[Closed] Disc brake recommendations

I've got several sets of Shimano - only issue has been swollen seals with non-shimano brake fluid in one set.  All the others have been great.

SLX is the sweet spot IMO - the caliper has the facility to use the threaded pad retainer pin of XT and it has the banjo hose attachment for getting nice alignment out of the caliper. It also has the nice ceramic pistons shared with XT.  The lever doesn't have the wasteful (useless IME) free stroke adjustment of XT but does gain tool-free reach adjustment over Deore.

If you really need more power then consider Zee or Saint, but with those sized rotors unless you really are very heavy they're not especially necessary.

Deore £24 in CRC.

That’s brilliant thanks. I’m rolling in at 12.5 stone these days. Becoming a bit of a hefer.

If budget allows it, I'd strongly recommend the Guide RE - it's a Guide lever with a Code caliper, so masses of power and really good modulation. Ergonomics of the lever are great too. I've had mine 18 months and they've been faultless, as has every set I know of: Guide RE

I’d recommend Shimano SLX too. I like Sram when they are working but mine have been more unreliable and they are a PITA to bleed compare to Shimano. Riding the South Downs even those rotors sound a bit of overkill.

I don’t get why anyone would think rotor sizes can be overkill on brakes. Do bigger rotors add much more bite or do they just allow for more cooling on longer runs?

I’ve got the same brakes on two bikes - 1 has 200/180, the other has 160/160. They feel broadly similar in use - although the bigger rotor’d bike sees a lot more fast rocky runs. But when I use it locally on slow stuff I don’t ever think it feels overbraked.

Magura MT5 are great brakes. Very powerful (more than Zees) but still with good modulation

I’ve read good things and bad things about most brakes.

Shimano - can have an inconsistent lever feel and leak from the caliper. I had first hand experience on the weekend of this on a mates bike. On Friday we were uplifting and every first pull of the brakes at the top the lever pulled to the bar then pumped back up where it should be. Disconcerting - slx brakes. I also had some older deores and I’m not sure if they had a minute leak that I couldn’t find or if they just weren’t very good. They never had decent power and seemed to need a few brakes before they started working.

Sram - had 3 pairs of Guides - all perfect so far. But early ones seem to have pistons that swell in very hot weather according to forum stuff. I find they’re ok to bleed but other don’t. Would like to try Guide re’s or Codes at some point.

Magura - either amazing or troublesome depending on the bleed. I’d love to try some of their 4 pots for the power, but with the 1 finger upgrade levers. Recent thread somewhere on these.

Hope - I haven’t had any modern ones but generally well reviewed. Sounds like v4’s are the way forward and they can be fiddly to setup right. But you can get all the spare parts to fix when they do go wrong. Just a bit expensive.

The new 4 pot deore Shimano sneaked out would be worth a look, looks great value. I see there are some MT5's in the classifieds, but I've not used Magura since the days of hydraulic rim brakes so can't comment on them.

Gone for a new pair of XT’s. Bargain at £138 delivered.

I have seen about the bite point problems. Any issues and they will go back but hopefully they will work fine.

I run large rotors as once upon a time I went away every weekend downhill bombing and preferred the lack of brake fade with the larger rotor. Yep. Overkill for the South Downs but they look cool so that’s all that matters 😉

Deore £24 in CRC.

Love this Deore stuff as well. Have three different mountain bikes in good shape right now and try to use Deore (M6000) wherever I can. Best bang for the buck.

 I’m rolling in at 12.5 stone these days. Becoming a bit of a hefer.

I'd wager you're very much at the 'streak of piss' rather than 'hefer' end of the STW demographic

I'm not convinced shimano are as good as they used to be. My old xt brakes worked for around 5 years on several bikes and then I sold them for half the price I paid in perfect working order (m775)

The m785 that I replaced them with failed, the lever stopped returning when the seals clogged up. These were warrantied.

The m8000 replacements failed when the lever adjuster broke. The plastic rounded off so I couldn't adjust the reach. Again replaced under warranty.

At the same time my friends all ran the m775 no problems but have all had issues with 785 and 8000.

I've stuck with them because I am used to them and the warranty is excellent. Once they go and are no longer under warranty I think I might consider sram guides or hope. But as shimano is so cheap I'll probably just replace them and stick with what I know.

I've got XT (775?), deore (615?) and Avid elixir across three bikes, the OH has Clarks.

TBH they all work. The Clarks are my least favourite, there's power (and the really should be with 200/180 rotors!) there but it's a bit vague.

The XT's have been great apart from one reach adjuster falling off.

The elixirs were fussy to start with, but once bled a few times have been faultless. SRAM seem to have gotten their act together when it comes to brakes.

The deore's are great.

The difference between deore and SLX (and above) is deore misses out on servo wave, which means they have more free stroke. Dunno if that affects pad clearance but haven't noticed any rubbing yet.

As much as I like bling, it would be really difficult to justify anything other than those deore's if something needed replacing. They're ridiculous value and still have more power than is really useable.

I've just ordered a set of the new "Deore" 4 pots. I'll hopefully have them on the bike for the weekend, so can report back then. I'll probably be running them with 203mm discs.

I'm fairly sure that both my old Acera calipers, and some borrowed Deore 2-pots have a very slight weep at the caliper, just enough to contaminate the pads. New pads work fine for a couple of days, but leave the bike & come back a week later, and they a screech and don't stop you.

I think this is a result of overheating damaging the seals, and from talking to other riders locally (Perthshire, so up and down some reasonable little mountains), it seems to be quite a common problem.

FWIW the Deore is Servowave - the M6000 are probably the best brake in the shimano line up right now bar the 4 pot version and Saint if you want the power, but the new 4 pot being only just out its hard to say at this point whether its got the long term reliability of the M6000, but no reason to think not.