I’ve a Nukeproof Pulse Comp which came with Avid Elixir 5’s. These are cr*p so I’ve bought a set of Shimano Zee’s to replace them with. Now I’ve come to swap them over and it’s not as easy as I’d hoped. It seems that I have to remove the hose in order to thread it through the frame and likewise to unthread the old hose. This is for both the front and rear. Unless I’m missing something.

Anyone know how to swap the brakes over withough having to detatch hoses and the subsequent bleeding of them.

I don’t see how the front brake hose goes through the frame if it’s mounted on the front fork? Neither of my bikes have internal cable routing so I’m probably not the most clued up..

Is this the bike?

http://nukeproof.com/products/complete-bikes/pulse-2014/pulse-comp-2014

Seems as though all cables are external judging by the pics.

For the front, you probably want to just remove the upper crown of the fork, rather than undoing th ebrake hose.

For the rear, unbolting the shock night be enough, but if not, undo the hose, keep the caliper well below the open end of the hose at all times, thread it through, and screw back into the lever – you MIGHT get away without a bleed.

Failing that, the chap at Epic Bleed solutions above sells an ace bleed kit for Shimano brakes, but he’s been too modest to say so – costs very little, and is well worth having.

Are you getting them caught between the fork tubes and headtube maybe? It does look like external hoses, but it’s quite common with dh bikes for the hoses to go through the forks and sometimes depending on the brake you need to take the top yoke off the forks.

Zee’s are pretty easy to bleed or, as above, just keep the caliper below the lever and you might get away without a bleed at all. You might find you need to shorten the hoses anyway?

Had a muppet moment with the front brake – was looking at the rear gear cable 😳 so the front was easy. As for the rear, as Brant has posted, the cable goes through the rear frame. As fervour says the Zees are easy to bleed (well they were for my mate 😀 ). They needed shortening anyway so they had to be cut one way or another.