The trails have been pretty bad over the last couple of months, especially in the northern Broxbourne Woods, but today is a huge improvement over how it has been, even with it tipping down.
After running a Front Shimano XT M785 Disc brake for the last couple of months and being so impressed by them, I finally got round to ordering a rear one.
I must say that it’s shown a new level of improvement for the rear end of my bike, rather than being nothing and nothing (there wasn’t a lot of ‘all’ in my Avid Juicy 5) there’s a lot of control in this, the levers are single finger, so you definitely get to keep more control by having more fingers grabbing the handlebars. Best of all no horrific squealing as soon as it’s wet or muddy.
Setup couldn’t have been easier either, the rear was fitted and aligned properly (not by holding the lever and tightening up, that just doesn’t work!) by visually looking at the gap either side of the pads in under 5 minutes, both brakes were bled to the same level as well, thats definitely something that I’ve never had on an Avid ever.
My only gripes are that they’re very grabby at low speeds, that can be a little unsettling when going down steep ditches and trying to keep some level of control.
The levers also are for one side only, so you have to keep this in mind when ordering, some companies will sell you the wrong side and you can’t just swap over the level to the other side as they don’t fit upside down.
All in all though, these are a massive step up from old XT’s and hopefully show Avid they need to step up their quality and long term effectiveness.