easy to live with (mind, the adjustment is sometimes pretty hard when everything’s covered in mud)

(you know you have to wind ’em in every now & then – every ide if it’s really shitty weather ?)

If a properly bled brake goes spongy in two rides, you have a seal problem somewhere in the system. Get that sorted and they’ll be fine. It’s not that hydraulic brakes are problematic, It’s that your hydraulic brake has a problem.

You could start by zip tying the lever closed over night and then looking for a drip of fluid near and seals or hose joints.

I’ve even taken them to a ‘proper’ bike shop and paid to have it done properly and literally 2 rides later they’re spongy again!

I’d say your proper bike shop isn’t as proper as you think….

Onzadog
+1

Ran them for a while (Hayes MX2) Then got a hydraulic for the front for extra stopping power. Worked fine like this as I didn’t need as much stopping power on the rear. Fully hydro now and they are preferable but its not a huge difference.

Jam bo what should the shop do then?

Fix them properly?

I’ve got some BB7’s on my single speed Surly Karte Monkey. To be honest, they’re far better than I thought they’d be but, being single speed you don’t get up that much speed really.

I like the pad clearance adjustability. Rotate a dial on the outside of the caliper to do that. Dead simple.

Don’t fancy ditching my hydraulics on the other bikes though. Can’t imgine them lasting long enough for a Alp.

What jam bo said. They are set up funny, defective OR not bled right.

My new deores feel spongy as **** if you adjust the levers in towards the bar.

Wind the lever blades out and they feel nice and firm. I bled the brakes twice before i worked this out. Doh !

My hope 4 pots are the same but the sponginess isn’t as pronounced.

Tempted by cable on the ss to replace the front v brake but only because i foot want mismatch of brake levers.

There were a whole generation of XT disks that were terrible for this. I have a pair. Awful things.
Don’t take that as an indication of all of them though, some hydraulics are very good.

I still prefer hydraulics over mechanical, usually less faff.

There were some of the new XT brakes that had a problem like this. Get your shop to return them to Madison and you’ll have new brakes.

As above, my hopes have been fit and forget (for years)

The problem with blaming the shop is what did the customer ask for? I’m pretty sure if you take a bike in a say “can you bleed my brakes” that is what they will do rather than a complete strip down of every part. If however you took it in and said “I have bled my brakes repeatedly and very quickly they become spongy again. What do you think the problem is, could you have a look at them for me and see if there is a problem?” Then if they were spongy again after 2 rides I’d be back at the shop to complain they hadn’t sorted the problem I’d asked them to.

Too many people on here ready to slag off LBSs at every opportunity without actually considering what the customer/shop interplay was.

BTW I am not a bike shop employee or remotely attached to the cycle industry other than as a consummer.

I have used both mech and hydro and find hydro less hassle. I hated having to turn the pad adjustment knobs as the pads wore down on my bb7s where as the hydros I just run until pads needs changing, push pistons in, replace pads and then don’t touch until pads wear out again.

Get your current sorted properly as mentioned above.

I gave up on hydros because of sticky pistons – first set were 2004 Hayes HFX 9s which seemingly gave lots of people problems.

Then I went to Juicy Ultimates, ok until I had a sticky piston and found that I couldn’t remove them for work without a compressed air gun!

I like the BB7s as I can work on them at the trail head if needed (and I don’t need a compressed air gun), I can run a bigger gap between pad and rotor so don’t get rubbing in mud but can use the SD levers to compensate, and they feel almost as smooth with ultimate levers and gore rideon cables.

I use avid mechanicals on a surly big dummy and a salsa Fargo and they are great.
The cargo bikes just needs brakes, not super modulated worlds finest brakes.
The Fargo is limited to mechanicals because of the drop bar shifters, and I have never felt under braked, or like they were not good enough…. Excellent brakes.

I’ll expand a little if I may..

My bike’s probably about 3 or 4 years old now so I’d feel more than a bit cheeky contacting CRC asking them to contact Madison about the issue. Would it be worth contacting Madison direct?

The bike shop I took it to have a very competent mechanic who did a great job on the rest of the bike and to be fair I did simply ask for the brakes to be bled because I couldn’t stop the one lever going spongy. When I picked the bike up and tested both levers both felt pretty solid, it’s only through light riding since that the sponginess has returned.

I’d go back to the shop and explain the problem – a competent mechanic will be able to sort that for you.

I’ve been running mostly hydro brakes on both personal bikes and our youth club fleet for a while now, mainly because of the low maintenance and reliability – the hardest bit has been driving home the message about not contaminating brake pads to the volunteers who help clean and maintain the club bikes!