Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
Sorry, crossed wires with Hope this morning. The bleed cup is NOT included with the brakes, it comes as part of the Hope bleed kit.
Is the bleed cup a new version? It looks wider than the one I have that I use on the Texh 3 and 4 with the different lids.
Not sure, but it comes with a little adapter to fit the new bleed port on the lever body. Looks like it would still fit the old bleed cover port without the adapter.
Haha I ordered some GR4's. If my Mrs asks me about it I'm totally blaming all you guys for talking about them 😂
I have the "new'er" Kaha's with bite point adjustment and the new seals. They sit in the bin while the T4V4's are on the bike. The Kaha's are the only brake that I will bleed at altitude >6k ft due to how much the lever feel changes when going from sea-level to elevation. I have had the brakes do a bit of everything. Bite-point firm up so much that the pads start dragging, bite point fall off to the point that I have no brakes and it wastes a run. After 2 years with zero issues from my Dominion A4's I wanted something exotic that looked the part. I got that along with all of the other aches and pains of being a gunnie pig for a small company that doesn't thoroughly test changes before releasing them to the wild. My support at first was great, but then Taylor just stopped responding. Replaced them with T4V4's and all I can say is that I dont have to think about brakes again. The increase in modulation between the T4V4's and the Kaha's and even the A4's for that matter has been a welcome improvement. If I didnt have a race season in peril due to horrendus brake reliability I would have waited for the GR4's, I still might move the T4V4's to my trail bike and swap on the GR4's.
Hoping to send the Kaha's back at some point to get Taylor to figure out what is wrong with the "new" seals, not holding my breath though. One thing that really sucks about the bite point adjustment with the Kaha's is there is zero indexing and no min-max limits. You can literally loosen it to the point that the piston pops out of the lever and wind it in to the point that you have pushed the piston wiper seal past the timing port and closing the system off...
I was honestly hoping not to hear these things about Radic, that these issues would be only found on copypaste brands we all know where adjustments do go too far and brakes have problems with that, wild to know about the altitude as well
First day in Whistler that happened to me on the V4s as well but after a bleed it was gone, some air was stuck in them causing the issue, I guess GR4 it is then
Same here, and they were not cheap by any means. I get the feeling that it's a small one- or two-man organization being done after working a regular 9-5. The struggle with small ops like this is that you don't have well vetted design reviews, initial and critical, or deep FMEA sessions that evolve over the course of a product development cycle. Kinda hard to have a 6 hour design review with 15+ engineers not part of the project core team when you only have 2-3 people in the company total... As an ME I know that everything that I design/develop no matter how much attention to detail I put into it, will always have mistakes that are found during design reviews, its just the nature of the beast.
The bite point adjust just frustrates me to no end. Its still not documented in the manual how to set it, Ive had mine for over a year now...
appreciate the insights, that's why before buying anything i do extensive research, not just read a paid review and send it.
Very Helpful
i lost interested in Radic after getting ghosted on Instagram after asking 2 simple questions, the initial questions via contact formular have also not gotten answered. i got the feeling they don't want the business
dang, communication can really change my feelings about 'dealing' with certain problems. Real bummer to hear of poor communication from Taylor. I always felt that way but never wanted to fully accept it as I was trying to stay interested in them. Still somewhat am... but it has me further contemplating thats for sure. The owner of 612 which is the other choice of two new sets I was looking to get has been freaking awesome to chat with! All times of day or night that guy responds. Even did some solidworks stuff for me to check fit on something! Was so rad of him! Thats the rad stuff I want to support. Great product (my assumption based off consumer reviews) and great customer service.
I am definitely still going 612 for one bike but now with Radic, unsure on the other. I need to do some pondering. Still bummed how my Intends worked out, but all good and had to learn with em somehow of such a weird problem. Maybe GR4s on the other.
if you don't mind sharing what happened with Intend? maybe I missed your post in the forum? Thank you
Just a personal fit issue. I am strictly a Meaty Paws user. Fav grips by a long shot. Unfortunately, they are quite wide. Like really wide. I also have a tendency to overlap my pinky on the edges of the grips so I am quite far outboard. The shape of the body on the Trinity brake, angled quite inward, paired with the lever blade length simply does not allow for me to even get remotely close to touching the levers with my hands where I am happy with them. A bit unfortunate! My own issue though. Was stoked and got a set from the second ever batch. Used them and enjoyed the feel but couldn't get on with the reposition of my hands. It took a bit to get em dialed in though as one of them was just not giving a solid bleed. Easiest bleed ever but it was just not feeling right on one of them. Took a bit of riding and a good handful of bleeds for it to finally feel better and both have solid performance. I thought about modifying and cutting down my grips but eventually decided I wanted to try some other brakes instead. Who knows, I might mess with trimming my grips down and giving em another go!
They do sit pretty inboard. That’s fortunately exactly where I like my brakes but I can definitely see issues with longer grips.
I'm running the 612 calipers on the DH bike, and the only thing I don't like with them is the bleed port. It is located within the banjo bolt, and it makes it harder to properly bleed the air out of the caliper. I changed the seals on my rear brake after like 2 or 3 seasons (and that is pretty easy to do), but it took me like 3 or 4 bleeds trying to pull air from the caliper to finally get them back to how they were before. There isn't much air trap pocket, like you get with Magura pistons for example, but it's just hard to bleed from stock (and then I suppose to completely replace the oil)
I understand it's easier to make than the way Intend or Radic make them (passing through all 4 pistons before getting out), but that's something that should be on all "low volume / high price / high quality" brakes in my opinion.
Haven't tried the whole kit, the master cylinder didn't exist back then (bought the 612 prototype calipers, and then switched to the current ones, which fixed a few issues I had with the prototypes and that I reported back to Felix) and I've been happy with Trickstuff master cylinders so far.
If only they added like Hope a bleeding port on the side .... Or rather, if only Trickstuff had released anything worthwhile (and not just a fancy colour) in the last 4 or 5 years ... But I digress.
Taylor from radic ghosted me as well…brakes are ok but not polished and have issues. Would stay away
I do own Intend Trinity and those are by far the best brakes i've ever had. Bite point is always the same, never fade, bleeding is so easy.
The only issues I've had with them is that the hose can get ripped off, but this is now thing of the past with the "V2" variant :
The little black part here keeps the hose firmly in place.
Support is also next level, I've broken one lever during a crash, emailed Intend the saturday at 8pm, got a response from Cornelius (owner) the sunday at 9am ! at 10am after fews mails exchange Cornelius told me that the new piece will be send monday morning, received it 2 days after, and all of that free of charge.
I've also had T4V4 but I was never really happy about how the lever feel change during the pad's life (when the pads are close to replacement the bite point has moved a lot).
ripped out mine just a week ago, ordered a new line and replaced everything yesterday (takes a few days longer to switzerland due to customs). its not just the black part, there is also a new line insert to bring it to 1.2 specs
The new barb and sleeve helps a lot with preventing the hose from being ripped out. I’ve had several crashes this year including one high speed crash that sent my bike flipping down the face of a jump and my hoses haven't been ripped out yet.
Same for me, I've had thoses little parts before the official release and since then, I've never ripped off the hose, despite some big crashs (where the dropper remote has been completly ripped off).
that’s reassuring, i never understood why they shipped the front line cut to 80cm only, it worked but not when you crash and your handlebars do a 360 -.-
the new line is 100cm and it fits just perfect on my flash @ 180cm
I got shipped a 100cm line but then accidentally cut it too short lmao
Intend accidentally sent me the old fittings with my brakes but quickly remedied that at no cost when I reached out. They even sent me a new hose when I mentioned I accidentally cut it too short (100% my fault)
Anyone have success using a SRAM pro bleed kit on Hayes Dominions? They both have the same fitting, but different thread depth as SRAM has the added O-ring.
I have both but would rather ask than try as these days my "workshop" is inside my condo and brake fluid squirting everywhere isn't ideal.
On mtbr forum some say that the SRAM kit works fine and others that it doesn't. Hayes fittings has more thread and fittings ends are shaped differently, its more like cone shaped. I would personally just get the Hayes kit, it's not cheap I know but you know it works. Just get some rags ready, bleed process gets some dot fluid out no matter what the bleed kit is.
I always wrap a wet rag around the master cylinder and leave just the bleed port exposed when bleeding my codes. That way any spillage is absorbed and deactivated by it.
I gave it a shot yesterday and bled with the SRAM Pro kit, worked great. Actually better than the Hayes kit which needs to be pliers tight otherwise it leaks. The little O-ring is helpful.
While the thread is the same, be careful to not over-thread a SRAM fitting into a Hayes brake. I did that once when I owned them because people said it worked better due to the O-ring, and then ended up going past the threads on the brake and stripping them when trying to back off the fitting. Had to replace the lever and rebuild the caliper seals & pistons because metal shavings got in there.
It looks like the new Hope brakes are available at US distributors now. Anyone got their hands on a set yet?
Anyone have issues with brake contamination when storing bikes vertically?
I stored my previous bike for probably over 3 years and then this one for half a year, never had an issue...
This hits the homepage tomorrow, but since it's live already, you forum guys get the early heads-up - here's our official EVO review (GR and TR both): https://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/hydraulic-disc-brakes/hope-technology/evo-gr4-69746#product-reviews-683186.
Post a reply to: Nerding out on Brakes shall we? Not another tech deraliment