Sell all your brakes and buy Saints.

Poddy is right, if you’re careful you usually don’t need to bleed them. I had to bleed one because I was removing it from an internal brake route, so it got flapped about too much while I removed it- no stress, I rebled it using only the standard syringe and hose, no shimano bleed kit. If you want to make things complicated for yourself, that’s fine but you can’t blame shimano for that!

The bleed kit probably makes things a bit cleaner, if you want to bleed brakes on your priceless antique rug or something.

Cheers for the thoughts.

Will stick with my Hope Tech M4’s, they’ve been solid for the last few years and I really like them.

Will pass on the new XT brakes to a friend who’s in need of an upgrade.

Regards

I have the E4’s and I LOVE’EM ! regardless of any weather conditions and regardless of how clarty it gets they stop me !

Coming up to 12 months now of fault free riding…

I had issues when using the shimanos hence why I changed to hopes, it was down to feedback I asked for on here and the people who said they are great were right !

If we’re throwing ‘dotes around I’ve heard quite a few horror stories of Hope brakes cooking and fading really badly on long alpine descents. Anyone care to comment?

When I went to the Alps the only person who had brake issues was running Mono M4’s. They were fading like nothing on earth. The others were fine though.

If we’re slagging Hayes am I right when I say that people often compared HFX9’s to cantis only using wood instead of rubber blocks?

The Hayes nines were actally really powerful – they just didn’t have an awful lot of lever feel or subtly about their power delivery. I bloody loved mine and the Mags that I had before them. My Stoker four pots were pretty good too.

Hope are OK, but when Deores are so bloody good and so bloody cheap I can’t see how they justify their price.

I understand how they justify their price as they are things of engineering beauty (and my original Minis still work well), but it’s not an accident all the bikes in our house are now running Deores. The VFM is simply amazing.

mindmap3 – Member

When I went to the Alps the only person who had brake issues was running Mono M4’s. They were fading like nothing on earth. The others were fine though.

Isn’t the mono m4 about a 10 year old brake now? Seems a little unfair, to judge old kit by new standards, if nothing else who knows what the maintenance has been like. And user makes such a difference too. I’d happily take my ancient oros off my commuter, change the fluid and use them in the alps but there’s not many old brakes that can really compete with new even if they’re in perfect nick.

Isn’t the mono m4 about a 10 year old brake now? Seems a little unfair, to judge old kit by new standards

i’m sure hope may have got better but I moved to shimano as a result of the mono mini and mono M4’s. I’m not moving back anytime soon.

If we’re throwing ‘dotes around I’ve heard quite a few horror stories of Hope brakes cooking and fading really badly on long alpine descents. Anyone care to comment?

Not for me, 17st rider, a week of riding down Whister Bike Park and a week of Morzine/Les Gets the year before on Tech V2s never cooked or faded massively.

In Whistler especially I was dragging a lot of brake as I wasn’t really physically or mentally ready to ride such steep stuff. I bleed them mid-way through both times as a precaution and they were a little better afterwards so I guess they were (very slowly) getting worse.

Of course V2s were/are their DH brake and have massive callipers and pads.

Saying that, my Deores have been to the Alps twice, the rear shit it’s seal after about 2 years so I replaced the calliper and I bled them afterwards just to be sure there wasn’t anything in the system – I did the front at the same time for the sake of it. That is the only maintenance they’ve ever needed.

Hope. it’s as clear at night and day. I have the short term luxury of having 2 mountain bikes at the mo, one with Hope Tech 3 E4’s on and the other with XT’s, both sets of brakes are pretty new. Six month ago, I would have said XT’s and had briefly tried bikes with hope brakes on, and wasn’t totally convinced, but after spending time on a bike with hope’s on, they are so much better in feel and response, both have loads of power and would even say the xt’s have more, it’s just the hopes just have way more control. It took about an hour of riding to feel comfortable with the hope brakes, and to get over that, “are they powerful enough” feel, because they definitely are. I have bled both sets of brakes after shortening lines and never had a problem with either.

As for weight Hope tech E4’s weigh less than XT’s not by much, so I wouldn’t really give a monkeys unless weight is everything to you.

i’m sure hope may have got better but I moved to shimano as a result of the mono mini and mono M4’s. I’m not moving back anytime soon.

I think they have – my comment regarding the Moo M4’s fading was in response to a previous comment about them. My experience is that anything with the Mini lever is utter rubbish.

It was about this time that Shimano made some great brakes – four pot XT’s original Saints etc.

I’ve got sets of the 2007 style Minis & the same era M4s with the mini levers & love them – don’t do any big mountain stuff i.e. Alps trips etc. but i’ve never found them wanting on trail centres or munro type descents – had SLX (675) & found them a bit wooden although there seemed to be plenty of power, i’m also a fan of the slightly industrial look of the Hope stuff… saying that – if I needed new brakes next week it’d be hard not to take a punt on the XTs at £100 a set.