[Closed] Disc Brakes... Seriously which brake can I trust to work 100%

I've had a quite a lot of sets of Maguras Martas and Louises and never had problems with any of them. I've not tried their new ones but there's no reason to believe they won't be as reliable.

BB7 FTW

Hopes for me.

2 pairs of old silver M4s, one pair of Mono6s.

oodles of power, and simple to maintain. And reliable... for me anyway..

I've never heard a bad word about Maguras and they have a five year leakproof guarantee. Also they are the oldest manufacturer of hydro MTB brakes I think. If I needed new ones I'd buy them.

Hopes for me. Reliable and repairable. 5 sets owned for mamy years - 3 blown seals in that time, all easily repaired and all working now and have been faultless for the last 3 years

Don't fancy doing free ride on a Soda!

M4's on mine. You do however need to keep using them as they can get build up (corrosion?) and stop the pistons fully returning... 😳

Had a demo bike with xtr trail on it recently and that was also nice.

Hope would be cheaper though and you can get spares...

Shimano for me. Properly reliable - so repairability not an issue (and spares ARE available). 2 sets owned for mamy years - no problems at all in that time, all working now and have been faultless for the last 8 years.

shimano brakes have been the most reliable for me.

Cheers guy's keep em coming. When I say Freeride Im probably talking hard cross crountry ie fast downhill in Peak District odd metre drop small jumps etc. Was Freeride to me 20 years ago 😀
Think my biggest bug bear with brakes is piston creep and rubbing brakes and squishy levers.

I've just had to replace a set and gone with a set of [url= http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=67208 ]Shimano XT M785s[/url]. Much sharper than my Hopes, even after a proper servicing.

Shimano by miles. Easily the best brakes I've used and not one single problem.

XTR trail. Agree with the 'freeride' on an XC ti hardtail though...

Spares for shimano brakes are not available.

xc/freeride....now there is a niche.

Hope, but maybe say 90% of the power 100% of the time.

I've had issues with my elixirs (and I've scars to prove it when they've failed) but over time they've got reliable and the power's briliant. I know one guide who runs them about 5mm from the bars (i.e there's a bit of free play, the pads contact the rotor about 5mm from the bar then the lever hits the bar).

For absolute power and reliability find some NOS gustavs! Not cheep or light though!

Hope M4 or Shimano XT.

Hopes are totally serviceable too, Shimano are "fairly" serviceable.

Magura are totally not serviceable.

[i]my biggest bug bear with brakes is piston creep and rubbing brakes and squishy levers[/i]

So was mine. I fitted BB7s and all those problems went away.

Aye....BB7's it is.

Spares for shimano brakes are not available.

As I've found for years, you don't need any spares as they just work. Unlike my Hopes...

Just "upgraded" to XT M785s from 7 year old Hope Mono Minis.

Wondering why I bothered.

I had a set of the new Servo-ware- hated them. Recently went back to them. Love them. I give my brakes alot of abuse as well 😆 and they have to stop alot 8)

Apart from when they fail which they do. A simple search on here will show you many occurrences and then its not a few pennies for new seals - its £££££ for a new calliper.

I would never use something that cannot be repaired. as for reliability all my 5 sets of hopes were bought secondhand, all have had a hard life. 3 replaced seals in many years of riding and zero issues in the last 3 or 4 years

Like I said TJ, never had one single problem with Saints or SLX brakes that had the arse kicked out them in Scotland, Canada and The Alps. My Hopes were no where near as powerful, didn't trust them and a faff. Hence why I never ever what another set. Great hubs but crap brakes.

Spares for shimano brakes are not available.

Nor are they required...... 😉

Shimano or Magura. Nowt is 100% but you won't get better than those 2

My Hope M4s just go on & on

Spares for shimano brakes are available.

My XTR trails are awesome. Probably best brakes i've used. Get them with ice tech rotors to

Shimano Deore work fine 7 years old never been bled ,just change the pads and keep riding.No need for bling

Gave up one shimanos after the seals failed on my XTs one winter, apparently there are some model years which can't hack cold conditions. I was tempted to go for new ones but apparently some of the newer models also can't hack the cold? And as far as I'm aware, NO, spare seals are not available.

Last hopes I had were pretty woeful, very little power and lots of fade. Quite prepared to accept they were dodgy pads or something, but the XTs I replaced them with were much much better (until the seals failed, see above).

BB7s are lovely, thats what I'm running now, but you do have to be prepared to USE the adjusters on the trail, I was slightly taken aback by how quickly the rear brake lever came back to the bar on a relatively straightforward but wet descent. Also, the stock pads are pretty screechy, if that sort of thing bothers you.

next hydros I buy will be the Magura MT range, they promise the earth in terms of stiction free pistons, squeek free performance and of course the leak free warranty. I guess the MT4 or MT6 would be your perfect brake, the MT2 looks fine but is neither light nor bling.

I think I might put my 7 year old Hope Mono Mini's back on and sell my XT 785s.

FWIW, £23 for a Shimano caliper gets you 2 seals and a set of OEM pads worth £17. Whereas a pair of seals for a Hope brake is £4. Difference in spend is tiny. And offset many, many times over by the difference in initial price. (nb- you would need to confirm compatability with new models but the last set were fully cross-compatible)

Course, the actual question is, which ones work 100%, so spares availability doesn't really come into it- they've already failed the OP's request at that point. My experience of Shimano wasn't great reliability-wise tbh, but I've never had a problem with my 4 sets of Formula Oros that I didn't cause myself.

So, Formula. Better value to buy than Hope, more reliable than Shimano, and all parts available from CRC should they act up.

i reckon i'm going to try shimano. my v2's squeal in the wet like mad and dont have the same stopping power 🙁

Hope's and if X2's aren't enough performance for you then run an M4 front/X2 rear.

And not Avid.

in my experience
Maguras louises and martas basically FAF
Hope less so than above but better than most
Shimano had the originial 4 pot xt very very good but newer ones did not get on with
Avid oh dear lord avoid

Whilst I love my formula the ones, the spares are hideously priced, bleeding is a ball ache, they do rub a little and eat pads. They proper stop you, have a great feel and are light
I've had tech M4s and they were a bit heavy and should have been more powerful IMO BUT they were brilliant to own; easy to bleed and get any probs with them, and they will get fixed quickly and cheaply (often for free).
I'd be very tempted by the shimano XTs, a bit disposable and heard that they can be a pain to bleed but their performance is supposed to be great.
You are obviously correct to ignore avid.

Northwind, ...veeeryyy interesting, wish I'd had the nous to figure that one out my myself, were those sintered pads you got or organic?

i hated the avids i tried for a week in the summer 🙁 🙁

ive never owned anything other than hope hydraulics since they were introduced.

however, dipper has xtr trail on his demo ride and they are superb. power and modulation...............however............the rear has failed [like lost hyd oil / pressure / needs bled] and the levers are cheap and nasty. the adjustment is relatively wide but the free stroke adjust is a gimmick - doesn't work in practice...

in saying that, i am impressed with their performance other than they've failed....

Totally agree with Coogan. 🙂

13thfloormonk - Member

Northwind, ...veeeryyy interesting, wish I'd had the nous to figure that one out my myself, were those sintered pads you got or organic?

When I did it, i found an old new-old-stock XTR caliper for a tenner and it came with a nice XTR sintered pad. Not sure what you get in the cheaper calipers, though.

BB7s for the same reasons as your complaints.

Gore rideon cables and ultimate speed-dial levers for [b]moduloveliness[/b] 🙂

Sintered pads seemed to squeal a lot - organics do me fine (3 squeaks after a dunking).

Don't seem to need to adjust too much, and the speed dial levers lets you run a large pad/rotor gap for mud clearance and one finger braking.

Depends what you mean by "work 100%".

There's a lot of difference between brakes that just stop you and brakes that stop you efficiently, comfortably (not to mention safely), and require little maintenance.

There are those that are reliable with little or no maintenance, or those that require maintenance more frequently. The former may sound the best, but a set of v-brakes can require no maintenance other than change of pads which is dead easy, but I wouldn't have them on a mountain bike. You can easily say they "work" though. Depends what you want, what you ride, the pads you use, the conditions you ride in, how much you clean the things (too little or too much).

It's easier to say what doesn't work - Juicys 😉

Never had any brakes that were 100% fit-and-forget.

Shimano probably best. Formula not bad. Avid worst.

I have XT hydros on one bike and BB7's on the other and the BB7s are definitely less hassle. I have them on a rigid drop-bar SS so they probably get a bit less hammering than than XT's (which are on my FS "fun" bike) but they feel plenty powerful enough to me.

Just not getting mystery pad contamination is almost reason enough for me to vote for BB7s over any hydro brake set!

How about apples for apples northwind

Can you go on the internet at any time of the year and ordr a 23 pound caliper or just when they are on special ?

My first set of xts both caliper seals failed my servo waves are fine

Equally x2 race are fault free

My 160mm mono minis on our downhill holiday in les arc were just dandy despite very heavy abuse and lots of other brakes in the group fading ! ( mostly avids)

My bb7s just died after 8 years service and are now on my mates town bike ( inside adjusters siezed solid and plastic dials off now !

Dicked around with this loads over the years. Currently on Hopes Techs on 2 bikes - they're not the most powerful, and they're fairly heavy, but for Peaks use, they have one HUGE advantage, and that's good rotor clearance, which means that the pads last more than 10 miles in the wet - in fact I've only had to change one set of pads so far this winter. To be honest, for most (legal) riding in the peaks, you don't need massive amounts of power because there's so few corners.

Formula Oros? brilliant in the dry, tragic in the wet. Pad life could be measured in minutes in winter.

Formula Ones? Mediocre in the dry, better than the oros in the wet, but still only 2 rides to a set of pads and needed bleeding pretty
much every ride (these were the old shape levers though)

Shimano? Only had one ride on a set of last generation XTs. Felt lovely, but underpowered. Interested to try the current generation though. Spares availability would put me off, but if calipers are that cheap...?

Avid - had a few sets of Juicies. In some ways they're the best brakes i've had. One pair of Juicy 5's has done 2 trips to Whistler, probaly 10 weeks in the Alps inc. 3 Megas, no fade, no power shortage, no bleeding - never needed touching. Pad change is a ball ache and needs doing too often in the wet (2 or 3 rides) and the Tri-and-align thing is a joke once the washers have been used for a while. They're still on the Bfe, and they just keep working well enough that its not worth the expense of changing them.

JonEdwards - Member

Formula Oros? brilliant in the dry, tragic in the wet. Pad life could be measured in minutes in winter.

Something not right there... Using organic pads maybe? (I think the standard pads in Oros are organic) I've only changed <edit- oops, 2 not 1> set of pads this winter, riding 2 or 3 times a week in Scotland's famously dry conditions...

trail_rat - Member

Can you go on the internet at any time of the year and ordr a 23 pound caliper or just when they are on special ?

The last time we had this thread, I googled them and found them easily for around £20. And the same today. And the same the time before. So, yes, apparently.

I have Oros, and haven't had a problem with them through the winter. In fact haven't had a problem with them at anytime.

Cheers guy's some really useful comments there concerning spares/reliability etc.

I will ignore the XC/Freeride comments as cant work out if they are serious or not LOL and is probably a debate for a different topic.

I definitely dont think BB7's are going to cut it with the kind of riding I do however... Jon I think I remember reading a while back that you do quite a lot of the same riding I do around the Cromford area, so not much legal straight line stuff 😉

Really like to give the new Shimano brakes a go, but it seems a bit wrong running them with Sram gear(OCD!lol)and Im not 100% sure about the quality for the price. £400 for some XTR's is a lot of wedge to find out Im wrong. So Hopes with a M4 up front and X2 rear is possible or Marta SL Mag, or willing to try new MT6 if I can get a decent deal off a mate in trade. Dont suppose anyone has actually ridden on the new MT's for any mileage yet?

I definitely dont think BB7's are going to cut it with the kind of riding I do however

Go for SLX or XT over XTR if they're too expensive, pretty much the same brakes anyway.

I find Hope Tech brakes to be very reliable with next to no maintenance required. They squeal in the wet/cold but once heated up that seems to stop (are there any disk brake that don't squeal when wet?). M4s/V2s tonnes of power(if set up correctly) X2s I found underpowered for my 150mm bike and how I want to ride it.

Tried Shimano Saints on a mates bike, they squealed too but felt awesome.

All Avid disk brakes I have owned have been very unreliable, the worst being Elixir CRs. They were down right dangerous and would fail mid DH run in the Alps. The warranty replacement of them was good but took 4-6 weeks compared to Hopes 3-4 days. After 3 pairs on warranty I gave up and went to Hopes where I have been ever since without issue.

So for me, riding in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish mountains I need reliability, so I go for Hope and try not to loose too much sleep over the 100g I could have saved if I had gone for something lighter.

Ask the folk who work/have worked in a bike shop what make is the most reliable.....

druidh - Member
Ask the folk who work/have worked in a bike shop what make is the most reliable.....

They said Hope or Magura, but they did have a set of Hopes looking for a home so thought I would ask yu guys as well 😀

Hope feedback is looking good however. What are the levers like, size/shape/adjustment/compatibility with XO shifters? They worry me a little..

Get Hope V2's utterly brilliant brakes. The levers can be used with matchmakers so they mount to the shifter pods which makes for a neater bar.

FWIW Hope Tech levers are massively adjustable, bite point and reach adjust both on big dials, grippy levers too. Quite long levers, shaped for 2 finger braking or move them inboard a bit more and just use the outer groove.

Like most things on MTB and road bikes, buy the top of the range Shimano and you will fit it and forget it, forget all the blingyness, it usually is un-reliable. XTR 985, superb feel, awesome stopping power, quite light and look the dogs. (blingyness-new word?)

kingkongsfinger - Member
Like most things on MTB and road bikes, buy the [s]top of the range[/s] [u]mid-range[/u] Shimano and you will fit it and forget it

FTFY...and since when was xtr not bling?

cynic-al - Member

kingkongsfinger - Member
Like most things on MTB and road bikes, buy the top of the range mid-range Shimano and you will fit it and forget it

FTFY...and since when was xtr not bling?

Fair comment but you get my drift

BB7 FTW +2

how can you overlook these?

😕 BB7

Thanks for all of the replies guys been very helpful.

Going to go Hope Tech Evo M4/X2 or Magura MT6

Cheers again

🙂

Loving my Magura brakes here, 06 Louise FR brakes have never let me down and all the times hey have been to the Alps, they have always been spot on whilst my riding pals newer brakes have always thrown wobblers part way through. One finger braking all day long and never worn more than half a set of pads out in a holiday.

I also have a set of 2009 Magura Louise BAT on my hardtail. Again, no issues, ever apart from me putting oil on the rotors 🙄

Hope Mini's were ok but squealed like little pigs, Shimano M525 Deore were fine but heavy (reliable though) and Shimano XT M765? were pigs to bleed but OK when bled.

I'm still using a set of original Shimano's Deore 555's. Not the most powerful,light or glamorous but have been utterly reliable.
Just had pads replaced and bled probably twice in their life and one of those was only because I put Goodridge hoses on instead of the originals.
I have been tempted by newer brakes but then think why fix what ain't broke.

Glad to hear such good things about Maguras. I've just bought a pair of Louises to replace my old Louises which have done me well for 5 years.

BB7 would be my suggestion and some lessons with Jedi.

Hope on both bikes for 5 years without any real problems.

hard cross country?

you'll be needing Saints.

I love al comment so if I buy ANYTHING from shimano I just fit it ont he biek and it work, for ever, without any maintenance...? Me think you should ride your bike more than just around the zoo.

No brake will be 100% problem free. I would however stay away from avid and shimano. The former for being a PITA in terms of maintenance and spare availability. The later simply because the stopping power of my GF's deore is shite, and the brake fluid just seems to disappear. My bikes have all been fitted with hope brakes and formula. And I have yet to have a problem with them. However IIRC the only brake that was carefree was the hayes mag something in purple.

not read this in detail but I can't see much voting for Hayes HFX9 or Stroker.
I have used these on three alps trips without a hiccup while owners of avids and hopes have had problems with fade etc.

Got formula oro's on all my bikes from XC to dh bikes.
The only time I have had an issue is when I managed to wear a hole in hose of my front brake, sadly it had been rubbing on something all the way to cwmcarn so can hardly blame the brake.

Will be buying formulas for all my future bikes and a mate will not use anything else either

HFX 9s would be a big downgrade from BB7s, surely?

If anyone would like to come for a ride around the Peaks with some BB7's I will gladly take you out. But Im not picking you up off the floor.

Avid code 5s here.
Not too expensive
445g.
Easy bleeding with the syringe kit.
Look good.
No fade on long hot descents.
Stop you like a back hander off your mum.

Edit: HFX9s are awful but I have stroker trails on all my fleet bike sand they are good, powerful, but I don't think they modulate that well compared to my code5s. Worth a look though.

If anyone would like to come for a ride around the Peaks with some BB7's I will gladly take you out. But Im not picking you up off the floor.

Having used BB7s I don't see how they would not meet your needs. Powerful, reliable, simple and aren't effected by being left unused.

Out of all the brakes I've owned Hayes 9's Magura Julie's and Hope Mono series (Mini, M4, M6Ti) the Hope have been the most reliable

Only repairs I have done is I snapped the reach adjust hex on an old mono lever... Fitted a lever rebuild kit and been fine since. only parts I've replaced regularly are master cylinder diaphragm seals when I do a bleed. And the only issue I've had is a squeal like a rotor rubbing from a crudded up M4 that was sticky pistons. the noise would disappear if I lightly applied the brake but not heavily enough so it would drag

It might have been easier to ask which brakes people don't like.

I've had Avid Elixir cr's, great but the rear caliper wore out one pad and not the other.
Changed them for Hope tech m4's, clunky, no bite, and felt spongy after one ride
Changed for formula the ones, felt ok at start of ride, by the end of the ride levers touching the bars
These are all brakes people rave about
Prior to this I had a cheap set of Hayes strokers which people seem to hate. They were powerful, never needed bleeding, easy to set up, and were kind to pads

jools182 - Member

Changed for formula the ones, felt ok at start of ride, by the end of the ride levers touching the bars

That just sounds like a bad bleed tbh- air left at the top of the system where it can get back into the pumped fluid. Did they recover between rides?

I don't understand the negativity towards Hopes. I've got several sets, some bought second hand, some bought new, only ever had one have a problem and replacement seal fixed it. They brake like no other brake I've ever felt - whether it's how you set them up or your pads, or what, I'm not sure. But I'd never go back to other manufacturers until they produce something as mindblowingly stoppy as my M4s. Having said that, I know people who've said the same about XTs or maguras - I've never had them operate anywhere near as well, but many times this is due to the apples and oranges comparisons - lightweight XC brakes won't stop you like a 4 pot DH brake, it is unfair to compare.

The big problem is I suspect many people can't set brakes up, or do so with some variability across bikes/brakes and so incorrectly attribute problems to the brake rather than themselves.