So went for the Mega’s, bought direct, £150 with 203 rotors and mounts cant be bad???

anyway, fitted them last night, only problem is the rear brake, lever will ‘nearly’ come back into the bar (fronts fine) iv adjusted the lever out and contact point in, but its still not great.

in my limited knowledge id guess it needs a tad more fluid?? can i just top a wee bit up at the lever or should i do a full bleed?

or anything else to check?

cheers

kendo

btw – brand new but 09 brakes

I also have Megas and the rear brake is often not working properly. They appear to be bled and work but only after you pull them back to the bars. I’ve bled them plenty of time (including of the bike) and it makes little difference.
One thing that does help is taking the wheel out and squeezing the lever a few time, replace the wheel and they should bite earlier. This does not last for long though before it needs doing again. No issues with my Oro’s or R1s which are similar.

I had similar problems with Ones of the same vintage… Turned out to be knackered seals, iirc. I ended up with a set of 2011 Ones instead.

Can’t report any similar issues with my MEGAs.

I bought the same direct from Formula for much cheapness 😀

It did take a little while to get them bled well (I’d come from Hope’s which were a slightly different technique) so it might be worth another full bleed. There is quite a good guide on Pinkbike in the tech Tuesday section.

The other thing i found that helped was to remove the wheel, pump the lever to move the pads in a little, and then refit the wheel. The pads will start from closer to the rotor so the lever wont have to move as much to get to the bite point.

Excellent brakes though.

flyingmoney – what seals were knackered? Some of the spares are so expensive that I may as well by a new set!

Just in home, I had tied the lever into the bar this morning.

Undone it there and seems a lot better, must be a wee bit of air in it so hopefully a bleed should get it perfect but good to ride now at least

Similar problems with my old mans The Ones.

We’ve had 5 Formula brakes. Formulas are great when they work. Most of the time they do not. If you get a working pair and manage to get a decent bleed, they’ll work for a year then die.

I obviously read the wrong reviews I think lol ah well I’ll see how the go.

flyingmoney – what seals were knackered? Some of the spares are so expensive that I may as well by a new set!

I honestly can’t remember, it was about a year ago now! I took them to the LBS for a bleed (‘cos I didn’t have the kit or time to do it) and they ended up going back to Silverfish and getting replaced.

This always sounds daft- but I had a few issues with my Oros, because I didn’t follow the bleed instructions- thought I knew better, didn’t. Doing it right, with the right kit, and they’ve been flawless (4 pairs of Oros, a pair of The Ones and a pair of The One FRs… Mostly bought used, some are ancient and haggard)

It seems to be pretty common for them to need bled out of the box, especially the cheap factory shop old stock.

Similar problems with my old mans The Ones.

We’ve had 5 Formula brakes. Formulas are great when they work. Most of the time they do not. If you get a working pair and manage to get a decent bleed, they’ll work for a year then die.

Had my ones for nearly three years, absolutely faultless, megas for just over a year, ditto. Maybe your a bit technically inept?.

To be fair, the original ‘The Ones’ had a pretty poor reliability record, mostly surrounding the issues people have listed, hence the complete lever redesign so soon into it’s life.

FWIW, I had a set of the ’09 model & suffered similar issues. I’ve got a couple of sets of the later brakes & they have been faultless. Considering the weight, feel & power, they are awesome, nothing touches them 🙂

I had similar with mine. Bled and re-bled, but little improvement.

On my last try, before flinging them out of the window, I got carried away and pulled really hard on the lever-end syringe, to find a huge amount of air come out, and the brakes suddenly worked brilliantly. Seems that there may be some kind of air trap (I’m no engineer!), that may retain a bubble?

Upshot: they’re great brakes, now, I really like the power and feel of them, compared to my others (avids).

To be fair, the original ‘The Ones’ had a pretty poor reliability record, mostly surrounding the issues people have listed, hence the complete lever redesign so soon into it’s life.

That would explain things.

Had my ones for nearly three years, absolutely faultless, megas for just over a year, ditto. Maybe your a bit technically inept?.

You mean the seals don’t rot away after a year these days? Well **** me sideways lol.

This always sounds daft- but I had a few issues with my Oros, because I didn’t follow the bleed instructions- thought I knew better, didn’t. Doing it right, with the right kit, and they’ve been flawless

+1 but with Megas.

I’ve had a set for 2 years now, that once they were bled properly haven’t needed touching.

One thing I found really helpful was to ease the pistons out by pulling the lever a few times without the rotor in between then lube the pistons a little and push them back in. Doing this a few times until they became really easy to push back in seems to have done the trick for me. Don’t ask me how this works to reduce the lever travel but it does

Do This and make a jig up as in the pics, never had any problems after doing it like that,