Magura Martas – an insight.

i bought a pair of Magura Martas recently and have ridden with them a couple of times on the local heath (for a grand total of lets say two hours) and done two peaks night rides in the wet (total of lets say 5 hours).

First complaint is the front brake had to be upgraded to a 203mm because of some IS/Post problems. Since the upgrade the brake sqeaks and squaks (like the pads are contaminated a lil bit)…but its not possible! Feels like it might be due to the bigger rotor size, the brake is never that powerful. It’s not possible to face the mount…because there is an IS mount involved, which should eliminate any shreiking or judder.

They are pretty easy to bleed (and i had to do so after a hose chop). After two weeks the brakes already feel like they could do with another bleed, this seems to be a common complaint on MTBR. Thats really annoying…i’m not a big fan of messing around with brake fluid every 2 weeks.

The brakes also suffer terribly in the peaks in the wet and sand. Firstly there is nearly no power in the wet…i don’t know if its possible to fit better pads (but i think there might be an issue with Magura and sintered)and secondly the pads are nearly gone already 🙁

At £13 a pop for pads thats going to be an expensife hobby. Thats coming from someone who used to make shimano pads last an eternity.

Not terribly pleased…anyone got any advice? What about differnet brands of organic pads?

My 98 Magura Louise still work just fine.

Sounds like your experience of Magura brakes is very different from mine. Had a few sets of Julies and now running 2 pairs of Louise. Never had a problem with them at all. I’ve evn cut hoses on them and never needed to bleed them.
They feel so much more powerful than the Juicy 7 I have on another bike. Also never had problems with pads wearing down like you mention.

Will be interesting to see what others say about them.

Ditched my Marta’s, especially after a couple of Alpine trips. Inconsistent performance for me. You get good ones and bad ones I guess, there will be plenty of people saying they are great.

I have had them on my carbon stumpy,There really prone to piston leak and have been returned under the 5yr warranty on numerous occasions,They are designed to be used with the origional pads,I have heard aftermarket ones have caused problems with fitting,and overheating the caliper!(according to Magura)newer sytems have been modified,its still anoying though as I have had to blead mine loads as well.

Swap them for my juicy 7 carbons plus cash? I’m close to peaks?

Haha. I’m serious re the above, but must say my Louise’s are the best brakes I’ve owned by a country mile.

I have a set of Martas and I’m around 20 stone kitted up and run a 180 front 160 rear and have had no problems with them in 7 years of use.

I’ve had the rear repiped due to it getting a kink in the hose after an accident but apart from changing the pads every so often I’ve not had any problems.

I’ve never heard of brakes squeaking because of a larger rotor, what makes you think that might be the case? Most squealing is either Sintered pads (obviously not in this case) or brake dust contamination. You can face an IS mount BTW

Brakes shouldn’t need bleeding that frequently though, are they leaking anywhere that you can see, have you spoken to Magura about it?

As for longevity, I know that Magura have a pretty stern bedding in regime, did you follow it? Without any sort of bedding in, I wouldn’t expect any resin pads to last long in the Peaks

I have to say, other than having a pad retention pin shear (when changing pads) which was sorted immediately by the warranty crew, I’ve not had any major hassles with martas. I’ve never needed to bleed them much (the tieing levers back to the bars overnight trick solves most hassles) or any other maintainance in the 3-4ish years I’ve had a pair. Infact I like them so much I just got some more for the other half’s bike around Christmas. The only downside is the price of replacement pads, and some of the cheaper options are indeed too thick to work properly- though you could always run a mixed-brand pair, if you get what I mean.

I’d get on the magura forum, contact the UK service guy (I forget the guy who dealt with me, but he was great) and they should be helpful.

c_p.

Mine have been fine (Marta SL’s, with no complaints for 3 years) but I have recently been using Formula The One brakes on my “burlier” bike and they now make the Martas feel like canti’s!

Magura organic pads do benefit immensely from bedding in as per Magura instructions in my experience.

Bedding in with a 203 rotor is probably quite difficult if you are not very heavy.

Mixed bag

18 months old but heavy use and I drag too much. Good stopping and reasonably economical on pads. Front caliper replaced before Xmas due to retaining bolt becoming incapable of extraction – either my overtightening or corrosion between the different metals.

Lever/reservoir on back brake replaced under warranty when it failed to hold pressure, although no evident leak