I need longer hoses on my new bike for my mono M4’s. I have braided at the moment but considering replacing with standard hose.

Is there much difference in performance and weight?

If anything my rear mono is too powerful with the new tech lever (keep unintentionally locking up)so I’m wondering if using a standard hose might help address this issue and possibly reducing the rotor size from 183 to 160. I could put the 183 on the front.

Braided. Costs only a bit more and looks the dogs bollix.

I susoect most of us would not notice the differemce in performance, if you are locking up the rear now you’ll do the same with non braded

Only reason I can think of to go braided is because you like it. It is heavier, can be more awkward to trim and I can’t tell the difference in performance. Which means you won’t benefit from a change in the way you are hoping

Maybe I will go braided on the front and non braided on the rear. I think the rear will route a bit better non braided.

in DH or alps trips – you’ll appreciate the braided!

The braiding is stronger – so when the fluid heats up – there is no expansion – causing brake fade – so if you’re dragging the brakes or on long descents – definitely go braided.

I don’t think in general “power” – you’ll see a difference.

can you adjust the reach or modulation of the levers – rather than swapping to a smaller rotor?

Braided – quite a bit heavier, marginal performance gain, harder to fit initially, more crash resistant and virtually kink proof. will also make neater runs with tighter curves more easily.

Plastic – significantly lighter, cheaper. Slightly more spongey, easier to trim, more vulnerable to crash damage, can be kinked easily in crashes.

Around 2007ish for a couple of years, I ran braided hoses, since I was going through a period of crashing all the time and was replacing plastic hose alot. Since I’ve got over that and plastic brake hoses and brakes have improved (I.e less spongey), I don’t bother anymore.

YMMV

As above, have you played with the leverage/modulation adjustment on the tech lever? Or maybe you just need time to adjust to the brakes

isn’t this a classic 2006 wants it’s thread back?

Does anyone worry about braided hose anymore?

Arguably, all hose is braided mind 😉

Yea I’ve got the lever set up nice thanks. It’s new as in a couple of years old rather than my proper ancient mono front brake which is still going strong. The threads on the IS back brake eventually failed. I think maybe I’ll go for standard hose at least on the back and experiment with rotor size to achieve the feel I’m looking for. I do some long descents but find that I don’t really use my brakes as much as I used too as my ability has improved. I’ve now knowingly boiled a hope brake yet and haven’t experienced fade but I have been running braided….

The braiding is stronger – so when the fluid heats up – there is no expansion – causing brake fade – so if you’re dragging the brakes or on long descents – definitely go braided.

If the oil heats heats up, expands and the brake line doesn’t – the pads will just contact the disk instead. I don’t think normal brake lines would expand due to oil heating anyway.

Braided is more crash resistant and has a more positive bite, that is about it.

Braided also acts like a saw wherever it comes into contact with frame, forks, etc

looks the dogs bollix.

Although some things seem to affect the clear outer – some of mine became very discoloured in places over times and looked a bit shit.

That Sram, Shimano, Magura don’t use braided on any of their brakes suggests theres no performance benefit.

Braided also acts like a saw wherever it comes into contact with frame, forks, etc

My Hope braided hoses have a nice smooth plastic coating so they are just as smooth a normal hoses.

Steel braided hoses have no place on a bike, but they look interesting (they don’t look nice IMO) and people can be persuaded to pay extra for pointless things that perform less well than the alternatives, if they look interesting. Particuliarly if they say Hope on them.

Kevlar braid has genuinely all of the performance advantages, none of the performance disadvantages, it just doesn’t look interesting so people can’t tell you have braided hoses.

I have both-braided on my 29er hard tail and normal plastic on my 29er fs. Both on Tech X2 evo, same pads etc. I can feel no discernable difference between them in my normal riding and since I have not taken either to the Alps I can’t comment on more extreme use. The braided ones look best on my stainless frame, the non braided ones look best on the black anodised frame. I’m happy (if a little sad if you get my drift!)

Bear in mind that normal black hoses are usually ‘braided’ with kevlar just not with stainless steel. Remind me again, which is stronger in tension, Kevlar or stainless steel?

I doubt you’d ever notice a difference between new ‘plastic’ hoses and stainless ones. And even back when braided was a legitimate upgrade over the OEM hoses it was usually for the rear not he front, as the front is shorter so expands less, and isn’t prone to kinking in a crash.

I chose based on what colour of hose would look best with the frame, if neither, I buy Goodridge.

All this talk about braided lines for the Alps amuses me. You’d be FAR better off simply bleeding your brakes with brand new fluid from a sealed bottle once you’ve arrived.

Fluid expansion of DOT and mineral oil is based (largely in this context) on the ability to boil a percentage of water present (by build-up over time) in the fluid. Even a small percentage of water drops the boiling point by ~25-30%. Regardless, IF you’re brake fluid is getting to the point where you’re starting to boil the DOT fluid (180-250dC) then you’d be as well starting to worry about the callipers themselves. UTS strength for most aluminium alloys begins to degrade sharply above 180dC.