I am going to change the brakes on Fuel ex as the AVid juicy 3’s have not been great. They are 185mm front and rear

I have 3 options

Cheap, fairly fool proof. Merlin cyles deore 595 with new 160mm rotors and adaptors. £120. 160mm will be fine in Bedfordshire and trail centres etc. If I head for the real mountains I’ll get a bigger front disc on the never never

Buy slx brakes from chain reaction cycles without rotors or adaptors. Chainreaction website just crashed but cheaper then buying with new rotors. Risky as I’m mixing brands

slx full et from merlin . Go for the 205mm front disc up drade. £177. The benefit here is the pads sit futher out when not in use….

any thoughts…..

would not buy deore personally as i doubt they will be better than Avid 3. Have you tried the classifieds as you will get something used for much less than that price

I run XT brakes with Avid disks and have had no problems.

I have done a bit of hanging around the classifieds. My bike is huge so I recon used may well have been shortened and therefore need a new line and bleed. I understand shimano will arrive with long lines bled

I don’t really need better performance just better reliability. I was about to embark on a rebuild but you can’t get juicy 3 seals kits

thanks for your input

cheers swedish chef. Out of interest what disc size?

I use XC racing size, so “only” 140.

I have the Deore 595, SLX’x and XT’s. I’d not buy the deore again although they are OK, i wish i’d spent a bit extra on another set of SLX. In their defence, i run them 180/160 compared to 203/180 on the SLX and XT. SLX and XT have the servowave which i think is worth the extra.

You will almost certainly have to cut the cables regardless as they are very long. I had to cut mine on a 23″ Hardtail and 22″ FS.

Cheers Mr tall…..

I’m a skin flint but it could be slx….

Your Avid rotors will fetch a decent price secondhand, so you can buy some 180mm ones.

BTW, if you’re on a budget, after upgrading all my brake rotors to the shimano floating ones i have a spare set of standard XT 180/203 if you are interested.