What do we think of them?

Have been running the £20 ones for a few months with no problems.

incredible insight..

Why would you get anything other than Goodridge, is my question.

Why would you get anything other than Goodridge, is my question.

because it is a lot cheaper.

slimjim78 – Member
incredible insight..

Are you always such a **** or have you been drinking?
What more can you say they work – do the job required etc, etc.

zangolin, What brakes are you using, I saw the hoses and wondered if they were the same size as stock shimano.

Hope V2 – yes 5mm diameter same as standard Shimano – Goodridge/Hope braided = 6mm. Although when you trim the outer casing off the Goodridge for fitting the olive etc diameter will = 5mm.

The Goodridge fittings are why I buy Goodridge not so much the hose – Goodridge make Hope braided hose. IMO braided hose is braided hose.

JImmAwelon – Member
The Goodridge fittings are why I buy Goodridge not so much the hose – Goodridge make Hope braided hose. IMO braided hose is braided hose.

Superstar hoses use braided kevlar as opposed to stainless steel braid in Goodridge/Hope.

Tried some. Failed on first application of brakes, hose popped out past olive.

Trimmed ends and tried again. Same again.

Threw it in the bin, refitted the standard avid one and vowed never to buy anything from superstar again.

Take from that what you will…

Zangolin sorry for my mistake but steel vs kevlar braids – I doubt anyone has any lab results for that!

M1lh0use’s issue was down to the Superstar fittings. Compression fittings use olives and even Hopes comprssion fittings leak into the braid of their cables after a few years. Goodridge fittings screw in with no need for an olive.

M1lh0use’s issue was down to the Superstar fittings. Compression fittings use olives and even Hopes comprssion fittings leak into the braid of their cables after a few years. Goodridge fittings screw in with no need for an olive.

I used Hope fittings with my SS hose – so no experience of using the SS fittings.

Jim,

The kevlar will flex. So you have your regular stock hoses, that are slightly more durable, where the GoodRidge SS hoses don’t bulge out, keeping a very constitant bite to your braking.
I also prefer bleeding brakes with the GR fittings. Sometimes a pain to do, but super solid and they wont pop off.
Also, they don’t do the weirdo molded bend like most tubing gets stuck to. You can bend the internal casing to be rigth how you want it to be.
Worth the extra £8.

Like I said before the Goodridge fittings are why I bought Goodridge not so much the hose. I have 4 brakes all with their stainless steel fittings and stainless steel hose. No problems since fitting any of them over 5 years ago.

The kevlar will flex. So you have your regular stock hoses, that are slightly more durable, where the GoodRidge SS hoses don’t bulge out, keeping a very constitant bite to your braking.

Not quite true..
The point of a braided hose is to use the tensile properties of the braid to reduce hose swelling. To select a material for this braid, one would consider the tensile modulus/stiffness/E of a material. Under tension kevlar has a stiffness of between 62 and 190 GPa – depending on which grade you use, stainless steel has a stiffness of 200GPa regardless of grade. Kevlar has a density that is 20% of stainless steels Thus for the same diameter wire used for braiding, the specific stiffness of the least stiff kevlar braid is approx double that of a stainless braid. If one of the stiffer kevlars is used then this specific stiffness increases futher in kevlars favour. Although I would imagine that the kevlar braid in the superstar hoses is made of thinner kevlar wire so that you can have lighter hoses.

I have know idea of the quality of superstar hoses (in my experience superstar kit is as good as any other leading brand) but the concept of a kevlar braided hydraulic hose, implemented correctly, is excellent.

What’s the point of braided hoses again?

Is this another motorsport spin-off like floating rotors, which make bugger all difference other than asthetics?

To make you part with your money.

Is that condensed enough for you?

Is this another motorsport spin-off like floating rotors which make bugger all difference other than asthetics?

Probably. My avid elixir 5’s are very powerful with normal hoses and 203 rotors. I’m a 14 stone heavy braker..

Do any brakes ship with braided hoses, I wonder what opinions the brake manufacturers have about their normal hoses “bulging” under load?

I seem to remember avid once saying not to use braided hose on the juicy. The hope v2 ships with braided hose. Also, over 1.5 m, the hope braided hose weighs 60 grms more than the poly hose. I still like braided hose though.

Yeah when I said kevlar braiding was an excellent idea – I meant to reduce bulging whilst saving weight, if its neccesary on mtb brakes is a bit of a subjective thing. I’m happy with normal hoses. In fact I downgraded my brakes on my dh bike from saintm810 to elixirs as I found I couldn’t modulate the saints very well, they seemed , dare I say it, too powerful. And I was advised by a couple of very fast racers that they thought they were too powerful too! Whilst braided hoses will be more efficient, for some people (like ham fisted me) they may well be too good. I will bet there are other, more subtle fingered, people who can feel the difference and capitalise on it. All power to them.

To be honest i am only interested because they come in colours and are relatively cheap. performance, who cares that much, brakes are there to slow you down.

I’m using now the non braided Superstar Kevlar hose and it seems fine. It works, need I say anymore?

I was considering the SSC braided hoses but was put off by the reviews.
If you’re after something to add a bit of colour I can recommend the clarks hoses (usually cheap on CRC), the performance is as good as standard hoses and they look nice. They’ve also recently changed their fittings (on the hayes hoses at least), they’re good quality. I’ve fitted three sets and they’ve always bled spot on first time.
I then decided that the bright green hoses I had didnt suit my black and white frame so went for some braided ones, hence looking at the SSC. In the end I went for the universal hope ones (kit 0), worked out around £50 all in for both brakes from merlin with their VIP discount. The hope fittings were a bit of a faf to erm, fit. The hardest part was fitting the olive over the braided part of the hose after removing the plastic coating, I opened them up slightly with some long nose pliers. Overall it was worth it as the hoses are tasty, as said above i think they’re made by goodridge.
If I were to buy braided hoses again i’d probably go for goodridge to avoid the hassle of the hope fittings but if I couldn’t stretch to the extra cash for goodridge I’d buy the hope again (if that makes sense).

One other thing, I noticed that there’s some very cheap braided hoses on disco brakes, they come with fittings already so wont’ fit all brakes and I only noticed them after i got the hopes so didnt look into it that much. May be worth a go though!

Goodridge make Hope braided hose.

Things may have changed in the last few years but Goodridge do not make their own hose – it was (guess still is) made in Brighouse, West Yorks…. I know, I’ve seen may a metre come off the braiders – I used to sell it to Goodridge 😉
Hope – not too sure there – at the time they wanted a smaller bore hose which our MD would not let us make…

Wether braided hose makes any difference to performance in our sport is another question all together – we (the company) had hydrostatic test rigs to test expansion of our braided hose. Expansion was < 2/3rds of bugger all when simulating auto-sport situations whereas, expansion in ‘std rubber’ auto brake hose has considerably more = a real performance advantage… Oddly enough, we never tested stock MTB brake hose – I was there as hydraulics for MTB we but a twinkle in Mr Hopes’ eye. 😉

Agree re: Goodridge fittings – very high quality IMO.

I come at this from a motorbike perspective, where people used to get very excited about what was better hose- Goodridge or HEL or Aerotek. Lots of people could feel the performance difference, or knew that one was easier to bleed than the other, or lasted longer, or was more damage resistant, even though they were all exactly the same. (and of course, people replaced 20-year-old rubber hose with old fluid in, then said “Braided hoses are amazing, what an upgrade”)

I can’t tell any difference between the Superstar 4-braid ones and the original Formula hoses, they even look the same and the fittings are compatible (though not identical. Both work fine, mind, the Superstar ones are a bit heavier and attach differently)