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I think you and Primoz are thinkin' too hard, and that's not meant with any holier than thou. The pads will leave a witness mark on the rotor's brake track, even on initial bed in. I'd be cautious introducing anything that may negatively affect pucker power, such as permanent marker.
I'd say I did about 20 runs of 30km/h-5km/h braking spurts with a bit of commuting to work and back home through town
I guess I will try a re-bleed eventually if I don't notice any improvement. The free travel on the lever is good and short and don't feel anything spongy after the bite point. Also did the zip tie of the lever close to the handlebar trick.
There is another issue though, when I go do a hard front brake pull on the lever that is very short in duration (about 0.5seconds/less) with instant release afterwards, sometimes it feels like I get dragging pads for another 0.5 seconds when the pistons retract. Sometimes I don't get this issue, they retract instantly, other times it happens like this. Is this a lagging piston issue? I am too much of a novice to figure it out, but now I also feel like there is a different sensation to the hard front brake pull when it initiates, but not sure if this is just in my head.. sometimes I can audibly, clearly hear the pads engage the rotor, other times not (and depending on this, the rotors squeal a bit or howl louder). No idea if this is normal
I did write to Intend and they said to get the brakes hot first and if it doesn't fix it, to contact them again... though I can't really get them HOT in town like on a trail (even after the 20 runs of braking spurts, I still have this happen)
the back is probably at half the bedding process and I can lock the wheel, the modulation is great
the front is weird and I wish I could go to a trail sooner, don't have any of these bedding in machines at any bike stores in town and just me riding around will take a bit longer
Have a Magic Mary with addix ultra soft on the front wheel with a 170mm fox, gets quite grippy + 29 psi
What about if you are using used rotors on another set of brakes? There are no witness marks then
If the sharpie will affect the braking power, well, damn, we better cover up those rotors with well sealed covers REAL quick. Think of all the dust, muck and sand getting onto the rotors affecting braking power.
Anecdotally it took me about 700m of descending after doing a “street bed in” process for them to fully bed in.
I’d just take it on a few rides first before troubleshooting any more.
KEEP THE HYPOTHETICALS COMING!!!!
You'd still need to bed the brakes in, which would bring back the witness marks. I look at it as not introducing an unintended consequence. Is perfect* pad depth worth potentially screwin' up a set of pads? But that could be my frugality speaking. Will the solvent and/or resin in the ink mess things up? I don't know, hence my predilection for working with known variables.
Will do that
https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/hope-technology-unveils-evo-brake
The new Hopes are revealed, I assume 6% increase in piston size from 18/16 means 18/18mm
I might give these a go when they come out with the power levers
Added lever bleed port puts them on my list of brakes to try now.
Im curious to see how it is, it looks to me it’s in a position where air can get trapped underneath the diaphragm, so I’d still bleed them the normal way
Too bad they aren't compatible anymore with that massive 3.3mm rotor
GR4 and TR4 both use larger leading pistons (as per video).
Still DOT?
I think so, no details that I’ve seen about that, now they have the same pads GR and TR but both different from e4/v4 shape
They most likely realized almost nobody uses them, they’re too expensive and heavy
Thanks!
Kaha dead stroke seems the easiest to get ultrashort. Mine is 6-7mm. The firmness is unrivaled. However, the lever shape is not great and no tooless on the trail reach/bite adjust. The bite point grub screen requires removal of the lever from the bar in my experience. Parts long term are also a concern.
The hopes seem like the best option going forward. Would have liked a bleeding edge port and larger resivour but finally some company has lever options! Been saying that’s needed for years. Parts are obviously not an issue.
Vented rotors are no loss—PITA to true.
The raidic hose connectors are amazing. No barbs or expendable parts—totally resuable. I use them on my hopes btw
My guess would be they've introduced a 17mm piston and have gone 18/17 for GR (+6%) and 17/16 for the TR (+6.5%).
What is surprising is that they have decided to use the same pad (V4?) in both because the smaller pad in the E4 was one of the main reasons it felt different to the V4. It's good they've added a different sized piston though as the E4 pad wear was really uneven.
Both brakes have a 17mm piston present, that's a new size for hope.
The cam for a firmer bite point has me extremely interested.
Glad to see they’re still DOT. I’m getting more and more mineral oil brakes and I find them annoying. They’re not the massive improvement that people claim.
I can get DOT fluid anywhere at any time (you can even take some from your car reservoir if you’re in a pinch), I don’t want to buy your special flavor of baby oil that you colored purple or some shit.
I also hate cleaning up mineral oil. DOT fluid is a bit nasty, but it’s soluble in water so it just washes off. Even with IPA in a spray bottle, mineral oil seems to always get stuck in crevices around brake levers and attract dirt.
Very interested in these new Hope brakes and might give them a shot next season. I like the lever options and the control version might be perfect for my riding.
With the recent changes to Trickstuff and their main HQ shutting down, I have not been happy with their customer support overall. I get redirected to the DT Swiss service center where the response times are slow compared to just a year ago. They don't seem to be as detail oriented as the original team and don't provide much if any detail to help you troubleshoot things. Getting VIP treatment was part of the cost when I bought the Maximas but that might be dwindling.
Update:
Got a good weekend of riding in Friday-Sunday, 25miles and 19k feet of descending, would have been more if it wasnt for the snow storm on sat. Lots of laps on the old N* EWS track, TNT, along with Sticks and Boonies and I have to say I am very, very, impressed with the hopes and what I will call, a very intuitive power delivery. Funny enough, most people that grab the levers would try to squeeze them to death and commented on the "soft" feel. IMO the bite point is very defined, but the force to get to that bite is crazy low, and the force required to get to lockup is also crazy low. It takes little to no power from the hands to get the bike to a complete stop regardless of how steep the trail was. I did get to test them out on one of the pirate trails there, steepest in the park and could be described as having "Loam Dust," and was pretty impressed with how easy it was to keep the tires at the edge of grip without lockup, that is until you wanted to send a dust bomb to the guy behind you
Took zero time to get used to the feel, going back to the intuitive feel, it just seemed right. I really like the fact that I could run the levers pretty close to the bar and still have good lever clearance at full lock, not something I can do with my A4's or Xt's.
I'm really interested in the new lever design though, hoping that its just a drop-in replacement with the old cam as I am not really interested in a firmer feeling lever bite point. The TS Power pads bite plenty hard to the point that I wouldn't want any more. I was going to do some back-to-back testing with the Kaha's after I get them sorted with Radic, but at this point I'll probably toss them in the bin for a rainy day. Interested in the new GR4's, might have to move the T4V4's to the trail bike and upgrade the bigger bike this off season.
I am curious as to what shifter mounts people are using, I am running a standard clamp on my XTR shifter due to positioning with the kaha lever, but to get the T4V4 lever in the right spot I feel like I am compromising on the shifter location are folks using the hope integrated mounts? Is the range of motion pretty good? TIA!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I would highly recommend the Hope's dropper lever. It is a thing of beauty and very adjustable.
is there any document where they state piston sizes? couldn't find anything
From one of the UK sites:
New Hope brakes are going to time it perfectly for dh season here. I'll be getting a set of the GR4 around release. Not run hopes since the Motos back in the day haha.
I specifically bought Intends over Trickstuff because DT Swiss closed their main office.
thats great, not that they need any more power, but nice, great to see the lever will be even more smooth and light
Have any of you run TRP 2.3mm rotors with Hayes Dominions? I need to get new rotors and the Hayes d series are oos everywhere and I don't want to use Sram rotors anymore.
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