I currently have Hayes Stroker Trails on my hardtail. The brakes are ok, but swapping pads seems incredibly awkward. The front brake seems to be damaged and rather than try to get it repaired, I thought I’d take this opportunity to change to XT brakes, which I have on my other bike and are awesome. However, one of the features I like about my Hayes is that I can easily swap the levers from left to right if my brother in law comes over from Switzerland and wants to ride.

I can’t say that I hate the Hayes, but I hate changing pads, and I love my XT’s. I love the reach adjusters on each, so I don’t want to move to a cheaper braker with no reach adjuster.

What to do?

There were quite a few cheap clearence formula K18s on offer a while ago. They are easy swappsies and really good brakes.

Do you mean reach adjusters or bite point adjusters? just about every brake has a reach adjuster of some sort.

A lot of formula brakes can be swapped/flipped, as can Avids.

Spare bike – job done. What on earth are you thinking of

Hayes Stroker Trails are about the easiest brakes I’ve used for changing pads…

Why not build some brakes using BL-M575 flippable levers, XT callipers and SM-BH90 narrow bore hoses? I can’t vouch they will work as well as full XT brakes but they do all the things you want.

http://www.farnhamcycles.co.uk/Shop/p/23935-shimano-deore-bl-m575-disc-brake-lever-for-left-or-right-hand/