Guide R vs SLX brakes

What are people’s experience’s of these 2 brakes?

My past experience of Avid Juicy quality wasn’t good, but I’ve heard the SRAM ones are OK these days?

Shimano have always been bombproof for me, but the guides have 4 pot calipers so should be more powerful, but seem to have very little pad clearance compared to the shimano calipers?

I’ve read some reports of the Guide R suddenly seizing up mid ride. Don’t sound as reliable as Shimano?

I’ve heard good and bad about both …

SLX will stop you… 2 pot or not… worse case you go up a rotor size (though I find 180’s both ends stop me well enough)

More important for me is what is on other bikes… vis bleed kit and spare pads etc.

Also, not checked SRAM but a new SLX lever or a new SLX caliper are pretty cheap … I had a 3-4 yr old XT 785 caliper seize and stuck on a SLX for £30… which isn’t much more than a couple of sets of pads.

I have had both and much prefer the feel of the Guide R’s. Plus they can be serviced and not essentially disposable units once they stop working.

My only recent experience of Shimano brakes is Deore m535’s which I bought new / old stock for a good price for a cheap hardtail.

I don’t think they were meant to be some of the problem brakes (like the m8000 xts) but they’re not good at all. They squeal for the first few brakes and seem to need to warm up a bit before getting any bite.

Ive just replaced them with some second hand guide r’s and they’re so much better (using the same Shimano rotors). Got the same brakes on my enduro bike (200/180mm centreline rotors) and they just stop well with decent modulation.

I’ve had a go on a couple of bikes with Shimano brakes (1x SLX and 1 x XT) and was underwhelmed. The SLX bit too close to the bar from me and came on really strong all of a sudden. The XT bit in a better place, but still it came on too strong for my liking.

I was fully expecting to ditch the Guide R’s that came on my new bike pretty rapidly for the Hope M4’s that I had on my old bike.  This was based on my past experience of Elixirs.  Anyway, I’ve been running the Guides for four months and am really impressed.  They control my 15 stone bulk on steep descents just as well as the M4s and have been faultless.  They feel as good as the M4’s which are going up for sale.  I can’t comment on SLX but the impression I get is that they’re good until they fail and then you bin them and buy a new pair.

I’ve got several sets of Guide RS’s which I regard as a substantial improvement over M785 XT and M675 SLX.  The Guide R is quite a different brake though – the whole swinglink cam system is missing so they should feel a bit more Shimano binary I think.  Reliability is much the same with a caveat that SRAM tend to need different operations for many things than Shimano products generally and IMO people ‘knowing what they are doing’ and not checking for differences are responsible for much of the trouble some report

As with all brake opinion, this is a quasi-religious thing and rational opinions, especially on forums, are a non-sequitur.

Brakes are a very important part of a bike from a confidence point of view so ride whatever you believe will make you happy- you’ll enjoy it more.

I’m normally a Shimano only user but have been impressed with the Guide Rs that came on my latest bike, they are not as aggressive as the SLX on my other bike which now feel as though they are either on or off if that makes sense

Have both. Guide Rs are excellent as are the SLX….

 I can’t comment on SLX but the impression I get is that they’re good until they fail and then you bin them and buy a new pair.

They are also reasonably serviceable.

I’ve cleaned out stuck calipers etc. but bought a new one while I did (because they are £30 minus £12 as you get the pads for that)  This is after 4-5 years of use…. (It was actually XT but they are exactly the same in the 685/785 to the point you can rebuild a calliper for one half of each!)

After cleaning you have a spare… should it happen again.  I also had a brake lever fail after 4-5 years… didn’t fix it because it was too much trouble for the cost.