Nerding out on Brakes shall we? Not another tech deraliment

Anyone remember if Brembo will be doing other colors like we saw at Sea Otter? About to order some but have only seen the red. Hoping to know if maybe the whites will be available (if I put my name on the levers, I can feel like Sam Hill on old juicy ultimates haha)

For anyone interested, I had a chance to try out the TRP Evo Pros this past week. Due to some weird circumstances with shipping delays and coincidences, I was able to throw these on my hardtail to try out while I wait for their final brakes to go on (M9220). I ran them with the newer S05E rotors, which are awesome and I love. I had intended on putting them on my bigger bike, but things got weird and with the Brembos coming in a few weeks, I didn't feel like messing with the annoying cable routing twice in a month.

Install was fairly easy, I just did a bleed cup bleed from the lever. I know it's kinda obvious, but I found that working the lever in/out, the pad adjustment in/out, and the lever in various points of rotation helped get the air out from trimming the hoses. I like the fact the lever clamps open all the way, so I don't have to deal with grip removal to move them out. I was able to get everything connected per TRPs video instructions and it was just easy. I know TRP recommends a piston massage and visual alignment, I did the latter but not the former. After mounting/aligning them, all the pistons seemed to move freely so I didn't bother.

I like the lever feel a lot. I've been running Mavens for about a year now on my other bike (I had intended on replacing those with these but things got weird) and the TRP lever is a lot lighter and smoother. There is a fair bit of deadstroke, not an excessive amount but enough that I don't know if these are the best option for riders who run their levers close to the bar. The initial bite point is also a lot weaker compared to Dominion, Intend, Maven, and (depending on settings) Hope. The pad adjustment makes a tangible difference, but I couldn't find a reason to run it further out, I prefer a stronger bite and closer levers. The overall power is great though, once you get past the initial soft-ish bite point, the power ramps up really quickly and they are really easy to manage. I don't feel like I use overall more power with the Mavens or other brakes I've tried, but it does take a little longer to get there with the TRPs. I really liked how easy it was to feather the bite point and make minor adjustments to avoid sliding/skidding esp since I have less grippier tires on my HT. My normal instinct when reading that is to think the brakes lack power and I wouldn't like them, but I don't think that's really an issue here, I still have a bit of room to pull if need be and power comes on pretty quickly after the initial lull in bite, that soft feeling doesn't last long in the lever stroke. It's not going to slam your face into the bars like the ones I mention above, but it's not so slow that my 220lb self can't get along with them. 

The soft-ish bite point and lever feel kinda reminds me of the Hope and Trickstuff Maximas. The difference is with the former you can adjust the lever to be as touchy and with a short deadstroke as you want, meaning you can tone them down to feel however you like. The TRPs, like most brakes, kinda have a baseline of deadstroke and bite that they can't exceed, but is livable. The lever isn't as smooth as those two, but the bite point is soft in a similar way they are once the pads engage, so you aren't having to crank down hand power to get power out of them, the transition from bite to skidding is really smooth and subtle at the lever.

These are some of the only brakes I don't see myself using long term but can understand why people do. I've tried a lot of brakesets that I just don't understand why people use them, but these don't fall into that category. I really like the feel, the lever ergonomics, how easy they were to setup, etc. I'd leave them on the bike except I already have another set of brakes for it, but also because one is already leaking. These seem notorious for QC problems and I don't know anyone using them that doesn't have a leak somewhere. I shouldn't have to go over the caliper and tighten everything to spec when they arrive, especially since those specs aren't published anywhere except the bleed bolt. These brakes cost ~$600 new and that's just not acceptable, it also distracts from them otherwise being pretty awesome. I really hope they can sort this out because I liked these a lot otherwise.

If they didnt leak and Unbalance themselves, They've be a great set of brakes.

I've switched all my bikes over to the DH-R non-pro brakes.  I think you hit the nail on the head.  Alot of people that say they arn't powerful just don't pull them far enought to learn that line.  Its kinda non-linear.  Also, I think people that come from something like Mavens or Shimanos are expecting that quick bite and just don't feel that.  Once you get used to the TRP feel it becomes really useful. I also think they are a brake that rewards harder, shorter braking.

I found a bike shop in Cali clearancing out some Freedom Coast levers and picked up some for $50.  I never thought the factory lever was bad or felt weird but I thought I'd try them.  I also have large hands so I never had the typical lever close to the bar problem.  The Freedom Coast levers are a game changer.  I really like how they feel and the hook on the end. 

Really struggling with a set of TRPs. The best I've had them feeling was with 2mm galfer rotors and shimano metallic pads, didn't have glazing problems but felt underpowered. Otherwise, every 2.3mm rotor I've tried (2x TRP, most recently tried ones from Lewis) and several different pads (TRP blues, semi-metallics, metallics) have invariably and usually immediately glazed over. This is despite doing what I feel is a very careful and prolonged bedding in every time, trying again with sanding and/or torching pads, resurfacing rotors every way I know how. I can't see any leaks from overnight pressure testing the calipers

I'm just going to get another set of Mavens but I'm even hesitant to sell these out of fear of inflicting pain on someone else. Anyone have any ideas as to wtf is going on? Have I just gotten dud rotors 3 times in a row? Is there some secret trick to bedding in exclusive only to these brakes?

I tried a heap of TRP evo pros.(new bikes plus bought 2 sets to try on release of Pro's.)
the calipers still suck, weeping from bleed screw, leaking pistons and they unbalance under heavy loads

Mavens and no more issues

Put the galfer rotors back on with the same pads that kept glazing and they seem fine. Convinced its some weird interaction with the drilled out TRP rotors and the Lewis ones that look suspiciously similar. Whatever, more Mavens it is. I really like the base but may as well try the B1s, are the B1 Bronze OE only? There don't even seem to be any A1 bronze available

I struggled with a set of TRPs glazing rotors, specifically the RS05E rotors.  I honestly thought I just contaminated them somehow and bought a new set of RS01E 203mm rotors.  I eventually sold this brakeset to a friend and he hasn't had issues.  I moved onto mavens for a variety of reasons, but certainly this was one of them.  

I was able to order a set of b1 bronze levers through my local bike shop.  I assume that means you can get full b1 bronze brake sets but I am not certain.  TBH, I have nothing against the bronze series brakes from sram... but I think I would do the silver if I were doing it all over again.  The bronze lever assemblies will have a bit of vertical lever slop that is annoying but not really noticeable in 98% of situations.  The bushings will also squeak in time and require cleaning, lubrication and replacement.  For that reason, just go with silver imo.  

You can buy them piecemeal but for some reason they won't sell you a full thing connected with a hose. I guess silver makes more sense, I get turned off by extra adjustments that I don't use but the pivots probably more than make up for that

Its funny when you search for mavens on buysell you run into just as many TRPs with "selling because I switched to mavens" in the description

Anyone else finding the maven B1s noticeably less powerful than the A1s? I’ve never compared back to back but that is what I’m sensing. I have B1s on my new Crestline and just got back from Squamish where I was definitely getting fatigued on the super steep “creep” style slab moves, especially when you need to dump speed on the slab. I’m heavy (225lbs) and on a 50lb bike but I don’t remember that ever happening with the A1s. Curious other people’s opinions. 

The B1 will have less power per X amount of finger pull force compared to the A1, both as a result of having smaller pistons and also the different cam.  Even running the B1 cams with A1 caliper I noticed a reduction in power per squeeze force, and went back to the A1 cams.

Yeah, I agree that the b1 overall have less power then a1s.  I've tried pretty much all flavors of Maven's and by my estimation the power heirarchy is: Maven Base, Maven B1, Maven B1 levers w/A1 caliper and lastly Maven A1.  The A1 are much snappier with a narrower window of modulation from deadband to enough to lock.  Whether B1s actually have less power I cannot say, but in practical application when you're clamping down on the brakes they feel like they have less power per mm of lever pull and less power overall.  

I still prefer the a1s on my park bike and my full weight/power ebike.  I do prefer the b1 on my trail bike, but I occasionally miss the a1s when we're doing trails that are 25-28% gradient and a mile long... similar brake force needed for those as riding sketchy stuff in squamish.  

I too have noticed about 10% less power with B1 cams in the A1 but for 90% of my riding the additional modulation has been great once I got used to it. It's really the long runs and long days in the park that I feel it. I'm thinking of going back to organic pads for some more bite but not sure if there's no net gain losing heat management compared to metallic????

Has anyone else run the new M9220s and just not liked them? The lever pull is like 50-60% freestroke and the power comes on super gradual for Shimano standards. I figured it might be a bleed issue, but they both feel the same and bleeding gets nothing out. Is that just how they are? 

Designed for 2.2mm rotors.
I have a set of XT's(8220) on my boys bike and with 2.3mm rotors they are considerably better. Not sure how long itll last... as the pads wear the original retraction will show.

But to me, they have longer freestroke and smoother off/on but It's almost like they have less power overal.

They will be getting swapped for our 6th set of Mavens - little bit more involved in setup but otherwise they've all been excellent.

First time running a new setup with my T4V4's. I know folks can have varying amounts of frustration with the noise that hopes are famous for, TBH its never bothered me... That being said I have run my T4V4's with a number of combinations of Hope Green/Trickstuff Orange, Hope Purple, and Sinter Greens with TRP SE05's, Galfer Waves and Magura Storms while always being surrounded with the hope noise that alerts other trail users to be grabbing brake. 

That being said the maiden voyage on my new DH bike running the T4V4's with Sinter Greens and the newish Hope 2.3mm rotors resulted in a system that is dead silent. This had me wondering if anyone has also run this setup and if they had similar experiences. Perviously my T4V4's were on a Madonna V3 that I also had Radic Kahas on which also had a similar noise that the hopes are famous for. I was wondering if the pad and rotor combo was the winning combo or if the new bike was part of it as well? What I did find interesting is that the front brakes also always made the same noise regardless of the fork, Zeb, Onlins 38, and yet the new bike is running a Dh38 is completely silent which makes me think that the pad and rotor combo is more to blame/celebrate. Curious if anyone else has thoughts on it. 

Doest make much of a difference for me but thought it might be a good data point for those that want to eliminate the pad/rotor noise. 

just in case anyone cares: did my own test. bronze a1 caliper and silver b1 lever. (had the bronze laying around, wanted the contact point adjuster, that's why silver lever)

biggest concern was: getting used to new lever feel. but absolutely no learning phase, didn't have to get used to it at all. 800 vertical meters descending without brake and no sign of harsh lever feel or any hand fatigue.

lever throw adjustment is super useful, power: more than enough, modulation spot on.

sticking with the mavens, lovely brake!

Ya, this was with TRP 2.3 rotors. I had higher hopes for these, but the amount of freestroke was alarming to me. I had to run the lever pretty far away from the bar to get any power out of them and the amount of lever stroke that just did nothing was gross. It's been a while since I ran any Shimano brakes, but I don't recall it being that long and require that much lever stroke to get usable power out. It seemed like with the lever almost all the way out, over half the lever stroke was freestroke, the next 20% or so (kinda making numbers up here a bit) barely did anything, then full lock was almost to the bar. 

I'm gonna throw them in a stand and try to bleed again to see if it improves. 

I will never understand why you would want a spring backed IFP in your brake...

I just don't understand 

Here's my experience on the new Maven B1

I decided to try out the B1 Mavens after my Radics started losing pressure (both side MC bores had scratches). I previously had a set of maven A1's last season, but decided to go with the Radics due to them feeling better in the stand (I nerd out on my bike more than I ride it). I've always used steel brake hoses with the Mavens that Radic uses. This is just due to them looking way cooler, there's zero noticeable difference in feel compared to original Sram hoses. I've also only used Galfer Pro pads.

Things I noticed with the B1's compared to how I remembered the A1's feeling:

-Way more lever throw, freestroke, deadband or whatever term you like to use. I measured it to be 26 mm which would pump up to about 21 mm when repeatedly pumping the lever with the bike stationary. Brakes were bled using Maxima oil and caliper pistons massaged to remove the chance of the caliper seals pulling the pistons back too much, thus causing excessive lever throw.

-The B1 swinglink makes the lever feel light, but a truly light lever feel is still limited by the MC return spring when compared to Radic or Hayes. Replacing the return spring with a softer one would make the pull feel quite close to radic (not in terms of throw of course), but that would also make the lever return too slow and would make the feel less responsive overall.

I rode for a day in the bike park with this setup. Zero noticeable bite point change and lever feel was consistent throughout. Power was good but I couldn't find a comfortable lever setting where the lever was close enough to the bar at static and not too close to the grip while fully braking. I have a size 8 hand and like to run my lever reach approx 50 mm from the grip to the furthest point of the lever blade. 20 mm or less is where I'm most happy with lever throw. After just 1 day the brake pads were worn top-heavy, so much so that it was visible just by looking at the pad without using calipers to check straightness. I'm aware that this happens with all brakes but it was most apparent on these. My brake mounts are faced properly so that's not a contributing factor to this.

I had OAK Components levers on the A1's which felt nice, but I decided to try out the Freedom Coast levers with my new set. They were quite expensive due to taxes and shipping across the globe and unfortunately were a dissappointment. The bend on the tip of the lever is a tad too sharp for me and feels like it hooks around my finger too much making the lever pull feel weird. It's hard to explain but those who know, know.

I'm always after the most powerful setup due to me being a park rider. After reading reviews and too many messages here reporting B1's having subpar power compared to an A1 setup, I bought a set of A1 calipers. With them the lever throw became too much for me, 32 mm and which pumped out to 21 mm like on the full B1 setup.

I had a bike at the shop that had a set of A1's and I measured the throw to be 22 mm which pumped out to 13 mm. All of these measurements were on a fresh bleed, after a piston massage, same brake pads with a 2.3 mm rotor and always on the rear brake. I also tried the A1 swinglink on a B1 caliper which had the same throw measurements as a full A1 setup.

After all of this, the setup I ended up with was essentially a full A1 setup with B1 carbon levers to which I swapped the A1 swinglink cam. The initial pull is naturally heavier than a B1, but the heavier pull doesn't bother me at all with the bike stationary, meaning that I most definitely won't feel it while riding. The bite point feels more defined and the throw is much shorter. In my case, having a light/long pull is more tiring on my hands than a heavy/short one.

I also tried over-filling the system like a couple videos on YouTube instruct. That got away with the excessive throw on the B1 with A1 caliper, but the freestroke part of the lever stroke became mushier. Normally with a good bleed on a brake the lever feel is like jumping on to a hard surface, nothing, nothing and then slam. But over-filling the brake made it feel like as you were to jump on a slightly inflated air mattress, you would start to feel resistance before the hard stop came. The brake wasn't spongy, but the feel wasn't good.

Here's a list of the measurements on all Maven swinglink/caliper combinations:

(Reach from grip to tip of lever set at 64 mm)

First pull from resting:

A1 & A1 lever 42 mm = 22 mm deadband

A1 & B1 lever 32mm = 32 mm deadband

B1 & A1 lever 43 mm = 21 mm deadband

B1 & B1 lever 37 mm = 27 mm deadband

A1 & A1 lever (lever pulled to bar overnight) 47 mm = 17 mm deadband

After pumping lever:

A1 & A1 lever 51 mm = 13 mm deadband

A1 & B1 lever 43 mm = 21 mm deadband

B1 & A1 lever 51 mm = 13 mm deadband

B1 & B1 lever 43 mm = 21 mm deadband

A1 & A1 lever (lever pulled to bar overnight) 52 mm = 12 mm deadband

Difference in deadband between first pull and after pumping lever:

A1 & A1 lever 9 mm

A1 & B1 lever 11 mm

B1 & A1 lever 8 mm

B1 & B1 lever 6 mm

A1 & A1 lever (lever pulled to bar overnight) 5 mm

TLDR; if you want Mavens, get A1's if you still can.

Nice to see some numbers on the deadband.  When I tried the B1 levers, I didn't like how long deadband was, and if it really was 50% longer, that would explain why.

I've got b1 Mavens on all of our bikes and never done any messing around. Not had to rebleed any of them since install(release)
 

A lot of that dead band can be dialed out with the bit adjuster. There is certainly more with the B1 but most of that seems to me to be the power coming on more gradually and only feels dead, but isn't actually. Between my A1's and B1's I have the same measurement for reach and "full" engagement point but how the power comes on is much different. 

If you're dead band measurements are varying that much you either need a bleed or there's too much variance in the testing for it to be valid. 

Same reason people wanted that dang Reverb hydraulic post...

The remote actuation was very smooth, smoother than a cable actuated post and it was probably one of the first 1x remotes that also neatly integrated with MMX clamps. 

I'd be happy to hear some benefits of a spring backed IFP on a brake. 

Must be bad luck with your mavens.

My observations with my b1lever/a1 calipper set.

Yes, dead stroke is noticeable longer (I like it, don't like the instant contact point) but I'm a little bit of a rear brake drager rather than pull release.

The difference after pumping however isn't noticeable at all. In the stand, somewhat 3mm, while riding: not one occasion where i noticed different contact points.

Its rather different options for different likings than better or worse. Some like purple, some like green. 

Went through hayes, xt, hope v4, codes in the last couple of years and this is by far the best and most constan /reliable set I've had so far.

I guess i was the bad luck guy with the hopes. That was simply said a horror. Multiple warranty swaps and whole batch of brakes sent back by the shop, because all customers had the same problem. 😄