STOPPING POWER

DISC BRAKES RATED £25 TO £230

Nothing has more impact on your confidence and safety than being able to slow down or stop your bike with consistent control. You want to be sure those levers on your bar won’t leave you hanging when you need them most. Rest assured, we’ve put in days of testing on all the stoppers here.

Helpfully for assessing reliability, there hasn’t been a ton of change in the brake market recently. Consequently, seven of the 10 brakes on test are models that we’ve used multiple sets of, over several years. As for the others, SRAM’s Code brakes are relatively new but really popular, so we’ve used a lot of them on test bikes (including brake-brutalising e-bikes) and have run several sets as long-termers too. We’ve had a number of months on Hayes’ new Dominion brake too, and if you read our standalone review (MBUK 363), you may be interested to know it’s actually improved since the weather got worse.

We’ve also ridden the higher and lower-priced models of each set, to see which features make a difference – or don’t. In addition, we’ve tested the lighter, more race-orientated brakes from all these brands, and have generally decided that most riders will be better off with the more powerful sets we’ve got here. While they’re not in this test for various reasons, we’ve also used brakes from other brands such as Magura and FSA extensively, to put the models we have here into full context.

So what should you look for? In the same way that cheap frames feel blunt and basic while more expensive ones have different characters, good brakes feel different too. Some bite hard from first contact, others build power subtly through the stroke. The best ones keep that communication even when everything is going mental, so you can keep traction and control when you need it most. Also, how much control you have over the physical lever position, sweep and leverage feel can be a big factor in how well you sync with a brake.

Absolute power differs between models. We’ve tested, weighed and priced all sets with a 180mm rotor, but it’s easy to boost stopping power with a larger rotor. What you can’t change is how reliable or how easy to bleed and service different brakes are. Don’t assume that more expensive means more effective or reliable either, because often it’s the bonus features that cause the most issues.

We’ve done all that working-out for you, so read on to find your perfect set of new brakes.