Lewis brakes – any good?

Im not sure why these brakes are getting so much hate

Just my opinion, but it feels like it’s a combination of the blatant copying of trickstuff combined with the “reviews” that feel, shall we say, less than genuine.

Because they’re stolen. Purchasers have bought someone’s stolen intellectual property, justifying it by saying it happens all the time and it’s inevitable. That’s a pretty awful attitude.

If you can’t afford the real deal, work harder or reset your expectations. Don’t facilitate what is essentially state-approved industrial crime.

I wasn’t the one which said it happens all the time.

I could afford to buy trick stuff if I wanted, however after watching a lot of reviews on them, the bleed port is in a crap position and there is no bite point so to me the Lewis are better.

For the money I spent on them I was willing to take a risk on them. I was more curious to try them out.

As for company copying brakes, so if they’d made them look different, that would have been OK? I’m sure lots of companies copied  other companies tech and just changed it slightly. Whoever brought the first disc brakes out has surely been copied by everyone else.

Ask the Tweed Valley locals what they think of him.

🤣

Ask the Tweed Valley locals what they think of him.

Also, I’d argue he’s anything but genuine, after a cursory glance at their instagram page, shall we play guess who is on there doing a ‘like & subscribe’ to win a set of these brakes 😆🙄

I’ve absolutely no idea who he is. I only came across his video the other week.

Yes I’ve seen his insta for the win a set of brakes.

Can someone shed some light on the tweed valley reference? Who is this Alex dude then?

One thing that is pretty much guaranteed, is if that freeloading prick is doing a “review”, there’s got to be something in it for him.

I must say, the uk importer have a truly beautiful premises. I’d fully expect their corporate liability insurance to openly and honestly include exactly what they’re distributing. Possibly under the umbrella of “bike partz” (sic.)

Wow some incredible hate towards the brakes, the importer and Alex.

Can someone please explain to me why Alex is hated round these parts so bad?

Let’s say Lewis brakes could turn out to be one of the best brakes available? Are people on here going to turn their noses up at them because they don’t like where they are made and they copied someone else’s look, seriously?

Remind me where sram and shimano are made please.

I DGAF where they are made. What IP have SRAM or Shimano stolen? That’s the issue here.

I’m amazed any legitimate business will touch them with a 10ft pole.

That’s because they’re stolen. Ripped off. Plagiarised. Like an 80’s Hong Kong Rolex, one of Del Boy’s Tags or a Definitely not a Fiat PandaGreat Wall Peri.

Can someone please explain to me why Alex is hated round these parts so bad?

I’d no idea who he was before seeing that video but it’s pretty bad form to not declare in the video when you’re reviewing kit you’ve been sent for free.

(no skin in this game at all; genuine curiosity)

I thought that trickstuff’s big gains were said to result from manufacturing quality rather than technical innovation – or am I mistaken ?  What has this Lewis company actually copied ?

Alex is somewhat special.

Lets just say that in all my years being involved with biking in the Tweed Valley, I have never came across somebody so universally hated/loathed, and that takes some doing in the valley given the number of “personalities” that seem to exist there. But it’s not restricted to the valley. Mate got chatting to a random group of bikers from Alex’s old turf, and they said it was the same there 🤣

However the major point is he only appears to be interested in his own self promotion, and will not hesitate to use other peoples work for his own benefit, or consider how his behaviour affects others.

Somewhat ironically, the only person he does seem get on with, also has the name of these brakes. But two peas in a pod springs to mind…

Alex is somewhat special.

Lets just say that in all my years being involved with biking in the Tweed Valley, I have never came across somebody so universally hated/loathed, and that takes some doing in the valley given the number of “personalities” that seem to exist there. But it’s not restricted to the valley. Mate got chatting to a random group of bikers from Alex’s old turf, and they said it was the same there 🤣

However the major point is he only appears to be interested in his own self promotion, and will not hesitate to use other peoples work for his own benefit, or consider how his behaviour affects others.

Somewhat ironically, the only person he does seem get on with, also has the name of these brakes. But two peas in a pod springs to mind…

Haven’t you just described all youtubers? That’s their game.

Lewis is a s*** name for a bike component company.

For that reason I am out.

Haven’t you just described all youtubers? That’s their game.

Decent ones will at least acknowledge other peoples work, and not continue to abuse others work once called out.

They’ll also not complain about being bullied, because they think a trail was named “to have a go at them” (the trail in question’s name, was selected long before the builder was even aware of Alex, and simply continued the naming theme of the builder’s previous trail on the same hill).

My trail on the same hill, however was a more direct dig at influencers, but none of them have ever seemed to have used it, as I don’t think the name would go down too well with their followers 🙄

I must say, the uk importer have a truly beautiful premises.

Well, the product is a bit of a gamble eh?

Well, the product is a bit of a gamble eh?

It was as I couldn’t find anyone I knew with a set of these brakes due to them being so new.

I’m pleased to say they are a quality item and probably the best brakes I’ve used

It was as I couldn’t find anyone I knew with a lack of scruples and moral righteousness set of these brakes due to them being so new.

I’m pleased to say they are a quality item and probably the best brakes I’ve used.

Fixed it for you. Please report back in a year.

I know crazy. I’ve found what arguably is the best brake I’ve felt and people are going berserk that I’ve spent my own money on a product. You’d think I’ve done something illegal.
Lewis haven’t done anything different to any other company who use ideas from other products. It’s hard to understand peoples hatred. They need to calm down.

Fixed it for you. Please report back in a year.

I can feel your anger.

Why are you so angry about these brakes.

Was it wrong of me to spend my own money buying them? If the Hope brakes were better, I’d have bought those.

Happy to come back in a year and report on them. If they turn out to be crap I’ll happily say so. If they are still good in a few months, I’m tempted to buy another set of their ti model.

How long have you had them? You were only asking about them just over a week ago?

To be fair that’s long enough for recent hope calipers to start leaking and my OH to kill me if I’d spent Trickstuff ammounts.

Meh, arseholes have been a scene staple for years, I know one top ranking DH rider that had a serious (inherited) attitude problem that went as far as seemingly denying any SDA participation after a run in for poor behaviour.

My trail on the same hill, however was a more direct dig at influencers, but none of them have ever seemed to have used it, as I don’t think the name would go down too well with their followers

There’s a decent choice but I’m going with Only Fools Follow? And the other one being in the vicinity?

Why are you so angry about these brakes.

People who’ve bought Trickstuff will be pissed off because the original versions of these brakes are what? 3 times the price? And here’s some-one taking them for mugs. Importing brakes that they hope will sell well simply becasue they look very similar to those brakes, and people will buy them on that basis,. After all, that’s why these have been made to look like they have; so that people will confuse/assume they are the same brakes, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to understand that.

Was it wrong of me to spend my own money buying them?

Your money, your morals. But see above, if you want Trickstuff brakes, buy them. This is no better than buying knock off fags or booze from dodgy Del in the Dog and Whistle. Would you buy forks from him that were made by a company you’d never come across before; Livingstone Inc and Just happened to be that shade of orange, and had shiny gold stanchions?

People who’ve bought Trickstuff will be pissed off because the original versions of these brakes are what? 3 times the price? And here’s some-one taking them for mugs. I……………..

Your money, your morals. But see above, if you want Trickstuff brakes, buy them. This is no better than buying knock off fags

Visually they’re undeniably similar.

But as pointed out on the last page, the engineering seems different (different piston sizes etc).

So either someone’s done a really bad copy of Trickstuff and halfassed it with their own piston sizes.

Or someone’s done a really good copy, and then R&D’d it further to make even more power.

Or they’ve developed them from scratch and just nicked Trickstuffs aesthetic.

Either way I’m still struggling to get worked up over it. Did trickstuff nick that little brace/nub thing off Shimano, or did Shimano nick it from Trickstuff?

People who’ve bought Trickstuff will be pissed off because the original versions of these brakes are what? 3 times the price?

Couldn’t give less of a shit. Had these been available 5 years ago, still copying TS, I wouldn’t have bought them.

Did trickstuff nick that little brace/nub thing off Shimano

No.

Nickc no one is confusing them with trick stuff. People getting angry about these brakes is laughable. In fact it probably suggests how good they are.

If they were crap and literally terrible quality and didn’t work, but just looked like trickstuff there would be no anger towards them because they’d never take off.

Comparing it to buying dodgy fags is pathetic. I’ve bought them from the distributor and paid VAT on them. Money is changing hands in this country legitimately and not going direct to China.

I struggle to see what your issue is.

I was willing to check/test these brakes out because I’d heard good things about them and they were a new product I’d not used before.

I don’t rate the quality of sram/shimano. Yes they work well but have a cheap feel to them.

Nickc no one is confusing them with trick stuff

Uh huh, that they look completely identical is entirely coincidental, right?

I struggle to see what your issue is.

China’s lack of respect of any ones IP. Trickstuff is a teeny company, they employ 3-4 people; something like that, these will effect their bottom line, simple as that, If I started importing steel frames and called them Kotic, at a third of the price, how’d that be? Doing stuff like this forces people out of business, and that’s a shitty thing to do

And that the two different models of lever match the look of the two that Trickstuff make, also coincidence.

I don’t rate the quality of sram/shimano. Yes they work well but have a cheap feel to them.

They don’t even “work well” though.

Sram lever pistons swell, it’s been a known issue for over a decade but they’ve not fixed it.

Shimano calipers leak, or at least did from ~8 years ago to sometime recently. Touch wood my current set are OK.

Hope’s recent overhaul of it’s lineup resulted in leaky caliper piston seals.

That’s what’s so bizarre about this outrage, the two biggest OEM’s and probably the the most popular aftermarket brake manufacturers all either have in recent history made brakes bad enough for people to swear off them, or in some cases seemingly still do! Quite how they get away with not having to do a safety recall I’ve no idea.

But then people are saying they wouldn’t trust the quality of a different brake? Objectively it’d be hard to gather a worse reputation for reliability.

What rotors are you running with these OP?

How do they compare to say Shimano XT or Saints? Or even Sram Code R’s

I’m going to be on the lookout for a new brakeset to replace the Code R on my Levo. The front is fine but the rear is spongy (Despite a bleed) and the pistons are operating at different times. Fed up of having defective kit.

Cheers 

Steve

It’s getting a bit personal for some reason.

Having bumped into Alex twice at the golfie my brief encounter with him on both occasions was as pleasant as it was meeting anyone else out riding there bike .

I would say that whilst they resemble the appearance of trickstuff they are a well renowned slick highly regarded cnc company who have been trading in the automotive and medical industry for nearly 20 years and there factory is one of envy in China .

They have breached no copyright or patents so whilst morally you could argue a case I honestly think there are for more important things for people to vent such frustration on.

Buy them and be happy your actually buying something made in china that is actually very good

Don’t buy them and be none the wiser and stick with what you like

Dont forget sram and shimano now both have factories in Taiwan and mainland China

And there not exactly bulletproof

But remember when your typing your angst your doing it on a iPhone or Samsung made in china .

The issue isn’t the function of the brakes, or how other brakes work or not. It’s that they’ve ripped off the design/look quite so blatantly.

Would you buy forks from him that were made by a company you’d never come across before; Livingstone Inc and Just happened to be<em style=”box-sizing: border-box; –tw-translate-x: 0; –tw-translate-y: 0; –tw-rotate: 0; –tw-skew-x: 0; –tw-skew-y: 0; –tw-scale-x: 1; –tw-scale-y: 1; –tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; –tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; –tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; –tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); –tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’;”>thatshade of orange, and had shiny gold stanchions?

I think I raised a similar point on a previous page.

I’m not particularly angry, I’m just baffled why people are buying no-name, knock-off brakes (for more than a good set of Shimano) but apparently not other key lookylikey components from AliExpress.

Must simply be due to the YouTube influencer marketing.

@Matlockmeat

I’m with you buddy 100%

Nickc is actually a really really nice guy but I don’t agree with him here

We all are entitled to an opinion but it’s got far too silly especially as Christmas is around the corner

Come on folks don’t get to upset about such trivia

They don’t even “work well” though.

Sram lever pistons swell, it’s been a known issue for over a decade but they’ve not fixed it.

This is the reason I was on the lookout for some new brakes. My sram made it to about 3.5 years.

Uh huh, that they look completely identical is entirely coincidental, right?

Sorry I think there was a bit of confusion there. You said people will confuse/assume they are the same brake as trick stuff.

I was saying that’s not the case here. I knew they were not trick stuff and I think anyone would be naive to get them mixed up. We all know it’s a completely different brand.

What rotors are you running with these OP?

How do they compare to say Shimano XT or Saints? Or even Sram Code R’s

I’m going to be on the lookout for a new brakeset to replace the Code R on my Levo. The front is fine but the rear is spongy (Despite a bleed) and the pistons are operating at different times. Fed up of having defective kit.

Cheers

Steve

I’m running galfer shark rotors.

I’m not 100% convinced on the stock pads that came with the Lewis brakes yet so may swap them out for some Galfer purple pads. (They use the same pads as Hope V4)

If you’re local, you are welcome to have a try.

Trickstuff is a teeny company, they employ 3-4 people; something like that, these will effect their bottom line, simple as that,

Trickstuff are part of DT Swiss, so not really a teeny company even if the division itself doesn’t employ many people.

I’m not 100% convinced on the stock pads that came with the Lewis brakes yet so may swap them out for some Galfer purple pads. (They use the same pads as Hope V4)

I’ve found hope greens to be a big improvement in feel and noise. It’s E4 not V4 pads though.

Nice brakes bro.

Wanna buy some Five Tens?

It’s not necessarily the fact they’re Chinese that’s the issue. It’s the fact they’ve taken an aesthetic, scanned it and generated a cutting path to replicate it. There was no need to do that.

It happens in many industries and I’ve seen the direct impact it has on companies my friends run. One of which has dropped down to a 4 day week as some cockjangler has done exactly this to one of their main product lines. 15 people now on 80% of their salary, right here in the North East.

In another instance I bought an oil cooler take off plate for an engine. I wanted a mocal but they were out of stock, so I bought a forge as they appeared to be identical – even having the mocal badge on the casting. A year later and I needed to replace the base o-ring on it so I phoned mocal, knowing they keep a hope-like spares inventory. It transpired they don’t make anything for forge & forge had simply used one of theirs to make a pattern to cast off. You can see their joke machining over the mocal badge that they failed to remove in the casting process.

Mocal are essentially a couple of boffins in a shed in Twickenham.  Forge are a massive motorsports behemoth but are apparently notorious for this.  It’s a practice that stinks, with patents and simple copyrights seemingly impossible to enforce without the backing of the likes of Bayer or Sony.