Need some new brakes – my old SLXs have been bled, new pads etc and I still can’t seem to get them working as well as I’d have thought they should be so I’ll be getting my LBS to fit something new in the new year. Want something with bonkers stopping power but reasonably decent weight and price. Zees seem to tick a lot of boxes but are they overkill on a Five with a 10 stone rider? New SLXs then I guess? What about Hopes? Although they’re a shed load more money…

Cheers
Dave

Deore M615; bonkers good for the money, especially if you already have the rotors. Recommended here so many times before I bought them; now have them on three bikes.

I just took 3 month old XT off my five and put saints on..
But I’m over 100kg fully kitted, I’d rather have plenty of stopping power than not enough..
XT’s are great but they weren’t giving me the stopping power I like.

Deore +1
Actually find them better than my XT’s

But having said that I did see Saints very cheap the other day, may have been a thread on here

If you want them to work out the box the Deore
If you want them to still be working in 6 years time then Hope

Zee! When are you ever over braked. Power and modulation in spades. Much better than Deore, I own both. Deore are great but they don’t have the power or control of the Zee especially in very steep techy situations. Still a big fan of Hope tech 4 as well but Zee are better value.

Junkyard makes a very good point about Hopes.

Shimanos for the price and working out of the box.

Hope for overall quality, equal reliability and better long term service life – as long as you don’t mind bleeding them when you first get them.

Im using SRAM Guide RS brakes now, better modulation with lots more power and control ove my old XT’s

I’ve seen a number of xt levers where the master cylinder has become sticky and its not serviceable. The shimano answer is to buy a new lever which at £30, isn’t the end of the world. I don’t know if it was a batch problem or if it’s still happening or if it is just xt or all shimano levers but it makes me very wary of road disc brakes with £200 levers.

I’m a big fan of Hope brakes. There isn’t anything you can fix with a bit of know-how and a few cheap bits.

Hopes being reliable still makes me laugh

There isn’t anything you can fix with a bit of know-how and a few cheap bits.

I’ve one sitting here that even Hope can’t fix, it’s never worked properly. I gave up on them years ago, unfortunately the Mrs wanted to give them a go.

Shimano all the way for me – choose your price point and go from there!

The current range of Shimano brakes work really well. Sure you can’t repair them but mine haven’t gone wrong. If they do they’re cheap enough to replace.
I’ve got SLX on one bike and XT on another, both work and feel the same. The XTs are just shinier and have that useless bite point adjuster – only bought the XTs over SLX last time because they were £39 an end from On One!

Zee front and rear at the moment, the label whore in me wanted Saint but I’ve read numerous times that Saint are overkill on anything but a DH bike.
Zees are awesome at any price…the fact you can get them for less than £100 an end is the icing on the cake.

CRC have Alivio level OEM brakes at £17.49 an end right now. If e just put some one my new Charge Cooker Maxi to replace the cable discs it came with. They work just fine. I defy anyone not to be tempted by them. They even came with olives and inserts to trim the hoses.

Hopes being reliable still makes me laugh

Had about a dozen sets of Hope brakes here over the past 15 odd years. There’s one set that are about 10 years old on my old mans hack bike that haven’t had a service for 5-6 years, they still work great – although the oil will probably boil easily.

I’ve found them to be as reliable as any other manufacturers brakes, if not more so.

Zee front and rear at the moment, the label whore in me wanted Saint but I’ve read numerous times that Saint are overkill on anything but a DH bike.

Zees actually produce fractionally more power than the Saints……

It’s just that the latter is a bit lighter and has tool free bite adjust etc. They are basically the same brakes, why would the zee not be overkill on anything but a DH bike then?

Older Saint were overkill IMO, just because of their power and blunt application, they were for applying a lot of brake in a hurry and not the best for applying feather touches (not impossible, it just needed way more care than is helpful). But the new one’d be grand on a trailbike, far more subtle. Still not my choice mind.

For me though Shimano have to be cheap, because basically you have the 2 years warranty and after that you need to replace entire chunks. Frinstance you can’t buy a caliper seal so you have to buy a caliper. Not a problem with XT and downwards because a caliper is cheap, barely more expensive than buying seals in fact. But with XTR and Saint it’s a lot more expensive. (though, you may be able to mix and match parts with the single pot calipers?) So basically the lifespan and general vfm is a real steep curve

Still don’t think there’s a better brake than the old Formula The One personally but they’re discontinued. Powerful, subtle, reliable, light and servicable, and you can get a set for £100 used these days. Only real downer is that though you can buy parts, they’re expensive.

why would the zee not be overkill on anything but a DH bike then?

Don’t shoot the messenger, i’m going on what I’ve read in magazines and what I’ve heard on here…on that basis I steered myself away from Saints and bought Zees instead…I had no idea they were essentially the same brake/braking power etc.

As posted earlier I swapped my XT’s on my 5 for saints, put them on Friday night.
Went round the block to see what there like…trailed the brake for a while in attempt to bed them in a little.

Result is I can now get the rear up in the air with little effort.. Very powerful one finger braking… Not grabby either..

Still don’t think there’s a better brake than the old Formula The One personally but they’re discontinued. Powerful, subtle, reliable, light and servicable, and you can get a set for £100 used these days. Only real downer is that though you can buy parts, they’re expensive.

Northwind, I’ve got a set of the first Formula The Ones that came out. They’ve been back umpteen times yet they continually leak or plain don’t work, I’ve given up on them. Are these the same brakes you are talking about, before the major lever revision?

I finally gave up on my Formulas earlier this year and bought Deores.
Better in every way.

Hopes on both my bikes (1st generation M4’s on the HT), Hopes on both my mates bikes (original Mini’s on his Cannondale f2000) Hopes on my lads Spesh. No service/problem history on any of them.
Buy cheap & you buy twice, as an engineer mate told me.

Tom_W1987 – Member

Are these the same brakes you are talking about, before the major lever revision?

Na, the ones after- MY11 ideally.

http://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-zee-disc-brake-br-m640-b-set-86999?currency=3&delivery_country=190&gclid=CjwKEAiAkpCkBRCtstKQo5ia5nESJACsCikRBSKs2DhRbBJn1U6Aui_9pW3vRWBWqqroktuIHDI_VBoCdznw_wcB