SRAM Guide rs brakes v Shimano XT

I suspect 62.7% of all comments regarding brakes can be explained by:

– whether the rotors are clean
– whether then pads are in good condition
– whether the system is bled properly
– and most importantly, if the pads have been bed-in properly

Once you have sorted all these things, THEN you can compare two brakesets.

Same bike as mine,it will be a real pain if I do end up swapping them out as the gear selector is mounted to the righthand brake clamp and the dropper remote on the left.

I got a T130 Works that came with Guide RS brakes. I’d had some Avid Elixir 7s on a previous bike and wasn’t impressed (they got swapped for Hopes), so wasn’t expecting to like the Guides. Having used them over the last year though they have been just fine (including riding in Wales, Alps and other hilly / mountain locations). No problems at all. I’ve got three other bikes with XTs on and they also work fine. I had planned to put XTs on the Whyte just to keep everything the same but don’t really see any need to.

Once you have sorted all these things, THEN you can compare two brakesets.

Lol. It’s the lever action that people don’t like on the XT, it cams, so it has a falling rate, as opposed to the Guides that have a rising rate.

To me, it make much more sense that the more you squeeze, the more you slow down.

To others, they like to lock up immediately.

The rest is sponginess, noise, etc… That’s to so with setup.

I’ve found that the shimano 2 pots just don’t cut it power wise on the front. Now running a Zee 4 Pot and it’s great 1 finger braking all the time.