Merlin currently have offers on all of the above
£130 for the Avids
£150 for the Formula ORO K18 and Hayes Stroker at £125 .
All seem good deals .
Which ones should i splash the cash on ? general Xc riding occasional trail ctr stuff or are ther any better deals out there ?
cheers

I presume the Avids are Juicy seven’s and therefore I’d go with the Avids!

Bit of a jump I know, however if it were me, I’d stump up another £20 and go for the Shimano SLX brakes, purely because they use mineral oil and therefore aren’t anywhere near as horrid to bleed.

Avids are juicy 5, Have looked at SLX Maybe a touch outside of budget

Juicy’s – getting a bit dated now. Go for the SLX’s or the K18’s I reckon.

SLX were £120 a pair from CRC a few weeks ago – and are really good brakes. Better than Juicies and as good as Formula.

Usual decision for me Im affraid , do i stick to budget and or go for the better performing option .

I have the Strokers and they’ve been great so far (about 6 months)

Formula Oro, I’ve got some newer juicy 7’s and the formula are better

I’ve got oro k24s which I think are essentially the same but with different levers. Definately better than my previous juicy 5s. However, juicy 5s are very good brakes. Really reliable and great lever feel. SLXs are £60 per end on CRC: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=28021 hope you sort it

Ive got a couple of sets of brakes being unused at the moment including some XT’s which I’ll do for more or less the price of SLX. Drop me an email if your interested.

WTF is going on with Merlin's pricing, the Formulas were £149 for a while, then went to £169 at which point I bought a pair thinking I'd missed out on the cheapest sale price but they were still a good deal, now they are back down to £149!

I doubt I'll complain as £169 is still cheap and it was my choice to buy at that price, but it's still bloomin annoying.

Paid £150 for Hayes Stroker Trail at Merlin a few months ago. Very happy with them, more powerful, smoother than my XTR (old style dual) on my other bike. Lever is a nice shape too, very easy to single digit brake. Used them at Afan at the weekend for the first big runs on them, very good.

£125 is a bargain……

I recently took advantage of Merlin's Juicy 7 offer, I really can't say enough of how well they compare to my previous Juicy 3's. Much more power and control, I'm surprised just how better they actually are considering they're the same brand as I had before. Well worth the money. No experience with the other's you mentioned though.

Just gone from having the Stroker Rydes onmy Pitch as standard and thought they were rubbish noisy not very powerful (203F 185R) and they kept rubbing. If I set them up fine so they didnt rub then went for a ride they would start rubbing on the ride.

I now have the Elixir R and after a test ride on Monday I declair them great. Lots of modulation (unlike juicys) and much more power than the Strokers even with downsized rotors (185F 160R). I came from Hope M4s and so far the Elixirs are the best feeling brakes Ive had and I reckon they would be almost as powerful as the M4s if I had the same size rotors (203F 203R). I know the Elixirs are an extra £30 but they really seem worth it IMHO.

Formula's.

I don't think the SLX ones from CRC include rotors so factor in an extra £26.

What did you go for?

get the elixirs, no questions. great power and modulation.

used juicy 5's before and the elixirs are even better in every way. formulas seem to be less reliable, but powerful too. no experience of shimano or hayes stroker.

merlin had some good deals.

Paid £150 for Hayes Stroker Trail at Merlin a few months ago.

£125 is for Rydes, which by all accounts aren't as good as the Trails.

My friend went for the Rydes and she loves them. I read somewhere that the pistons are smaller on the Rydes comparing to Trails. Still way better than HFX9 in her opinion. My mate has Juicy 5`s and I had a go on those. Don't really like the feel, but bleeding isn't that bad once You got the bleed kit.

I had XT's for a while, really liked them, never tried new servo wave models but they should be as easy to bleed as older models.

Tried different brakes but went back to Shimano and I'm really happy with mine (LX), like the feel, strong and good modulation, didn't take ages to bed in like my last Magura Louise and are really easy to bleed.

I think You could get a used set of XT servo waves for the price of new SLX no problem.

trouble with those slx ones linked to on CRC is you need to buy the discs and caliper adaptors aswell – the 60 quid just gets you lever, hose and caliper.

Formula

Formulas ordered this morning – Thanks to all .

Good choice, I have K18's on one bike and Stroker Trails on 2 others – Formula wins for me (although the pads are a faff to change but at least don't fall out either).