Am I mad?? I just 'upgraded' from XTR to BB7.
I pretty much just swapped my well used XTRs (975??) for some new BB7s. Sold the XTR's cheap, bought the BB7s even cheaper.
XTR's worked really well, but pistons were sticky and required constant fettling. The BB7's work well also and being able to wind the pads in and out is great for wheel swapping. Non self adjusting as they wear is a bit sucky but I can live with it.

Crazy IMO

dented wrote:Crazy IMO

Sounds like a smart move to me.
In my experience:

New hydraulic brakes = good

Old hydraulic brakes (even just 2 or 3 years old) = P.I.T.A

Mechanicals seem like a better long term proposition

Toko wrote:Old hydraulic brakes (even just 2 or 3 years old) = P.I.T.A

Bugger
My Saints and XTs are at least 2 years old



Lucky they work faultless

keltravers wrote:
New Sintered Pads on 180mm rotors after 50km At Rotorua in the wet recently

Sounds like you need to get off the brakes

Toko wrote:Sounds like a smart move to me.
In my experience:

New hydraulic brakes = good

Old hydraulic brakes (even just 2 or 3 years old) = P.I.T.A

Mechanicals seem like a better long term proposition

buy a good brake and IMHO the above doesn't apply

I have until recently been using XT 4 pot brakes that were 5 years old, I've got Hope brakes sitting in my tool box from the last millennium that still work well

pushbikerider wrote:

Toko wrote:Sounds like a smart move to me.
In my experience:

New hydraulic brakes = good

Old hydraulic brakes (even just 2 or 3 years old) = P.I.T.A

Mechanicals seem like a better long term proposition

buy a good brake and IMHO the above doesn't apply

I have until recently been using XT 4 pot brakes that were 5 years old, I've got Hope brakes sitting in my tool box from the last millennium that still work well

Yeah funny that, I have some Hayes Mags that are about 7 years old and the work pretty much as well as my Saints...

Sounds like he needs a bike mechanic

all my oldnews.com shimano brakes work mint

Toko wrote:
Old hydraulic brakes (even just 2 or 3 years old) = P.I.T.A

True if they have Avid our Hayes written on them.

Incorrect if they have shimano. My last XTs were 8 yr old when I sold them and they were fine.

My XTs from 2000 still work faultlessly... and they had 5 years of mountain bike guiding work, including 2 years of doing a 3700m descent up to 4 times a week... they have done so much work that the pivots in the lever have just about worn thru the metal of the lever!!

Still work just fine tho!!

yak71 wrote:Am I mad?? I just 'upgraded' from XTR to BB7.

"mad" wouldn't be the term I'd use, but sure.

I still have my old old deore 525s on one bike which work mint - never done any maint on them either....
Have xt's on another which are also very good, but havent done a huge amount of riding on them for long term comment. They' re on a 26in bike with a 180mm rotor so set up quite different to my other brakes too.
On my roadrat I have tektro cable brakes which are under rated I reckon. I had them on my 29er and did the karapoti in very sloppy conditions, and they were better than expected. Had to stop to wind the pads in at one point though. On the rat they're overkill.
Got the bb7's set up with compressionless cables and can one finger brake easily. Only using a 160mm rotor on a 29er too.
But for me the main thing is keep it simple. No gears, no suspension, brakes that never need bleeding etc.
Basically I'm lazy and like a maintenance free bike.
Spray and walk away I say.

Cable brakes require more maintenance than hydraulic brakes.

Also, I hope you're not running tubeless - tubes require less maintenance.