160 nuke mega with a reasonably quick 13 stoner (probably and a half after christmas) on board.
Currently running avid 9 trails which were great but I’ve now snapped one bit of the lever clamp which has twisted the lever away from the bars and I’ve missed the grab a couple of times now, which is quite frankly sphincter twitching when cracking on a bit.
Don’t want to spend the earth and would like a pair so that they (iknow) match.

Mantel have Magura MT5s at £70 an end.

Light, powerful, great modulation and a long warranty.

shimano deore are pretty faultless

Shimano M445 RH lever M396 caliper, very long hose (trim it) for £17.50 at Merlin.

Good, cheap and reliable. Not the lightest or prettiest but who cares?

Canyon were selling XTs off, need to swap levers over

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psa-xt-785-brakes

Is that just on the canyon website? Had a look but can’t find brakes.

They were only 24 hour daily sales on canyon

They are still on. You need to go to the site and then into the factory outlet. Some xtrs on as well

Shimano SLX are a value that’s hard to beat. Only down side is that the levers don’t have the bite point adjustment that XTs have, but they are compatible if you want to change levers later down the road. The calipers are basically the same though.

I am just about to pull the trigger lever on a new set of MT5’s myself.

I recently upgraded my brakes.

Hayes Radar are insufficient to properly stop a 200lb rider and a 30lb bike and ended up not stopping a few times, it hurt.

I went with Shimano SLX M675 from chainreactioncycles . The stopping power and modulation is very confidence inspiring. They can even be used effectively while recovering from a hand injury. Bonus.

The new version is the M7000 I believe and can be had for $74.99 each.

Deores do brake very well. A decent upgrade you get on the SLX is the adjustable banjo where the hose joins the caliper. This might be important or meh, depending on your cable routing.

Hard to see past Shimano Deores – they manage to bring my 16st to a halt pretty quickly, especially with a 200mm front rotor.

they’ve been faultless, and have never squeaked/squealed.
Unlike the poxy (and expensive) Shimano hydros on my Arkose.