Hayes Stroker Ryde Disc Brake (discontinued)

Came as OEM and were one of the first items to go. These brakes have no modulation and the only way to get any feelings is to pull them to the bars. And since the handles have a really wobbly, wiggly feel I felt like I was always going to break them. Since they were OEM I thought that maybe there was a bit of air in the lines and that was causing the modulation/power issues so I bleed them. Bleeding did little to nothing at all. Another problem I ran into was the cheap alloy handlebar clamp bolt. The head of the blow is extremely thin and takes absolutely nothing to strip. When trying to make a simple adjustment I stripped a bolt when applying hardly any pressure to loosen it. This was really annoying and took multiple emails to Hayes which resulted with the suggesting of getting a new one at the hardware store. Back in the day Hayes used to be it, but these are brakes a fine a example that they good days may be gone.

These brakes worked quite well for about six months, but no better than good mechanical disk brakes like Avid BB7. After that I stripped out the 4mm lever housing bolts and the rear master cylinder developed hideous play. The brakes never had good modulation on 160mm rotors and were very on/off on 180mm, and the power was similar to Shimano M445 at best, but only when new.