Hope Tech 3 E4 or Sram Code RSC?

I know there’s a price difference, and a fair wait for the SRAM even from Germany, but as I’ve got a while to wait for frame and fork that’s not an issue. I’d just like to get some feedback from users as to which brakes everyone prefers please before I make up my mind which to order.

I’m happy with my E4’s. They’re over 4 years old and still work the same as day 1. Also if I have any issues, every single individual piece of them is available to buy so they should be rebuildable forever. Or at least until something better comes along.

I haven’t used Sram brakes for ages. Do they still have plastic pistons which swell up when hot and make the lever go floppy?

Following as I’m looking at the srams myself but just putting off hitting the buy button. Will wait a while longer until someone more educated than me can give a better reply than this one

Well, @sharkattack just saved me a bunch of typing, pretty much word for word.

I’m taking delivery of a new bike next week with code rsc’s on and removing them in favour of fitting my existing e4’s.

Is this the worst/least stealth, stealth ad ever?

Following on from Sharkattack who has summed the E4’s up nicely, if you can’t be arsed or don’t have the skills Hope will rebuild them, replacing all the necessary parts for about £60

Long time since I had Sram brakes so can’t comment on how good/bad they are.

I have E4 on my full suss.

3 years of 0 trouble.

Full rebuild to cure sticky pistons.

6 months of no trouble and counting.

I’ve had both brakes, the sram code rsc are so much better than the hopes in every way, except for the ability to rebuild them with spare parts.

Not a problem though as the codes have been perfect for years now.

Wouldn’t touch the hopes with a barge pole, overpriced, low performance, but reliable.

Running E4s on the new bike – trouble free.

Running 10 year old Tech M4s on the old bike my son has stolen – no problems

Other family members have X2s of varying ages and provenances – one issue sorted with a bleed.

To be fair they do tend to need bleeding every few years.

Prior to that I ran Avids – bleed weekly, and unstick pistons about the same rate. I quit about ten years ago so not a good source of info on current brakes from SRAM. The original Code wasn’t to bad, but not as good as a Tech X2 or M4.

I was in a similar situation and went for the Hopes for the new build, purely because i like the Hope feel and reliability, buying British and the long term spares back up. I went V4’s with 220/200mm rotors, won’t be riding the new build until December as i’m on deployment so can’t pass comment on performance yet. I was tempted by the Code RSC’s as i have a set of Guide RE’s on the hardtail which are effectively old model Code calipers on Guide levers and they have been faultless to be fair, good power and modulation – i increased the rotors from stock 180/160 to 200/200 but other than that i haven’t touched them apart from to change pads over the winter.

My last bike came with Code 2020 RSC’s. I thought I would need to replace them almost immediately. I haven’t.

Powerful, great modulation and feel. No issues at all – so no fading, no spongy feeling and consistent performance . I have been hugely and very pleasantly surprised.

On my experience, I would recommend.

I have actually become friends with my Code Rs as they give consistent braking and feel confidence-inspiring enough when they are working. Gone are the days of the Avid bleed nightmares. What I have found by riding them lots on two bikes is the pistons get very sticky through mud etc so need quite a bit of fettling once they lose their out of the shop newness. Also the lever is susceptible to blowing seals as you can actually put quite a lot of oil pressure in due to the bleeding edge process. I am now burping them slightly at the lever to reduce some of the pressure after bleeding. Not sure if they are any more or less faffy than other brakes though?

I think the main problem with asking people’s opinions on both brakes is that generally, people love Hope stuff because it’s Hope and, people hate SRAM stuff because it’s SRAM.

I’ve used both Hope and SRAM over the years and now have SRAM Guide RSC’s (I think Code is the equivalent now) on all my bikes.

You won’t find the modulation of a SRAM brake anywhere else (maybe Magura but I’ve not used them). Add to that the power of the brake and they are VERY hard to beat. They just feel right. Some people do have issues with regards to reliability but since I’ve been using SRAM (around 6 years I think) I’ve never had a single issue.

My experience of Hope brakes is that they seem to be ‘all show, no go’. They look superb, nobody can deny that.. The issues I had were that I just couldn’t get them to work very well… Don’t get me wrong, they worked, just not brilliantly. I’ve had them with different sized rotors, different pads etc but they still were just mediocre. I had several different people bleed one set to see if that could be the cause of the poor performance but, it made no difference. On the plus side, they look good and are very easy to work on.

Another one for Hope’s here

Over the years ive run Shimano XT, Deore, ZEE and all were leaky at the pistons and i got fed up with warranty claims

Also have run Sram Guide, Guide R, Code RS and Code RSC, problems have ranged from sticky levers to wondering bite points, atcual braking they were pretty good

Now have learnt my lesson and only run Hope’s currently running E4 and V4 on 200mm rotors with Hope’s E bike pads (made by Galfer) have also run Hope Mono’s, M4’s etc.. in the past

The E4 and V4’s never have any issue stopping me, even on my 24kg e-mtb with me weighing in at 100kg

They stop me very quickily and feel just as good if not better than my old Shimano/Sram brakes

The fact they are British made, spares readily availible, warranty and customer service is excellent if you do need some help is just a bonus

…..or, if you’ve got the time and patience to wait for parts, mix a hope lever with a code caliper to have the best bits of each brake! Fancy looks, rebuild-ability and adjustability of the Hope on the bars, and reliability and power of the Code down by the disk.

Codes. Without a doubt. It’s been a few years since I had a set of Hopes (Race E4) which were mediocre at best.

Rode a bike recently with some Hopes on & they were distinctly uninspiring.

Codes are super powerful, consistent & just work. I don’t care about being able to buy a spare widget for a Hope brake from 10 years ago, they were rubbish then – easier to save myself the hassle and just buy something decent in the first place.

Grump, that is something I never would have thought of doing! Is it something you are running or have done? Guess it’s dot oil in both.

I’m still completely torn between the 2. The Hopes, even with braided hoses, are cheaper, look better, have the best adjustment available and are easier to service. The Codes have more power and better modulation according to many reviews I’ve read, but are more expensive and not easily user serviceable (although long term reviews revealed no need to service). Both compatible with single clamp for GX shifter and I should be able to fit a One Up dropper lever to a single clamp on either as well so bar clutter wouldn’t be an issue if I bought that dropper.

Hmmmmmmm

I’ve not tried Sram but have E4 / Tech 3 on my FS. With 200mm/180mm rotos, they stop 135Kg bike and me well enough, although I’m only a trail centre / peaks type rider. Nothing really DH or warp speed focussed.

The one time I did have problems was coming down a reasonable hill (one of the descents on Long Mynd) the front faded quite badly. I’d just got them at that point and was using 180mm/160mm rotors.

Could have been set up, user error (brake dragging), or just the smaller rotors but, either way it was scarey accelerating towards a wall.

Since the bigger rotors and methodical set up (which tbh is a bit of a pain, but absolutely necessary), they have been perfect.

Have Zees’ on my plus tyred HT. With 180/160 rotors they are far more snappier and instant than the Hopes. I kind of like that but it can be dangerous grabbing a handfull of front brake when tired later in a ride. The grip of a plus tyre and bitey brakes gives instant ejection through the front door if not careful – mainly through deceleration, not instant stop or bike flip etc.

Powerful, great modulation and feel. No issues at all – so no fading, no spongy feeling and consistent performance . I have been hugely and very pleasantly surprised.

This is also my experience. Have been happy with my Codes. Don’t give me any hassle, haven’t had to do anyhting to them but clean them and change pads. Best set of brakes since Saint.

@speedstar Currently running. Ran Guide RE (Guide lever with old Code caliper) since mid 2017 (I’m a guide, so between the 2 pairs I’ve had, that’s over 1 million meters of down [yes, I keep a record, sad innit] so I am pretty sure they got well tested) and was a fan but the lack of tweekability of bite point could be annoying as they aged and the cheap guide lever just doesn’t feel as nice as the machined and higher tolerance Hope lever. I managed to damage both levers a couple months ago, wanted a change, and Hope were able to live up to their great reputation for customer service. Same fluid, it’s an easy swap. You get a softer lever feel than full E4’s, but I believe more power. Without putting the hybrid setup on a dynometer it’s hard to tell, but the old Codes do better on dyno testing for power and head dissipation than the Hopes, and anecdotally from watching clients and other riders in the alps that would seem to bear out in real life, although there’s likely a bit of personal bias in there from me liking what I have.

@allanoleary You might want to have a quick check on the Hope integrated clamp shifter position. I run fairly flat levers and couldn’t get the shifter round far enough for comfortable gear changing and ended up putting on the separate SRAM clamp to get the ergonomics right. But, it could be in exactly the right position for you!

Oh dear…. I’ve just seen the ridiculously expensive SRAM G2 Ultimates in the same grey as the Pike I’ve got on order. Must…. not….

Don’t, I have Guides on a couple of bikes and like them but wouldn’t choose them over Codes if buying new, just not the same league power wise.

If you can, I’d look for Code RS. Swing link gives a bit of extra feel over the basic R version, but cheaper than the RSC. Alloy lever instead of carbon and you lose the pad contact wheel. TBH you only ever set the contact wheel once and then all it does is add extra faff to the bleeding procedure.

I have to say Hob-Nob nailed it, in my experience the Sram Codes beat any brake Hope offer all round. I ran them for a while with no issues at all. They had great power, consistent lever feel and worked exactly as they should. Fitting and bleeding is very easy with the new calliper bleed fitting SRAM use, all round they are a great brake. I would still be running them as well if I hadn’t bought some Trickstuff brakes.

I’ve just had Hope E4, 200mm discs fitted to my Whyte 905. Ordered them way back in March. Code rsc we’re the other brakes I was considering both not available. The plan was to go to the Alps this week but that ain’t happening. Absolutely love the E4’s, big step up from the Guides that the bike came with. Love the feedback I get, brakes that actually work! Totally one finger action now, when I forget and use two fingers on the back it locks up! Great fun 🤩

SRAM Guide Ultimate here on all the bikes. Simple with the bleeding edge tool to keep them going. No problems with hot days and sticky pistons either.

Keep an eye out as like mlltt above, people swap them out on brand new bikes as they prefer something else. Classified/Pinkbike etc etc.

If I was to move away from SRAM it would be to Magura, not Hope TBH.

I would definitely get Codes rather than Guides (ignoring the guide RE as that’s a mash up of a guide r lever with the previous gen Code caliper – plenty of power but the lever isn’t that nice and there’s no bleeding edge on the caliper).

Guides were fine with 200/180 rotors but the Codes feel nicer / have more outright power and are unlikely to fade on long descents. I’ve run guide r / guide rs / guide re and code r. Both my bikes have the current code r and I love them. Would like the rsc but can’t justify the cost to upgrade.

Also sram generally have more small parts available to fix stuff than Shimano but less than Hope. E.g my mate spannered the lever blade on one of my codes crashing it and it was less than £20 for a new lever blade and easy to fix.

Lab test that may be of interest – https://enduro-mtb.com/en/best-mtb-disc-brake-can-buy/

What I’d really like to see though is graphs of lever torque vs. caliper torque. We have the lab numbers for power/fade already, just need to be able to communicate modulation.

Interesting that after all those tests and then riding with the brakes that the Code RSC came out as best in test even with value for money as a factor.

I found that lab test interesting too. When I started reading it I seen it was at the hope factory so I thought ‘here we go, hopes will come out top.’ so was surprised that they decided on the codes in the end. Still kinda swaying toward the srams for myself

I’m really not sure about the testing method and thus the usefulness of the results from Enduro Mag. According to them the E4 is more powerful than the V4! That doesn’t make sense for three reasons:

1. Hope make the V4 as the more powerful alternative to the E4.
2. The V4 has more piston area so has more hydraulic advantage and thus more braking power for a given force at the lever.
3. I have a set of V4 on my Levo and E4 on my hardtail. The Levo also has 203mm discs vs 183mm on the hardtail giving extra leverage but the 29 vs 27.5 wheels reduces the leverage and the Levo has over 25lbs more bike to stop. The V4 still feel more powerful by a fair margin.

Also, Codes are DH brakes, so I’d only be looking at Hope V4 as an alternative.

Have V4s on my alpine and code RSCs on the cheat bike with a 230mm rotor up front.

I really liked the codes until I took them to Morzine last week, where they were totally overwhelmed by long descents. They became wooden and then the power just faded away. I’m running swisstop pads, other whyte users have said good things about the Uber pads when they’ve run into similar issues. The thing is though, they really shouldn’t do this in the first place. They’re going to be replaced by some V4s when I get home. They’re fine in a UK trail centre, just show them a 20 minute alpine plummet and they become crap.

The V4s on the alpine in contrast are faultless.

I am a big hope fan, bought an entire hope bike after all but I hated the brakes. (E4)

Felt they seriously lacked power and initial bite, i had to pull the levers so hard to effectively slow down, giving sore arms and lack of confidence. I tried different pads, bleeds etc to no success.

Swapped for slx 4 pots which are amazing, loads of modulation and effortless power.

Sold the brakes for what i paid for new slx so happy with that 🙂

You either like Hopes lever feel or you don’t. It is entirely a personal preference thing.

I have Hope E4’s and think they are superb. Nice solid feel because I have them blead properly with plenty power and great modulation. Those saying they are not powerful enough, I can’t understand this, easily lock up either wheel with one finger, how can you need more power than that? Yes they don’t have the instant grab feel of Shimano’s and if that’s what you like then you won’t like the Hopes.

Where the Hopes excel is they are a quality product that will last years partly because each individual part is replaceable. If you like Hope lever feel and are willing to pay the premium price for a premium product then get them.

If you don’t like the lever feel then get something else.

I can’t understand this, easily lock up either wheel with one finger, how can you need more power than that?

This is the thing, my Hope e4’s couldnt easily lock up either wheel with one finger, they were woeful in terms of power compared to codes, or shimano 4 pots.

Now – Obviously we had different experiences ,and I dont doubt that what you’re saying is true, but why the different experience? my brakes were properly bled and properly set up, but were still lacking power, so that can only be down to some other difference – maybe my tyres are much grippier than yours? Maybe I’m a lot heavier than you? maybe your fingers are loads stronger than mine? dunno what it was, but there was no way that my hope e4’s would “easily lock up either wheel with one finger” – they were ‘hope’less

I really like Hope kit, it works very well, but my last bike had Guide RS and my current bike has Code RSC and apart from a slightly longer lever throw on the lever, I reckon the Code is the better brake out of my last 3 sets…the set before the Guides was a Hope 4-pot system, can’t recall the model but it was 2014.

The Hope lever has some brilliant adjustment and keeps it consistent – I really liked that – the RSC levers have adjustment but I’m finding it isn’t consistent…I don’t like a huge amount of lever throw and I can get that exactly after a bleed and fresh pads, but as the pads wear, the lever throw increases. I found with the Hope stuff as the pads wore down, the pistons moved to compensate so the lever throw remained consistent.

I’ve also read (mostly on here) that a lot of the older kit from Hope is no longer supported with spares (don’t know how old that kit is) but worth bearing in mind now as the endless supply of parts that seemed to be the case isn’t quite the case now (but will depend on what the kit and part is no doubt).

It would be a very hard decision to pick between a set of Hopes and a set of the Code RSCs as from my experience both are very good. Codes are winning for now but only because I’ve got them and using them, the only real drawback is my annoyance with the eventual increase in lever throw (does take a long time to happen and I’m sure it is largely down to pad wear).

@Julians
I can only assume there was something wrong with your brakes or they were not blead properly. I have 3 sets of Hope E4’s and they all work properly. I have various friends who all run Hopes too and again they all perform like mine. Definitely nothing to do with tyres or finger strength.

I accept that E4’s aren’t the most powerful brakes out there but it’s really amusing how much people exaggerate when they’re criticising them. I’m no Hope fanboy but I got the full build at trade pricing so it was a no brainer. If they were as bad as people say I would have replaced them by now.

Mine have done probably a dozen uplift days and 4 multi-week Alpine road trips. They’ve seen more action and I’ve kept them longer than any brake I’ve ever had. They’re fine. If I was buying new now I’d get the V4 but I won’t be switching any time soon.

Hope e4 are the weakest brakes I’ve ever tried.
I got code rsc on a used bike I bought, they were easily as good as m820 saints which are my go-to brake, but I still swapped to saint as I have Shimano spares.
Our of them two choices, code rsc for certain.

I was always a big fan of hope brakes for the availability of support and spare parts but found they were amazing when new but always ended up suffering from quite bad fade and lack of power. They just weren’t up to the job of stopping or slowing me down over the fairly extreme terrain and rock rolls around Whistler and Tweed Valley. Fine for 75% of my riding but the 25% remaining was kind of the more important portion. Made the swap to Code RSC’s just under two years ago and been nothing but impressed with their power and feel of them. I can actually adjust them unlike the hope which had to be the extremes of bite point at all times. One of my two code brakes has got quite bad stick in one of the levers now, to the point that I dont have any confidence in it so I’ve emailed where I bought them from in the hope of getting it sorted under warranty. Even with that issue I’ll still continue to run them and if needs must I’ll buy an identical replacement. Still run hopes on my hardtail but it’s a hardtail and I just know I have to constantly brake to stand any chance of actually stopping.