Hi there. I need a bit of help. I have just brought a secondhand Genesis single speed for an absolute steal. The guy who sold it had knee troubles and only rode it for a couple of weeks. He has actually upgraded lots of stuff on the bike including the disc brakes. They are currently the new style XT discs. My question is this, I ride my brakes American stlye as oppossed to UK. Meaning my rear brake is on the right. All my bikes are set up this way. I want to swop the hoses over from its current Uk set up. Is it just a case of swapping the hoses carefully, making sure that I dont pull the lever at any point or do they need to be bled after the swap? I dont have a bleed kit for Shimano brakes so hoping it will me a simple swap?

Matt

You might get away with it, but bleeding them is REALLY easy…. all you need is a 8mm IIRC spanner and a small length of tube.

… oh and some mineral oil

why are your brakes the wrong way round?

if they’re not combined shifter/brake levers you could just swap the whole levers over without disconnecting anything.

thomthumb as stated I ride American stlye. I used to race BMX as a kid and the first proper BMX I ever had was a Mongoose Supergoose. It only had one brake, a rear and that was set up on the right. So I learnt to ride, wheelie, skid and do all my BMX trick with the brake on the right. When I graduated to Mountain Bikes in 1987 I did the same and swapped all the cable brakes over to the American way. I am now 40 and its hard to teach an old dog new tricks so still ride that way.

Matt

Easy! Take out your wheels, and pull the levers a couple of times to move the pistons out a bit, but make sure you don’t pop ’em.

Then, witht eh bike the right way up and the levers level, take off the top caps. Now you can simply swap the hoses at the levers.

Once connected, push the pistons on the calipers back in. any air in the hose will only have made it into the first few cm, and will be pushed back into the reserviour.

Re-attach the topcaps and realign the lever, put in the wheels and test ‘n’ ride.

theflatboy: I have done that in the past with Hayes 9 brakes and with my current set up with Avid Juicy 7’s but they are all ambidextres levers, the Shimano XT is not.

Matt

’tis easy to bleed the brakes, and you don’t need a bleed kit. A length of windscreen washer hose (Halfords, £3 for a lot, £3ish), a clear plastic bag, a 7mm spanner and some oil (<50ml) for the brakes is all you’ll need. (Tip: use the Magura “Royal Blood” stuff if there’s the OE red Shimano stuff. Makes it a LOT easier to see when there’s fresh fluid throughout the system. Same stuff, just a different colour).