What Disc Brakes?

[cjs]

I currently have Hayes Nines on my current MTB, these work well and stop me. I'm re-building another bike to use as a street 'hack' and it needs some disc brakes. I don't want to spend much.

Options are...

Buy some cheap brakes for the bike I'm building, if so what? Anything out there for less than £100?

Buy something a bit better for my main bike and swap the Hayes over? Again recommendations. Again don't want to spend more than £150.

I need a full set with discs. My main riding is XC which the Hayes are fine with.

Over to you!

[anonymous-user]

http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/MTB++Parts...

half price hayes strokers at merlin at the moment....
rrp £260....

[a11y_m]

I'm a big fan of Shimano discs, seem to be fit-and-forget in my experience. Ribble cycles are selling SLX discs for £52/brake for caliper, hose and lever - an extra £12 or so for a rotor and you're looking at £65/brake, a bit above budget though.

Chain Reaction Cycles have Deore discs in white for £34/front, £39/rear at the moment. Again excluding rotors. Bargain IMO, considering a set for my new commuting bike.

My favourite discs are currently the Formula RX's I recently got on a bike but they're £120/brake...

[Matt106]

The Avid range are really good, ive been running juicy 3's for years and ive never had to bleed them once. You can also get some trick looking ones with carbon levers if your wanting to splash the cash!

[cjs]

pablo said:

http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/MTB++Parts...

half price hayes strokers at merlin at the moment....
rrp £260....

Hmmmm. I was just looking at these, I do like the idea of going with Hayes, I assume they use the same pads as my existing so I already have spares. I could put these on my main bike and swap the Nines across....interesting. One thing I do want to do is up the current front rotor from a 6" to 7" I wonder if Merlin will mix and match?

[cjs]

Merlin also do these

http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/MTB++Parts...

Anyone know the difference between the Stroker Ryde & Trail, other than the reach adjustment?

[cjs]

Matt106 said:

The Avid range are really good, ive been running juicy 3's for years and ive never had to bleed them once. You can also get some trick looking ones with carbon levers if your wanting to splash the cash!

Juicy 3's are also on offer at Merlin. At the moment it is looking at a toss up between those and the Hayes Stroker, any opinions?

[Matt106]

Ive only ever had a Hayes brake on my girlfriends bike so I couldnt comment on long term performance.

I think both will do the job well. Maybe look into cost of servicing, pad replacement to make a final decision?

[P-Jay]

You could have a trawl aroud eBay for some Avid 7's for not much, they're great little brakes if a little fiddly to get spot-on straight out the box, plus CRC sell a lever bush and rob kit for £10 and Caliper piston and seal ket for another £10 so even if they turn out to be completely mullered you can get them running like new for £40 tops.

I've just rebuilt mine, I had them new in Sept '06 (so just coming up to 4 years old) and because of where I live I count Afan & Cwmcarn as my local trails and ride one of them most weekends. 4 years of hard braking, multiple crashes and every type of weather that get thrown at you.

[threesixty]

Avid Elixirs!

You can pick up a set on crc for about 160 by the look of it.

I've run mine for 2 years now and they've never been anything less than perfect. Build quality, adjustment and power are all way above the shimano xts I had before.

[anonymous-user]

I'll second the avid 3's, keep your 9's on the xc bike, the 3's with 160 disc's are what I used for my commuter mtb and they were great, can be a little tempremental on setup and pad change but nothing care an attention can't overcome.

In addition Avid have just released an upgraded 3.5 so oem stock for avid 3's is less than £100 for a full set.

http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/MTB++Parts...

[Soop Dogg]

I have Hayes Nines on my wet-weather-go-to-work-hack bike and Avid Juicy 5's on my best hardtail.

I rode the Hayes for a year first and loved them as they had bery little lever travel before getting bite on the disc. Even on motorbikes, I always preferred to have immediate bite and then progressive feel so that as I applied more pressure, I could feel the pressure at the lever and knew what was going on at the front wheel.

Then I got the Juicy 5's. At first I hated them as the lever had quite a lot of travel before they bit - and once they bit, it was kind of without much feedback at the lever. Plus they didn't seem particularly good at stopping me! HOWEVER - once they had properly bedded in, they really stopped brilliantly. The 'pre-bite' movemement in the lever is still there to a degree, and you don't have to use lots of strength at the lever to make them brake quite hard, but once you get used to this, they are superb. I now prefer this 'modulated' set up where I can vary the amount of power going to the disc with a little more 'movement' at the lever rather than changing pressure on an already 'solid' lever. I find the Juicy's easier to control on really rough trails as I don't have to be gripping too hard squeezing a 'solid' lever towards the bars and can keep my arms a bit more relaxed to absorb the bumps.

Just my personal preference I suppose. The Hayes are still great brakes, they just behave a little differently to the Avids.

[mchammer89]

Avid BB5s or BB7s. Fantastic brakes and very cheap.