Ordered and fitted a pair of XT brakes from rose bikes. The rear is fantastic but the front is piss poor. Not very powerful and horrendous squealing – in fact the squeal is ridiculous. I had to shorten the front hose and bleed it – any ideas? I’ve tried a re bleed and re-aligned it – still the same

If reach, grab and feel are good but performance is poor then it sounds like pad contamination to me.

Could be pad contamination, could be poor mount alignment. Have you ever had the fork mount faced?

Mine was a bit like that – I just cleaned the disc with brake cleaner and rubbed a load of mud into the front disc and pulsed the lever while riding along and it was fine.

Check you don’t have a leaky brake (pulling to lever), mine had to go back to maddison for repair. Still haven’t heard back 5 weeks later?

Is there a way to tell if the pads have been contaminated?

Is there a way to tell if the pads have been contaminated?

Yeah, they have no power and squeal like pigs.

Take your pads out, give them a good wipe and then give the pad surface a light sand until the dry material comes through. This takes very little sanding with a bit of sand paper. Put them back in and see how you get on.

I managed to get some oil on my XT pads but saved them by…

– stick them in a caliper that you know is working
– ride with the brake on to get them reallllly hot
– poor water on them
– ride with them on again – the water etc creates a paste
– repeat 2/3 times and they were fine

If that doesn’t work get a £7 set from superstar, they work a treat.

swap the pads to the rear but clean the discs with IPA so you don’t contaminate the rear pads.

Bloody bleed nipple leaking!!!! New pads time

To Mafiafish, i’m guessing they’ve gone back to Madison via a shop, and you’ll probably find that they’ve been credited for a new one without realising it(need to look on transaction history as they don’t appear to notify you about it as well).