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Havnt got a fortune to spend, maybe 300 for the pair as a maximum, interested in some Avids.
Merlin seem cheap for these, from their selection what would anyone recommend as best for a 5 inch travel trail bike, for general xc/trail/peak district riding?
Latest versions of Saint, XT, or SLX are all very good.
SLX for £170 or XT for £200 I wouldn't go down Avid road.
Elixir 5s are very good and pretty cheap.
XT from Ribble Cycles. Cost bobbins, work great.
Likewise SLX from Ribble for about £140 all in. Why pay more?
I got the Avid CR Mags from Merlin £279,found them easy to fit,and powerful out of the box.You need olives and a bleed kit to shorten the hoses,olives from Merlin,but I used a Quad brake bleed kit from Allteraincycles,it's less than half the price of the Avid kit.Bleed is a bit of a faff first time,but the brakes were easy to set up,and powerful,I'm well pleased with them.NB I got the 185 rotors,total weight 840gm IIRC,weighed on the kitchen scales.
Ian
P.S. I've had Shimano XT and Deore,Hope Minis and M4s,and the M4s were the only ones as good as the Avids.
Another shimano fan here.
would those be the same ones that exploded their fluid on the mega? Having said that Sam's SLXs are very nice for the price, though Craig's deores were shockingly poor.work great.
I still prefer the 'feel' of juicys. If you're a weight weenie look at martas or any formulas. But SLX makes a lot of sense for the money.
Hope tech x2's (shop around for well less than £300) £10extra for braided hoses easy to rebuild no stupid bleed kits,bombproof construction cheap parts what else can you say.
Shimano here too. I have Deore, XT and new SLX. All great and low price, low hassle. Have had Avid Juicy 5s which are OK if you like constant fettling, hard to fit pads and fade due to overheating.
SLX are very good indeed. Surprisingly powerful set of anchors and better than my similarly aged Hopes that's for sure. Not as pretty though 😉
Hadnt really considered shimano but hear they are good, and most importantly dead quiet even when wet of accidentally sprayed with GT85- what are the XTR ones like? Merlin selling them for 229 at the moment.
Mine exploded because I smashed into a rock and put a hole in the reservoir cap! It wasn't just spontaneous leaking around the reservoir.
Elixir r with ashima air rotors.
£229 for heavy brakes with relatively little power would not be a wise choice. My choice for that kind of money would be formula rx. much more powerful and much lighter (100g per end) or save a wad and go slx for more power and slighlty more weight.
.. Suppose that's fair enough!smashed into a rock and put a hole in the reservoir cap
have a look at ribble website - I bought a set of new XT's last week for £133, ex rotors
I'd have hopes for the rebuildability
Shimano are great value for money tho until you need spares or repairs when you have to bin them.
As TJ said. Hope just work, great modulation, simple to bleed, and they look great. Merlin have Tech X2's for £104, or about £135 with rotor and adaptor
Edit - and I found pistons used to stick fairly regularly on Shimano's which doesn't happen on Hopes
Interestingly Teej, having bashed a hole in my reservoir cap, that spare is now on order from the wealth of spares available from Madison and my brake will be fixed by the end of the week.
and I found pistons used to stick fairly regularly on Shimano's which doesn't happen on Hopes
LOL (was a joke wasn't it ?)...I binned my Hopes after too many problems sticky / stuck pistons.
+1 for the saints all you need in the box to shorten the hoses, bought mine from tredz I think it was £250 not including rotors