[Closed] guide r brakes, am i going to die?

Yes they won't release off the disc and your lever will be non returning too. I have a pair of rs doing it and they are about to go in the bin. Mine also have chipped pistons so not worth fixing.

I had them for  year on the Capra, best brakes I've had, other opinions available...

yea first run out with them last night and i thought they were nice (coming from e4's) but i was just concerned about the reliability issues so wondered if there was a way you could find out if they needed fixing before they failed

I've been running Guide R's on my Orange Four for two years now. Very consistent and powerful brakes in my opinion. They certainly stop all 110kg of me pretty quickly!

I think I've read online that it's the older levers that do this not the newer ones. I've had an older set of rs guides that were fine for 2 years. Got 2 of the newer sets of guide r and they've both been fine too.I'd just ride them - the flaw is only said to happen in really hot weather too, and the summer is fading fast!

This thread will get you nowhere. Roughly half of the posts will love them, half will hate them. Same with SRAM Eagle.

Guide Rs on my Jeffsy which was new at the start of the year.

I was sceptical but so far they’ve been fine. Not the best brakes I’ve ever had (I do like Shimano) but they’ve been faultless through normal riding and a week in Verbier back in June.

Guide Rs on a giant reign here. Had it a year and a half and apart from needing new pads they've been faultless. Really great brakes in my experience so far..

This thread will get you nowhere. Roughly half of the posts will love them, half will hate them. Same with SRAM Eagle.

True, but at least on this one, folk actually seem to have used the part in question, Eagle has a healthy band of haters who've never used it! 🙂

I've run guide R's for over a year now and they have been fine, through the heatwave my bike would often sit on my bike rack in the work car park and I have not had the sticky lever issues.

Occasional bleed performed now and again and some cleaning of the pistons but thats all.

Great when they're working.

I had a set of 'sticky' ones - literally a minute in direct sunlight and the lever pistons started sticking in their bores - proper weird. I've had them back with new levers under warranty but not tried them yet. Pretty poor of SRAM not to do a recall on faulty brakes, I thought. I'll be sticking with Shimano in future.

Had the rear RSC  go on me in Finale. It wasn't what I would call hot.... Mid twenties.  Was never blown away by their performance but was happy enough till they died.

My lever froze. Couldn't make it budge, but the caliper was wide open.

Sent them back to Canyon and they've sent them back, but I doubt they fixed the front lever.

Back in July I went to fettle with the GF's bike (Trance) and was surprised that her front R had also frozen in exactly the same way as my rear.

Bike had been stored inside the house.

Still need to send them back.

Replaced both sets with XT 4 pots.

More bite and overall power... Less modulation initially, but you soon get used to it.... More On/Off, but that suits me fine.

Much easier bleed process and the GF prefers the lever shape.

Ive had Guide Rs working fine for two years - slowed me down when i was going too fast, stopped me when I wanted to stop, can't ask more than that! Not used Shimano brakes before but the Guide Rs have always felt good.

On a couple of rides in hot weather July/August time the front brake started sticking - pads dragged, lever didn't return properly, but it only seemed a problem when it was really hot outside. Cleaned the pistons with rubbing alcohol but the problem persisted and now it doesn't work quite right even in cooler weather. Rear brake which is presumably exactly the same spec has no issues. Just swapped them out for Guide RS's (did think about some other brand but dropper & shifter are on the brake clamps so decided it wasn;t worth the hassle) which have a different lever design I think.

We had two bikes with Rs. Like bullandbladder says, great when they're working but when they aren't working they don't work at all. Three of the four sets were fine, one would just decide that it's lever was going to flip to the bars today. Two different dealers weren't able to fix it.

You remember all those magazine reviews saying that the Guides weren't as unreliable as Avid... not convinced, they seem to have exactly the same problems.

SRAM's sales model means there's nowhere to go to get support or replacements so the warranty is effectively worthless.

We've had dodgy XT before too, but with those you squeal your way down because the seal has leaked a bit, you don't crash at high speed because your brakes have completely failed.

I’ve got a relatively new Boardman 29 pro. It came with Sram guide r’s. I thought they were ok until I discovered yesterday that 3 out of the 4 pistons in the front calliper are seized. Also the bleed process seems to be a massive faff. Not sure whether to try and fix or just bin and get some deores, which in previous experience are just brilliant.

They seem ok after a ride down helvellyn at the weekend. No real power though. decent modulation but they lack a bit of outright stopping power.

Think different pads may help or are the sram ones best?

What discs have you got and how much do you weigh? I’m running 200/180’s on my Aeris 145lt and I don’t think I’m that slow but always seem to have plenty of power. I’ve run the standard organics / Sram sintered and currently running Uberbike sintered front / race matrix rear. The front pads are getting low so will put the spare new Uberbike sintered pads in there to replace them for the winter.  The rear is fine but guess I’ll get more sintered pads to go in there when they get low too.

Also, have you run the pads in properly? If you haven’t you might not be getting full power.

I ditched my guide Rs as I got fed up of having the lever to the bar and not really getting good braking despite bleeding/pads etc.

The SLXs seem much more powerful but they do have a varying feel between applications sometimes. Also.much more binary in delivery. The Guides had great modulation when they worked as stoppers!

really nice modulation (from E4's) and not going to the bar. running 200f180r

struggling to stop on a couple of occasions (in the rain with new disks) so quire possibly not bedded in yet.

Ah, so you have just started riding with them without a bedding in process? With all my discs I’ve pedalled down the road as hard as I can then hauled on the brakes until I come to a stop. Normally try to do that 10 tens before going for a normal ride with them. Seems to have worked so far. My guides on both bikes are great - I’ve done 3 or so uplift days on them too with no fade and oodles of power. Either I’m light on brakes or you get some variation between sets.