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.
