My Fourmula Oro’s have just died for good due to poor maintenence on my part (now highly corroded inside) 😳

Hopes are more user-serviceable, but since you obviously don’t bother with any of that nonsense I’d say just get Shimano.

You’re gonna get half and half on here – i’d have a look at the features of both brakes, your budget and make a descison

IMO Hopes are the only way to go, but then i’ve got no experience of Shimano. My Hopes are 4 years old and still going strong, with no maintainence and numerous crashes, i absolutly love them

IMO Hopes are the only way to go, but then i’ve got no experience of Shimano

Brilliant, a real insight into the differences of the 2 there then…..

Try and use both and see what you like the feel and power of, i always think Hopes look a bit agricultural and the levers don’t feel as nice as Shimano.

Having used Hope, Shimano & Magura over the years, I’d put Hope last for performance and reliability. Shimano & Magura just seem to work for years on end without even needing bleeding. I’d rate Shimano at best overall for performance.

Features of Shimano:-

Cheap
Reliable
Powerful

Features of Hope:-

Expensive
Noisy
A constant faff to keep working well
Average power at best
Made in Britain on CNC machines

Read into that what you will, but other than a loss of power due to a poorly bled system (user error on my part in the end!) I’ve had Shimano exclusively for a looooong time now and would never go back. I’ve tried lots of different Hope systems in the past, some worked ok, but that was only the brand new ones, and even then they felt agricultural and were noisy compared to Shimano.

Get the Hopes, their more powerful and are proper bling. Get them with the Race levers if possible as meant to be a better combo than the Tech lever, although I love my Tech levers as super adjustable and they look good. No noise from mine, Takes a few minutes at first to set up correctly then I never touch them again apart from to change pads.

Brake model Power (Nm) Weight (g)
Ashima PCB 64 328
Tektro Auriga Pro 77 491
TRP Dash 85 407
TRP Dash Carbon 85 393
Gusset Chute 89 469
Hayes Prime Pro 90 501
Avid XX WC 90 356
Magura MT8 90 339
Quad QHD-7.1 Nano Light 92 422
Quad Rapide 97 475
Hope Tech Evo X2 97 463
Quad QHD-7 Nano 97 463
Avid Elixir 9 99 397
Avid Elixir 7 99 395
Avid Elixir 1 100 471
Avid Elixir 3 100 442
Avid Code R 103 429
Magura MT2 103 428
Magura MT6 103 337
Shimano Deore M596 104 490
Formula R1 Racing 104 334
Shimano Saint 105 529
Shimano XT M785 107 466
Formula RX 107 398
Formula R1 107 355
Shimano XTR Race M985 110 388
Hope X2 Race Evo 110 377
Shimano SLX M666 111 485
Shimano XTR Trail M988 112 407
Hope Race Evo M4 115 496
Hope Tech Evo V2 120 524
Formula The One 121 393
Formula RO 124 418

http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/fitness/article/how-we-test-hydraulic-disc-brakes-24345/

As to the argument that Hope sell all the spares separately, I’d say – it’s because you’ll need them all at regular intervals. I’ve never had a Magura or Shimano brake fail in any way, whereas I’ve had no end of stuck pistons with Hope brakes – so much so I swapped them all out.

I’ve had the hope Tech X2’s and Tech M4’s. Personally think the Tech X2’s are better than the Tech 4 (lighter too)

BUT I have recently bought the new SLX Ice Tech brakes, and would rate them better then the Tech X2’s. probably more power, better modulation (for me) just lacks the free stroke control.
Easy bleeding, shortening etc.
Would go for the XT’s…

(edit: hopes are a nice bit of engineering and machining!)

Hope has always been my choice!
Very well made and made in Britain! 😉

Shimanos seem to be a lot more suited to those who want to just take something out of a box, bolt it to a bike and forget about it. The problem comes if you need any spares, as Madison’s approach seems to be that a broken brake should be ‘fixed’ with a new one. Case in point? I have an old M525 Deore disc. The top cap for the reservoir on the lever has become fractionally mishapen and will not now form an oil-tight seal when done up, meaning the brake ‘weeps’ and would need constant fettling to be usable. Madison don’t carry spare top caps so, short of randomly turning up a VGC one on eBay (unlikely without having to buy at least the entire brake lever), that brake is now a glorified paperweight.

Hope on the other hand, whilst pretty pricey and more demanding of routine maintainence, will happily sell you the minutest part of pretty much anything they’ve ever made. They even offer a service whereby you can send your brake back to them for a complete strip, refurb and assembly, effectively returning your brake to brand new.

If you’re the kind of person who changes components fairly often, I’d say go for the XTs, they’re probably every bit as powerful and I’d be surprised if there’s even a bag of crisps’ weight difference. If you’re the kind of person who likes to buy something, cherish it like a favourite child and keep it for as long as humanly possible, go for the Hopes.

XT brakes at the prices you can get them for from Germany makes them seem the obvious choice but I went for Tech m4’s as my previous mono m4’s were (and still are) very good, with just one service in 6 years of use. It just seems wrong that with Shimano you have to junk it if just a 2p seal goes.

I had a quick spin on simon’s new 5 at the weekend with the new XT brakes.

I’d advise trying them if you can before you buy as there is absolutely zero modulation, they go from nothing to throwing you over the bars with minimal finger pressure. It’s impossible to drag them to scrub speed. I’m still tempted, but they’d take some getting used to. That and shimano are the only brakes I’ve ever had fail on the trail when I needed them (an XTR rear calliper seal went, and there aren’t any spares so it’s just expensive bling scrap now).

Hopes have less power, but it’s infinately more useable, the bleeding is simple and obvious if you’ve ever done a car or motorbike system (no need for fancy addapters, syringes, funnels etc. And mine have never failed in use (mylast failiure was a C2 that mysteriously sprung a leak in the car but was fixed by hope for a fiver despite being 7 years old!).

Elixirs sit somewhere inbetween, lots of power, but lots of modulation too, but lack the outright power of the XT’s IME, but it’s enough to lock both wheels with a relatively light squeeze (harder than shimano, less than hope). They had issues from new, but that just turned out to be a dry calliper seal and are now perfect.

If you are 18st (like me) and need to stop in a hurry, get something like a Hope Moto V2. I have not had anything that has quite the power of these, or the weight for that matter.

In all other cases, get the Shimano’s – cheaper, and very reliable. Fit-and-forget.

So, maybe like me, V2 front 200mm disc, SLX rear on all bikes again 200mm.

I’ve just put new XTs on my blur and I can’t fault them. Reasonably priced, loads of power, nice feel and adjustable to suit even tiny hands like mine. Happy bunny here. I’ve had hopes before, looked lovely, ok power, not as comfy and squealed like a pig.

Shimano fan here. The latest XT brakes are very powerful but the modulation does take a bit of adjusting to, as mentioned by thisisnotaspoon above. They are a bit on-or-off, but with a lot of power.

I liked the effect on the front but it didn’t quite suit the rear as much, where you need a bit more feel and a more progressive action.

If you set the XTs up so that the bite point is very early in the lever stroke, more modulation can be achieved by winding the free stroke screw out.

There will be no noticable difference if the bite point is further into the lever stroke though, as the free stroke screw introduces lateral movement from the piston cam at the beginning of the lever stroke.

If that doesn’t make sense, look at the underneath of the lever as you unscrew the free stroke.

Have both and the new Shimano XTs win by some distance for raw stopping power, particularly on either fast or steep/tech terrain. The one upside to the Hopes is modulation although I haven’t had a fiddle with lever screws. This isn’t to say the XTs are all or nothing, but the space between is much shorter.

Hmmm… Looks like the Shimano are winning here. But i am a bit alarmed by the “on / off” comments re. the XTs. My Formula brakes had loads of modulation which i quite like comapred to my old HX9 Hayes wich were VERY on / off.

XT wins

which i quite like comapred to my old HX9 Hayes wich were VERY on / off.

I had hayes 9’s, they’re subtle compared to the new XT’s, although Simon was running them with the bite point a fair way from the bars and the free stroke was minimal, so if rondo’s comments are correct they’d probably be more modulation (I run my brakes as close to the bars as possible).

So then Ruscle, great huge list of arbitrary numbers you posted, sadly you neglected to mention that the Hopes you’re suggesting scored lower than any Shimano model on test.

I’d get the Shimanos, had a set of XTs for 4 years now and they’ve been fantastic. The same can’t be said for the Tektro/Avid/Formula we’ve also got in the house. Keeping the Shimanos running completely top notch is such an easy job, no faffing around with syringes and rubber tubes unless you’re doing a full bleed.

So then Ruscle, great huge list of arbitrary numbers you posted, sadly you neglected to mention that the Hopes you’re suggesting scored lower than any Shimano model on test.

He’s sugesting race M4’s? Which come 4th, XTR’s in 5th and the XT 785 is 11th.

And it looks like the results of a test to measure the torque of each brake, which bit’s arbitrary?

I’d also suggest that the testing isnt entirely accurate as the SLX and XT’s are identcal save for blanking plates on SLX where XT gets adjusters, yet SLX comes just behind XTR, ahead of XT.

Tought one, depends how you ride, so you could do with trying them.

I have Hope Tech M4’s I like them a lot for fast steep techy stuff, you can drag them nicely and you can feel exactly how much power you have on.

I have Formula R1X on my XC, they react in an identical way to the Shimano XTR trail brakes… they are either on, or off… no modulation. Great for coming to a stop very quickly, from very high speeds, not so great for other stuff.

Only you can tell what you prefer.

I’ve just moved both bikes to Shimano XT from Formula Oros.

I prefer the feel of the XTs, and I don’t really find them very ‘on and off’ like many people have descibed. I’d have thought that moving from Oros, which are supposed to be very good for modulation, to supposed all or nothing XTs I would have spotted this, but I haven’t.

Used to run M4’s,great modulation and stopping power,switched to mono mini’s for weight purposes,still great stopping power but less modulation,tried some xt’s,fantastic anchors but as the others have said they are very on/off with very little modulation,so if you like eye poppers,get the xt’s or if you like to be toutchy feely get the M4’s.Simples

Braking with 2012 XTs is like making love to a beautiful woman…

Loads of power, control and modulation if treated gently. Only took me a couple of rides to adjust, but initially they were crazy.

They are the best brakes I’ve ridden (Hayes, multiple sets of Hope, 2010 XT x 2, 2008 LX). The only bad thing is I want them on all of my bikes now.

Ive got both, Hope everytime, customer services is brilliant where shimanos isn’t.

Not had a problem with Shimano (Madison) customer service, they’ve replaced quite a few leaking brakes for us over the last 12months, no quibble.

Xt are lighter and way more powerful and I ran hope hydraulic brakes for almost 20 years since their first offering….

I can’t comment on the Hopes but I’ve had my XT’s a few months now and I’m very happy with them, Rose bikes were doing them dirt cheap a few months ago I found out just after I paid RRP for mine…d’oh!!

My vote would be Hope . Have used and owned shimano and Hayes in my time too. I have run hope brakes since they first made them …even their original cable ones! The spares and service is the big winner…although I have found them reliable. If you are really bad at servicing Hope will even do that for you sending back an “as new” set of brakes.

I’ve got XTR’s 180/160 on all four of my MTB’s, today I rode my son’s bike 180 M4 front 160 Mini rear. Let’s just say I won’t be changing to Hope any time soon. 😉

I just got some SLX to replace my faulty Hayes Stroker Trails (seals gone). I’ll let you know how they compare, and with the old Deore’s on the other bike.

Both good. Either will be fine.

ive just had some slx m666 fitted. let me say one thing…AMAZING!!!

these brakes for the money are brilliant. i wanted xt but was convinced by the bike shop that the additional money was a waste for my needs.

i was running hope before and was always fettling with them so im hoping these will be less work but i havent had them long so cant compare on that front yet.