My wifes Zesty 514 has Formula R1 brakes and I cannot get them to be quiet. I have tried numerous makes of pad all to no avail. I even tried some Avid 5s off another bike and still noise. I believe now that it is the rotors that are maybe resonating and causing the noise. has anyone else had this problem? and how did you sort it?
I am looking at changing the rotors next, any recommendations for new rotors?
Cheers

Mine don’t make much noise at all. I use the 200mm rotors they came with.

Don’t have any problem with mine – I have Hope floating rotors rather than Formula ones though.

If it is a rotor issue, you are aware there are 2 different types of Formula rotors (I believe the lighter ones are like Hope Floating, with an alu carrier), so portlyone may not have the same as your wife.

What sort of noise? Assume you’ve messed around with the brake postion? Maybe swap the rotors around. I changed my buckled rotor recently, just replaced it like for like, about £20 from CRC, if you’ve got the XT wheels then they’ll probably have a disc hub convertor/adaptor so you’ll need a cassette tool to get it off.

Might also be worth checking the rotor bolts are nipped up tight, Mine made weird noises (metalic chink-chinking type sound) when I had a couple of bolts lose.

The rotors are not bolted on,they are clamped with a big nut (Removable with hollowtech 2 bb tool).The wheels are xt with 15mm bolt through axle. The rotors are 180 mm and seem pretty lightweight and not very stiff compared to rotors on some of my other bikes.

You might want to take a look at this very informative article on silencing noisy brakes.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Tech-Tuesday-Silence-That-Squeaky-Disc-Brake-2011.html