Hi,

I am shortly building my new bike Propain Spindrift mullet which is due for delivery early Feb, and the last point I am undecided in brakes.

On the brakes, power is needed, but modulation is key. Availability aside, the new XTR M9120, or Hope V4? Hope wins for endless repairs, and lever feel is great, but the shimanos are super easy to bleed and will fit the M9000 shifter better.

The wheels are Crank Bros Synthesis, so only 6 bolt. Therefore considering either Hope or the Magura MDP-R rotors which, although are slightly heavier are 2mm instead of 1.8mm of the Hopes and there’s quite a few companies investing in thicker rotors which apparently help with vibration (noise) and temperature control. 220F and 203R is the plan due to mullet.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

Aren’t the vented hope floating rotors also thicker?

IMO Hope are even easier to bleed than Shimano.

Yeh the vented are 3mm, but are also £90 a disc! Agreed for a full bleed, however I also found the lever bleed option on shimano amazingly easy and revolved 95% of issues wherever you are!

I’ve never found shimano’s to have much modulation at all, compared to Hope/Formula/Sram.

Are your sourcing the brakes yourself, or are they part of the build from propain?

Id recommend the formula cura’s, great power and excellent modulation, cant’t fault mine.

Agreed, I only had the M8000 XTs and they were quite binary. Apparently the new M9120s are much better so I would try shimano again just to keep the groupset the same.

The bike is actually coming with the Magura MT5s which I will sell straight away and swap the brakes so can go any route!

Ive got the Hope V4 vented rotors

Yes they are £90 each but they are well worth the money, they will only work with the V4 caliper though so if you decided to change calipers/brakes at a later date you would need new discs too

As for bleeding the Hope’s its much easier if you buy their funnel kit (basically the same as Shimano) this makes bleeding so much easier, Hope’s bleeding process is the same as doing car brakes, i find it simple and easy and get a great bleed every time

Hope spares availability is also great, i cracked a piston when i ham-fistedly squeezed a piston back in when i went to fit new pads (didn’t bother to fit the old pads and use a blunt tool)

A new piston and the bore cap removal tool came to £13 and took 5 mins to fix

This is certainly a glowing review! Exactly the reason I love Hopes, maybe vented rear, and the 220mm up front is the way to go!?

I run the MDP-R rotors in 220mm front and rear and love the power and feel compared to 203/180. Can kinda vouch for the noise thing, my rotors on a wet ride where the ones not squealing, altough that changed the following week when I put the bike on the bike rack and the whole bike got covered in road salt and grime, a rinse with water removed it and they were noise free again.

Brakewise I run Code RSC’s and love them, even with the smaller rotors, they just work with good power and modulation.

Have you tried the maguras? I’ve a set of the trail sports (same caliper on the front as the mt5) on one bike and hope e4/X2 mix on the other. The maguras are a nice brake. Not as bling but they work well and feel nice.

Sweet cheers dude, did you have non-MDP-R rotors before? Did the rotors themselves make a noticeable difference?

Hi, thanks mate, but the bike comes with MT5s however I really don’t kike the idea of plastic levers and plastic bleed screws! Reliability is key

Yeah sadly you can’t argue with that as a potential weakness.

did you have non-MDP-R rotors before? Did the rotors themselves make a noticeable difference?

Had some Shimano XT Ice-Tech things. yeah Id say I slow quicker for less braking effort.

I’ve got V4 on my Levo with 203mm unvented Hope rotors and organic Hope pads. They’re very good, lots of power, lots of control.

Thanks for the comments all! Much appreciated

V4’s have a lot less modulation than E4’s don’t they? (I’ve only car park tested them though so not much of a review).

SRAM Codes for power and modulation currently isn’t it? see recent thread on here.

Load of power on the Magura but I found it slightly at the expense of modulation. Reliable in use and the levers seem very tough (it’s just the butt clench moment every time you take a tool to one of the bolts)

“V4’s have a lot less modulation than E4’s don’t they? (I’ve only car park tested them though so not much of a review).”

No, just as much modulation, if not more. I’ve got E4 with 183mm rotors on one bike, V4 with 203mm on the other, both with Tech 3 levers. Also had M4 Race Evo which felt the same as the E4 but the levers weren’t as adjustable.

Check out the Galfer rotors – the 223mm ones are getting good reviews.

V4 all the way. I’d say the vented rotors aren’t needed unless you’re doing full downhill runs.

How about fitting some shimano levers to the magura calipers, quite a common mod from some of the German forums I have seen.

Otherwise, I really like my formula Cura 4.

How about fitting some shimano levers to the magura calipers

That is what I’ve done and it works a treat especially as I like Shimano’s XT levers.  Only small annoyance was finding the levers didn’t come with the bit that screws into the lever so I had a delay while I ordered a couple

Keep the Magura! They’re much, much more powerful than the Hopes and better modulated than the Shimano.

ETA – The levers on Magura are NOT PLASTIC.

I’ve been running them on several bikes for a few years and i’ve never had any issues with the plastic bleed screw. Just don’t gorilla tighten stuff and you’ll be fine.

The Maguras are heat brakes. I love Hopes for the ability to rebuild them but that Maguras are very good. The plastic screws are annoying but the brakes work very well.

Just make sure you have a few spare screws in your toolbox in case you need one.

Thanks guys! It’s tempting to upgrade to the MT7s then just to try them out but that’s a £200 option, and with just selling the MT5s is a break even for Hopes…… very undecided!

Would TRP Slate T4 with 200mm rotors be worth considering?

@ralston88

I love my MT7’s, everyone I ride with who is on shimanos is impressed by how powerful they feel compared to their own with light one finger braking. But I do notice that they take a little time to warm up. The first few minutes of riding I do have to be aware that they aren’t quite up to speed yet.

I don’t really know if that’s to do with scrubbing off something on the surface that builds up due to where I keep the bike or just the system getting up to operating temp.

I did bodge up one of the bleed screws. But once you learn you never do it again. Can get spares for a couple quid. There was a thread a while back and I mentioned about how you dont really need to screw in the bleed screws tight to secure a seal, once the o-ring is seated the seal is made so tightening much more makes no difference, just needs light torque to seat and that’s it. Once you get that they seem to be ok.

Can’t comment on durability of levers as I’ve not had any major wipeouts yet to test them. But a few odd smashes and they’re still going strong.

I would say I don’t like the two finger levers on the MT5 and much prefer the one finger lever that comes with the MT7. I’d imagine the levers are better for larger handed riders.

And yeah I’m also waiting for if/when I destroy the levers to mix and match with Shimano levers.

Is it just me or does anyone else think modern Hope rotors wear out ridiculously fast 😕

Thanks mate, I didn’t know that MT5s had different shaped levers to MT7s! If I was going to keep the Maguras I should have ordered the MT7s. I have the MT5s on the order and can’t change it as already been waiting 14 weeks so can’t delay it any longer!

Interesting point about them getting upto temp, not come across that before. I think based on everything I’ll be going for the Hope V4s, Hope floating discs 220F / 200R and be running them on organic pads and switch to metallic in the rear in Alps to just run the full hope system. There’s still a large part of me that wants to try the MDP-R rotors but it doesn’t make too much sense bearing in mind all the positive reviews on the Hope discs.

Thanks everyone for the comments, much appreciated!

@dyna-ti Haha just posted that I heard they are good! Should I run the Magura MDP-R rotors instead as they are 2mm? I have never worn out an Ice Tech rotor before and put many a hard mile on 180mm discs for a couple of years

In all honesty I think its just down to people using metal pads, and the wee bits of metal are grinding their way around causing grooves.

I’ve tried the MT5 with both the large and small levers. The small levers feel a bit nicer, the big ones offer more power and potentially make it a bit trickier to get your dropper/gears in the right place if you’re using the shiftmix clamps. I’m totally used to them now though so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Obviously, I just use one finger, even thought they are referred to as “two finger” levers.