I cant decide between avid 7 and avid elixir cr.

Which one is better?

Elixir by a country mile in my experience 🙂

Reason?

Ive got J7’s on my Pace, and Elixir CRs on my Flow, and imo the elixirs are much better. Less initial bite on the Elixirs, but much more power available. The carbon levers are very nice too, and they’re aquite a bit lighter.
The J7s have a habit of developing that “ting”y noise too if you run them well bled.
However if you manage to pick up the J7s a lot cheaper then i would go for them. I bought my CRs for £110 an end, but wouldnt want to fork out £150 for them.
Also the Straitline levers make the world of difference on the J7’s, transformed them.

And what about maintenance? I had avid J3’s before, and never had to do anything with them except for changing pads and the occasional calliper adjustment. I really dont want to end up having to bleed them every month or something (I dont even know how to bleed..)

Bled my j7’s twice in 2 years (that includes initial bleed).
Dont know with the elixirs yet, but theyve been going for 3 months so far with no problems.

Interested bystander – I heard that the adjuster on the CRs works itself loose and needs re-adjusting periodically. Is this so?

This may be the case, although i havent noticed, the adjuster is built into the end of the lever assembly, so in effect you twist the cable round with it, and it obviously tries to move back, but i dont use the adjuster myself.