Ok so I’m giving up with my Elixir 3’s. they perform ok,and feel is ok, but the lever travel is way too long even with the lever wound all the way out and there is no bite point adjustment, so a good excuse for some new kit!

Looking at Hopes, but for a circa 200mm disc diameter it seems the 4-pot M4’s seem like the only option? It fees the 4 pot calliper is a bit of overkill, especially on a larger dia disk. Anyone else running these? What are they like? I would run with a single pot on the rear with a smaller dia disk.

Cheers.

I use Tech Evo M4’s on front and X2’s on rear, both with 180 Hope floating rotors. I certainly don’t feel the need for 200 rotors, the braking power and modulation is that good.

Shimano XT unless you want experience Hopes excellent customer service.

Shimano XT unless you want experience Hopes excellent customer service.

Have been running pre-Evo X2s for three years with absolutely no problems.

Unlike the Avids they replaced.

ive got evo m4s and 180 is fine for the uk gravity enduro series

id be happy with em in the alps too,

much better modulation than shimanos and reliability has been 100% for the 12months or so ive had them and theyve been through some foul conditions, considering im still using my 2003 hope minis on my commuter, i know what brakes id buy

Have been running mini’s for ten years, hoops for five. Still waiting to experience the excellent Hope customer service.. ;-).

Can’t go wrong with hope at all but the new shimano’s just outclass them! Could always try the new deore’s – for 30odd quid can’t go wrong

Got tech evo m4s and 203 rotors f+r with hope sintered pads front and über bike race matrix rear

The modulation on em means I very rarely find myself over braked and never under braked

Me and bike combined is about 225lb and I do go downhill reasonably fast

I’ve got both Evo X2’s and Evo M4’s on bikes here. To be fair, the X2’s work perfectly well on the long descents here with 180 rotors, but the M4’s keep their cool better.
I did speak to Hope about using the X2’s on 200 rotors when I was buying the brakes and they told me it wasn’t an issue, but not where the X2 range was aimed.
The M4’s are fantastic stoppers though. So much so that I’m considering dropping the front rotor size on my Enduro down from 203 to 183 as I sometimes feel its a bit too easy to lock up the front.

Thanks guys. I was thinking larger rotors for better modulation but was concerned that the four potters would provide too much stopping power in those ‘oh shit’ moments, but it sounds like the X2’s with 183’s will be fine.

Didn’t realise there was an issue with Hopes. All those that I know who’ve run them have had no probs whatsoever. Not considered Shimano but will take a look.

Can’t go wrong with hope at all but the new shimano’s just outclass them! Could always try the new deore’s – for 30odd quid can’t go wrong

I’ve got a bike with Hope Tech Evos and another with Deore 596. As good as the Deore’s are there is no way they compare with the Hopes. Now, I haven’t tried XT or XTR but probably never will. All this stuff about Hope customer support experience is rubbish, set them up as you are supposed to and they are fit and forget.

Hope since 2004, no issues at all.
Currently have Tech M4’s on 200/183 and they are great, missus has SLX on the same rotors on her bike. The SLX’s initially feel more powerful but are just grabby – lot’s of initial power but no control – tried on a few rotor combinations.

I can do whatever I want with the hopes, it’s a very rare occurrence that I want to actually lock a wheel so the modulation and control are a big winner.

Tech M4s are really good brakes… Bit pricey though compared to some of the obvious competition and pretty chunky too. Feel is a really subjective thing unfortunately, I like their feel (it’s quite similiar to my The Ones- which IMO are a considerably better brake, but also yet more expensive) but a lot of people prefer the less subtle feel of shimanos etc. Neither is better or worse though.

I don’t really understand your comment about rotor size, you can run pretty much any hope brake with a 200mm-ish rotor…

Admittedly in 4 yrs my Tech M4s have probably only seen 2yrs use – but not had any problems and still on the original set of pads – pads that have been to Fort William for a weekend!

I love hope brakes. My first set were C2s and I’ve been on them ever since. Had two sets of E4s which I ran for well over ten years.

Now running two sets of Tech EVO V2s (203/183 rotors). No issue with them being too powerful.
I have E4s (165/165) on the road bike activated by remote reservoirs hooked up to road sti shifters.
The wife has Tech EVO M4s (183/160) on her mountain bike and
Tech X2s on her commuter which I upgraded to take the roller cam from the EVO brakes.
All run flawlessly.
I hear Shimano are great brakes but there’s something satisfying about owning a lump of engineering like the Hope brakes.

I’ve got hope (v2’s) on one bike with 203 rotors and the new xt’s on another bike with 203 f and 180 r. Performance wise there both very similar. Both have lots of power although have a different feel. I’d be happy to buy either again on future although the cheapness of the xt makes them the best value of the two but the hopes look and feel a lot nicer if you want to splash out.

I’ve had no issues with the reliability of the hopes. Only been bled a couple of times in the 3 years I’ve had them.

Didn’t realise there was an issue with Hopes

There isn’t, just some people who have had a bad experience/didn’t buy Hope/once had a mate who said they were crap, like to bleat on about it at any given opportunity.

They make a lot of brakes (20,000 a year) a few are going to have issues, at least if they do, or if you crash ’em on the trail and break something, or you ham fistedly adjust something and ruin them, you can ring up the warranty dept. and speak to a guy who can fix them in a couple of days, and he can pass feedback on/bollock the guy that assembled them. Not back order the parts that may be here in a month or two/buy a whole new assembly for your cheap brake ‘cos we don’t stock spares etc.

Since the Tech type system was introduced a few years back, we’ve sold hundreds of bikes equipped with them, and had two back with warranty issues (both weeping lever diaphragms, one of which I possibly pinched after bleeding, both sorted in minutes). Over the same period of time, we’ve sold a roughly similar amount of Shimanos, and since the start of the year we’ve returned at least eight brakes for warranty replacement, so i’d not be too worried if I were you.

And you can get every part replaced if it does go wrong – brakes for life (or as long as you want em) 😮

Don’t hear about many hope brakes which fail, just lack of maintenance or care…

I do miss being able to feather the brakes a little then in oh shit squeeze the shit out of the lever & stop myself dead, unless its wet : p

Oh and the pad life – sintered pads last for 1000s of gritty, muddy miles!

Had mine for 7 years and bled them once. Never had a problem 🙂

Northwind, my comment on rotor size came from Hopes website which seems to say that the X2’s are for root sizes upto 183mm. It did confuse me somewhat as I can’t see why a caliper won’t be compatible with any rotor size as you suggest.

The Shimanos look great value for money, but I’m a sucker for nice billet machined stuff.

I take it there is no problem mixing and matching caliper brands with disks?

Nope, I used shimano ice tech rotor with my hopes

I swap between hope and shimano rotors for my minis when I transform the commuter into xc beast mode

wobbliscott – Member

The Shimanos look great value for money, but I’m a sucker for nice billet machined stuff.

The irony being that machining from solid is one of the cheaper ways to make a brake- Hope can’t forge them, the hardware’s too expensive, but they’ve turned their negative into a positive which is pretty canny.

I run Tech Evo M4’s with 183mm saw rotors (front and rear) paired up with Pro 2 Evo Hubs.

Stopping power is great and the modulation is as you would expect. Really happy with mine… plus they look great too!!