If I store my bike upside down for any length of time, the brake levers come back to the grips. They do come back after some pumps or cable tying the levers open for a short while once the right way up again.
Usually the brakes are brilliant, very sharp, no spongeyness.
Shimano saints, normal?

i get that on my zees on the uplift at bpw, will lose one or the other of the brakes until a few pulls on the lever

needs bleeding – bubbles of air migrating upwards into the caliper, so people say

temp fix is put it upright and hold the levers “in” for a while (rubber band, old sock or whatever round lever & bar)

One of mine does this too – the ‘right’* bleed will sort it.

*(Syringe of fluid pushed in from calipre – bike hung by bars, lever at high point + tapping micro bubble out of the hose 🙂

It’s what happens when you believe they don’t need bleeding after hose shortening. You have air sitting harmlessly in the master cylinder reservoir until the bike’s inverted, at which point it can find it’s way into the pressurised part of the system and cause spongeyness. Buy a Shimano bleed bucket and fluid, fit the bleed block into the caliper to prevent over-filling (new pads will perform a similar function), and tease the air out of the reservoir into the half filled bucket by flicking the lever whilst tilting the bike side to side, and making sure the hose always has an upward slope towards the lever.

happened on my XT’s until my recent bleed,had them 4 years and never bled them, 😯

Needs bleeding.
It’s air bubbles rising up into the master cylinder.

Good advice from Coatesy there.

I found overfilling the reservoir at the last moment finally did the job on a reluctant pair of SLX.

I did similar to what coatsey described. There’s a step-by-step guide on Epic Bleed Solution’s websites for what they call something like a “quick and dirty bleed”. It basically amounts to the same thing and has worked well for me since I did it a few months ago.

Needs a bleed. Unfortunately my xt’s do this a bit and have needed the double pull on the trails adter several bleeds by me and various very decent mechanics. I’m taking it that’s just a shimano feature…

Ha yes I did shorten them 18 months ago. I would have expected spongeyness if they had air but they are solid (when the right way up). Bleed kit it is then cheers.

I think it’s time for a new bike.

^^^^^^^ Ha ha, this, or at the bare minimum new brakes..