Hiya,

I’ve been waiting for about 2 years for the Clarks M4 brakes to properly hit the market, rather than the drips and draps arriving or available through eBay occasionally, but in my searching I recently found these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165095840478?mkevt=1&mkpid=2&emsid=e112358.m43.l1123&mkcid=8&bu=43089038271&osub=-1~1&segname=16TE179832_T_PREPURCHASE_CT1&crd=20220118090000&ch=osgood&sojTags=osub%3Dosub%2Csegname%3Dsegname%2Ccrd%3Dcrd%2Cch%3Dch%2Cchnl%3Dmkcid

Which look surprisingly similar.  Has anyone tried the random eBay clarks look-alike brakes?   <£60 for a pair of brakes seems too good to be true, so it probably is?

seems too good to be true

I bought some £50 tektro brakes and they’ve been great. That was a special deal and tektro are at least a known brand, albeit at the cheap end though.

Obviously it’s a risk somewhere you don’t particularly want a failure but what are the chances of them both failing at the same time 🙂

Pinkbike are currently doing a “budget vs baller” video series on cheapo internet-sourced components vs. bling kit. I think next week’s one is on brakes. Maybe hold off til you’ve seen that?

Has anyone tried the random eBay clarks look-alike brakes?

No, but I’m very tempted especially as these seem to be sent from UK. Also available on Aliexpress albeit for a little more than these. I assume they’re all from the same factory – clarks m4/meroca.

Edit – there’s some other meroca brakes which are essentially the clarks m2 aswell.

TBH at that price I’d give them a try, what have you got to lose? If they are rubbish you bin them and it costs less than dinner out.

They are unlikely to explode into bits, worst case they are hard to bleed or the tolerances are a bit off, if this is the case, it should be visible when you fit them and you can probably return them at that stage.

I guarantee those eBay ones will come direct from China!

@Wzzzz got some a few months back

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/airwolf-t1000-29er-carbon-hardtail-thoughts/page/3/#post-12098303

Also @yourguitarhero bought some here

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/can-anyone-help-please-best-budget-brake-set/#post-12015992

so both may have an opinion by now

Hi yeah they are pretty good to be honest! I’ve had them next to a set of clarks M4 and um I’d say they were the same brake.

I didn’t pay that much, £38 for a set delivered from Aliexpress!

I immediately ditched the resin pads as they were awful, I bought some sintered pads from “kingstop” on aliexpress £6.35 for 2 pairs. I also run kingstop pads in my Hope E4s they are great.

I run them on 180 front and 160 rear rotors

I like the feel of them, they do not have the “servo wave” linkage in the brake lever of shimano XTs etc that give shimano that strong initial bite, but I like this because I run Hope E4 on my other bike and found I did not like that hard shimano bite, these and the Hopes are much more progressive and better “feel” around the bite.

So yeah would buy again.

Nothing has leaked, I’ve been on a good bunch of rides since October.

The only issue was bleeding, you need a threaded adapter you can’t use the shimano funnel. I had to bodge by drilling a hole down a bolt and slipping silicone hose over. If you have one of these generic bleed kits with loads of adapters I dare say you’ll be ok.

Rockhopper

I guarantee those eBay ones will come direct from China!

..or does the ebay seller buy them off AliExpress and bump the price up, like people do with Aldi/Lidl stuff?

Cheap and cheerful. Although these days discs have now been out for a very long time and how difficult can it be to make a powerful and reliable brake ?. Theres really not a lot to them and only really the likes of Hope make them complicated at the lever end with its pad and reach settings. But other than that- pull lever- push fluid down tube-force out pistons.

I put genuine M4’s on my nephews bike in late summer 2020. They’ve been fine – not needed any attention at all. I’d say he’s probably done very easy riding though – mostly on a flat cycle track or the Ashton Court / Leigh Woods ‘trail centre’ in Bristol.

He did somehow manage to lose the rear pad retaining screw and 1 of the pads – I just picked up Uberbike ones to replace them I think it was – and used a split pin from Shimano to retain them.

Those you’ve linked look identical to the M4. For that price I’d take a punt. They are reasonably powerful brakes – maybe similar to a Guide R or something. But very very cheap for that performance.

[we’ve been making discs] a very long time and how difficult can it be to make a powerful and reliable brake

I imagine there are a great many conversations exactly like this that take place in sram and shimano’s MTB divisions. (And hope, magura, Hayes, trp…)

Dumb Q – they say they’re for 160mm rotors, and I assume that’s just the adaptor size that they come with. If I wanted to use 180mm rotors, I could just use the adaptor that I’m currently using, right?

Oh yeah, I got those brakes.
They’re basically the Clarks M4s, I think the lever is a little different.

I’ve got them on my eMTB – they’ve been great. Never any issues and the bike stops well.

As above, not a very sharp bite to them – more progressive? I just used the pads they came with.

Dumb Q – they say they’re for 160mm rotors, and I assume that’s just the adaptor size that they come with. If I wanted to use 180mm rotors, I could just use the adaptor that I’m currently using, right?

yep. standard post mount calipers so they bolt straight on to the posts on the fork/frame with 160mm rotors without any adaptors. 180, 200 etc… needs the appropriate post mount adaptor.

They come with IS mounts for 160mm rotors. 160 or 180 needs the appropriate IS mount adaptor.

Theres a slightly weird setup with the conical washers seen here in the pinkbike pic

You see the cone bit goes under the caliper, and the other bit goes above with the bolt head being conical.

My rear 160 is setup like this.

But on the front 180 their bolts weren’t long enough so I used the adapter bolts and remember to put the conical washer under the caliper.

Hmm, very tempted, currently got some pretty knackered BB7s which are pretty **** useless now, these could do to muchly improve the braking for (relatively) very little outlay.

I take it they come all bled and that? I hate bleeding brakes (which is why I have BB7s…)

I’ve a set of the Clarks M4 and they’re ok for the money.

They do come fully bled but mine had a poor factory bleed and wandering bite point.

I re bled them when I shortened the hoses and found it took ages to get all the air out, but that might be my poor technique rather than an issue with the brakes. They’ve been fine since.

Theres a slightly weird setup with the conical washers seen here in the pinkbike pic

That doesn’t look like the weirdest thing in that pic to me. What an odd looking wheel 😀

That doesn’t look like the weirdest thing in that pic to me. What an odd looking wheel 😀

Sod the wheel, the IS adapter looks to be bolted through the rotor. I imagine that gives a lot of bite and stopping power!