Hi All

A house move and knee surgery has meant not much MTBing for a bit but I’m now trying to get back into it. I’ve got a 2008 Trek EX9 and a 2010 Spesh enduro, both of which came with Avid brakes – elixirs and juicy 7s….

..and that seems to be the problem, because with the infrequent use I seem to spend more time fooking around trying to get them working than actually riding. I live in the Alps near Geneva, and perhaps it’s the big temp changes, but the pistons are forever sticking and tbh I’ve had enough.

Lots of talk here and elsewhere about shimano brakes being more reliable and the use of mineral oil instead of DOT fluid, ice tech rotors etc and I’m all confused so need pointing in the right direction.

Should I get slx or xt, ice tech rotors or normal (and what size), and will they mount next to the sram x9/x10 shifters ok?

Any help much appreciated. I’m doing the tour of the PDS at the end of june so would like to be able to stop somewhere near the bottom of the 15 or so descents!

No it’s not temperature changes, it’s Avid’s inability to make a brake that will function for any length of time. I moved to SLX on one bike and XT on the other and to be honest there is very little difference. Ice Tech rotors might help but the jury is still out whether they are worth the added cost. And yes, Shimano levers will cosy up to SRAM shifters no problem

Cheers for that Fog, it’s also what a chap in a specialised concept store candidly said! CRC are doing the XT for £65 each end and with the SLXs out of stock in many places I might just go for that.

Do you think it’s a good idea to change rotors too?

Ade

Do you think it’s a good idea to change rotors too?

you might be able to continue using the rotors from your avids for the time being. in the past ive put magura and hope rotors on shimano calipers without any problems so you can pretty much fit any aftermarket rotor at a later date.
just make sure that you have the correct adapters for fitting the new brakes to the bike.

The whole range of Shimano brakes perform pretty much the same. I have tried Deore, SLX and XT.

They simply get a tiny bit lighter, have more shiny finish and come with more tool free adjustments.

Regarding the ICE tech finned pads, if you noticed your previous brakes were getting hot and the lever became spongy then yes go for them otherwise you’ll be fine with basic pads.

your old rotors should work fine, just make sure you have the correct adaptors for the size of rotor you are running. but usually if you run 180mm rotors then any 180mm rotor should be fine.

Mixing rotors is absolutely fine, I’m using Avid discs with my XT brakes. One thing to watch is the adaptors, particularly with Avid discs as they can be 185mm instead of 180. This is easily sorted with washers though.

Have Shimano XT on both my Bikes and would never consider changing as they are relatively cheap to buy new and very easy to bleed / repair they also stop me fast when required.

I have Shimano Discs on 1 bike and Hope Red Aligator on the other (Just for Pimp Factor) 😀 and would say without doubt that the shimano ones stop me a lot faster than the Hope.

If you live in the Alps then all your riding is going to involve very big hills. I would take the oportunity to increase the rotor size.
The price and weight penalty is very small plus an extra fiver to get a new mount to match the new caliper size.

http://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-disc-brakes-44141/

Free shipping to France but not to Switzerland, fine if you’ve got a mate over the border though.

As for ice-tech, apparently just getting the rotors but not the finned pads isn’t a good idea as the rotors are designed to send heat into the pads to be disspated by the fins. This could just be Shimano marketing guff though. If you’re just looking for reliability got for no fins and stick with your current rotors.

Other thing to note is they’re not flip-flop like avids, so if you want to run your brakes backwards like the French you’ll need to specify when ordering or swap the levers round yourself.

Awesome info guys people, thanks very much indeed. I’m pretty good at gears but was getting lost on the brakes and pretty fed up of sodding around with the Avids.

Anyway, I’ve been on the blower to a few bike shops and spoke at length to Mark in the Ruislip Specialised Concept store. He spent ages explaining everything and confirming all your sage advice so I thought “sod it” and have ordered all the stuff though him – they’re matching the crc prices. I’ve emailed a load of pics so he’ll get all the bar bracketing right (I hope).

I’ve gone for XT, Icetech rotors, 203 up front and 180 at the back…for both bikes…well it’s my birthday tomorrow after all 🙂 . Picking it all up next week hopefully.

Now, how to break it to the Mrs…….