123 - Hayes vs. Shimano Brakes: Which One is Better for You?

Brakes are one of those things most riders don't think about until something goes wrong — and then it's all they can think about. This episode of Mountain Cog changes that. Josh and Dane dig into the Hayes versus Shimano debate with the kind of depth and honesty that's hard to find when every other review online is either sponsored content or a five-minute YouTube video that barely scratches the surface. The conversation starts with a simple real-world observation from the trail and quickly evolves into something genuinely eye-opening about how these two systems are fundamentally built to feel different — not better or worse, just different.

Dane has spent decades behind a bike shop bench working on both systems, and that experience comes through in every minute of this episode. He explains why Shimano's brakes have earned their legendary reputation for easy maintenance, why Hayes has quietly built a cult following among riders who prioritize feel and control on technical terrain, and what the actual tradeoffs are when you choose one over the other. DOT fluid versus mineral oil, modulation versus raw bite, easy bleeding versus superior feel — it's all covered here without an agenda. By the end you'll have a clear picture of which system fits your riding and your lifestyle.

Shimano: https://bike.shimano.com/stories/article/the-easy-to-understand-guide-to-brakes.html

Hayes: https://hayes.hayesbicycle.com/en-us/

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Transcript

Freshman Year Of Being Old

Host - Josh Anderson 0:19

Dude, I heard the coolest thing this morning.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:22

Was it a refrigerator? I just came up with that.

Host - Josh Anderson 0:29

That's good. Nope.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:31

All right. But that's not what I heard. Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 0:33

So I recently turned 50, you know that, because you're at my 50-year-old, my my 50 uh uh year birthday party. And uh so I've been like going through the whole like midlife thing. And I know that you, you know, you're a wizard or whatever, so you went through that like four decades ago or something. And I still have to go through it. You have to go through it in the future sometime. Every day. Every day. But uh I heard something that just I'm gonna see if this resonates with you. It totally resonated with me. Um late fit late forties, early fifties, we are adolescent old people. Oh yeah. So we're like the freshman class of the old people. And for whatever reason. Okay, for whatever reason, that made me feel good. Like I'm young still. You're the whippersnapper. I'm the whippersnapper of the old people. I'm in the freshman class of the old people. So all right, I'm probably gonna cut that out.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:20

That's okay. I do feel like uh the our age of people like out mountain biking and playing with toys essentially. Right. You know, back in I don't know, 20 or 30 years ago, I don't know when.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:33

Um didn't seem like they were doing it.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:35

Old people would sit and have like drinks and on a rocker on their porch. Like that's what you thought of, you know, and now we're like out there jumping off rocks and stuff.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:44

And yeah, Lacey dislocated her finger today.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:47

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a good thing. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:50

Well, I mean, yeah, she didn't break anything.

What Our Listener Data Reveals

Host - Dane Higgins 1:52

Well, she maybe broke her finger, but I'm not whittling. And uh You're not whittling. No, I'm not learning basket weaving or anything like that. I'm not doing origami. I'm I'm just breaking myself on my bike.

Host - Josh Anderson 2:03

Well, Dan and I did something recently that we probably should have done a while ago, and we spent some time studying the performance of the different episodes that we had in the portfolio and kind of got a feel for like what episodes performed well, which ones didn't, uh, what should we keep doing, what should we do more of, that kind of stuff, which we stopped doing. And uh one of the things that the data tells us is that uh you guys like when we compare different component groups, um, those type of episodes, especially when we fight and argue about it.

Host - Dane Higgins 2:33

So I don't know if they like that. Maybe I don't know. Maybe it's exciting. I don't know. I mean, uh, it's always nice to hear about different products and and have a a back and forth on it, because you get the real info instead of like the infomercial. Yeah. You know, where you're only told the good, you know, which I think is all over a lot of the social media and and YouTube, you kind of get this one-sided yeah, you just get this feeling that they're being paid to say something. And when you and I talk about it, we're tend to be like, no, that shit sucks. Yeah.

The Hayes Versus Shimano Setup

Host - Josh Anderson 3:04

And for the record, we have never been paid one cent for anything. We have got a little bit of product here and there, but we haven't been paid one cent for anything that we've done. Um, but today, uh, in a line with that, we thought uh it might be interesting to take a look at the Hayes brake uh options and uh the Shimano brake options and kind of compare them. And I'll tell you what gave me the idea was uh you suggested that we put Hayes Dominions on Lacey's switchblade. Yeah. And I put them on a bike and spent a bunch of money, whatever, put them on. And I gave it to her, and I expected just her to be like, hey, this is amazing, thank you so much. And she was like, Yeah, they're they're good, they're okay. But just to put it in context, Lacey says that about everything. Yeah. So then um last weekend we had an opportunity to have like a belated birthday party where her and I uh uh in-laws watch the kids, and her and I went and did some riding uh by ourselves at some trails we don't normally get to ride. Um, one of them is one of your favorite trails, I think, in the 50-year area, and I rode Gem for the first time and rode Slabs for the first time and Baby Jesus and all that stuff over there. That was cool. Uh it never did it, didn't do your rock monkey thing. That was scary. Yeah, yeah, it is scary. If it's scaring you, I know it's scary. Max Pucker Factor. Yeah, big time. But uh she was riding and we were we were on e-bikes, and she was, and we also rode up at Hawes, and we were on e-bikes for the for the two rides that we did just so that we could get lots of reps in and lots of miles in the short amount of time that we had. But uh she was riding the the Shuttle SL, the pivot shuttle SL that she's got, and uh it's like uh I don't know, super light uh e-bike, not a full power. Yeah, and that bike has the old SLX brakes on it, four piston SLX brakes, and man, did she have a horrible time. Really? And she with the brakes. Okay, and she was like, these brakes are awful. I hate this. Would you please put Hayes Dominion brakes on this bike for me? So it took her a minute, yeah, but she realized the um that she really liked the Hayes, and so I I tried to like get it out of her. Like, what was it that you liked? And uh what she told me was that you have great stopping power, but with more control and they don't lock. So so she had more power before it locks versus Shimano where it would lock up sooner or honor. Yes. So, anyways, let me just start there. Like, what do you think about that categorization? Like, how would you explain the two two systems?

Host - Dane Higgins 5:51

Well, first, uh Lacey's reaction, right? Uh we get that in the shop all the time where somebody gets a new product and they're maybe all hyper because we were hyper about it, and then they get it and they're like, uh, it just feels like a break, you know, or whatever, you know, a new fork or whatever. And it's pretty common that uh if you have a really high performing product and you replace it with another high performing product, it's not gonna be night and day sometimes. Right. Um but the her reaction afterwards going back is what I call the cup holder effect.

Host - Josh Anderson 6:22

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:22

And um if you um I had a 65 Mustang.

Host - Josh Anderson 6:26

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:27

Uh they don't have cup holders. Okay. I think I see where this analogy is going. When you get used to it was a stick shift. Uh uh when you get used to going to Circle K and grabbing your soda and driving with your windows down on the weekend, drinking your soda, putting in your cup holder, which you don't have anymore, you realize what you're missing. You really so what happens is you don't really know what you have till it's gone. Right. Uh and uh that that Mustang, until I was used to putting a drink in a cup and then shifting and then picking it back up again, I didn't really realize I was missing you know cup holders. And so uh that that's really common. So when when she went backwards, she then noticed the difference, and that's pretty common. So that's the tubeless tube effect. If you ride tubes and then switch to tubeless, you may not go out and just automatically feel this amazing difference. Right. But man, when you go back, you can really feel a difference. All of a sudden the tires feel skittish and squirmy, and like it doesn't work right, and you're like, what is going on?

Host - Josh Anderson 7:32

You start getting more flats. Yep.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:34

You get used to the betterness, and it's a maybe a subtle betterness that you're used to that uh you don't even know until you go backwards.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:41

Interesting cup holder effect. I had never heard that before.

Disc Brake Basics And Early History

Host - Dane Higgins 7:44

Yeah. It's uh, you know, it it's whenever you're so used to something that when you go back that you don't think of it as a a need, and then when you go back and it's not there, you're like, oh god, I wish I had that. You know, I really had no idea how much I love that.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:59

So as we dive like deeper into these systems, uh it might be good to start with like just some baselines, maybe for folks that don't know that much about um brakes and how they work. So like we're talking about disc brakes, yeah, first and foremost. Yep. And I think today, pretty much, we're talking about hydraulic disc brakes.

Host - Dane Higgins 8:21

Yeah, I I uh Hays doesn't make oh man, they did a long time ago make cable activated. So did Avid, BD7s. Yep, yeah. I don't and so did Shimano. Um really? I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah, at one point when disc brakes were first coming out.

Host - Josh Anderson 8:35

Was it all cable actuated?

Host - Dane Higgins 8:36

They there was that transitionary period where not everybody wanted to buy a new lever or you know, or maybe they were converting their bike and then and there was a big big deal at the same time where they were integrating the shifter and the levers together. Yep, I heard that and uh STI or whatever you want to call it, but um and they were one unit, so it was expensive to to go. Some of the bikes when disc brakes first came out actually had disc brake mounts and V-brake mounts, or more uh importantly, uh we called them yeah, V-brakes, uh but canty mounts. Yep. And uh so when disc brakes hit the market, they weren't fully um fully adopted. It took a while, it took a few years before most of the bikes started coming with disc brake. Yeah, and it and it was in in my memory, it was a long time that it took for them to fully integrate. Get this, like some bikes only had a disc brake on the front.

Host - Josh Anderson 9:32

In a in a put in a cantilever or a V brake, V-brake on the back.

Host - Dane Higgins 9:37

Yeah. Uh I think back now, and I don't know if they just didn't have the frame designed yet. And so that was how they got about it. But uh I sold Trek at the time and they had mounts on both. So there's a lot of a lot of disc brake history where where they've uh learned. So one of the first companies uh to come out with disc brakes for mountain bikes was Hayes. And a lot of people don't know that. Hayes was making disc brakes well before Shimano and and most of the other companies on the market.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:08

Right.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:09

I think Formula was out there, and there was some Euro companies. There was not a lot out there. Okay. Um and Hayes was one of the first, and they were probably the number one brake for many years. And I remember uh my downhill bike had the same brakes as my cross-country race bike. Like they had the same brakes.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:29

You kind of do that today.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:31

Yeah, I do. I do, but but Hayes doesn't. Hayes doesn't, no. Um and so like I remember I had uh the uh I think they were God, I'm gonna forget some of this. I think they were just the Hayes Mags, but they had the purple haze, which was a special edition for my downhill bike, which was a purple lever. And uh so it's funny because now they do have a special edition purple haze break.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:55

It's so funny. I never put the purple haze together with uh Jimi Hendrix. Jim Jimi Hendrix until just now. Yeah. You you've always talked about the purple purple Dominions, and I'm just like Yeah, no, it's purple haze.

Host - Dane Higgins 11:05

Right, they're purple haze, okay. Exactly. I get where it comes from now.

Open Systems Heat And Brake Fluids

Host - Josh Anderson 11:08

Yeah. Okay, so um so for today, we're talking about hydraulic disc breaks. Yes. Yeah. So maybe we can talk a little bit about how those work, just so folks understand the different parts of the system. Sure. And then there's a couple different options in the number of pistons. So maybe you can take us through just like like what are the different parts of that system, how do they work together, and then like what are the different options?

Host - Dane Higgins 11:30

So a little little history on on disc breaks, because they were trying to figure this out. Uh Hayes early on had developed a reservoir and a bladder system. Hayes, uh, if I remember correctly, does uh a lot of big breaks for big um industrial equipment, but also I think Harley Davidson. So they do breaks in other industries, and so they had a lot of know-how. Um other companies like Hope, uh Hope was one of the early break, they didn't quite know what they were doing. And they were some of their first breaks, they made uh what I'm gonna say is an open or a closed system. And so uh closed system basically meant that there was no air and there was no expansion. And on Hope's closed systems, they were basically as the fluid heated up and expanded, it would pinch your caliper more and the bike would start automatically putting the brakes on. Not a good thing. And hey, and Hope in in order to combat this, they had a plunger and a and a wing nut basically on the top of their reservoir. To relieve some of the pressure. So as you're riding your cross-country bike and your brakes are heating up, and imagine in Arizona, we we saw this way more than other places. But as your fluid's heating up and expanding, you'd have to reach your thumb up while you're riding and like turn this this kind of wing nut, you know, dial on the top of the reservoir to bring the piston up to give it expansion room so that your brakes wouldn't lock up while you're racing cross country.

Host - Josh Anderson 13:03

Wow.

Host - Dane Higgins 13:03

Yeah. So so there is a whole like wild west of disc brakes that I feel like there still is. They're continually working on that working on it.

Host - Josh Anderson 13:11

So are today's systems owed open or closed systems?

Host - Dane Higgins 13:14

Today's are open systems with a reservoir. And so what that does is any expansion allows the fluid to go up into a reservoir and not affect the lever pressure or the system pressure. Yep. And so when you heat up your brakes, that's the goal is is that reservoir is there to uh accept the the heat. The expanded yeah, exactly.

Host - Josh Anderson 13:38

Expanded fluid.

Host - Dane Higgins 13:39

It's still been an issue, and and Shimano's been suffering with a lot of heat dissipation issues. They put a lot of their technology in trying to get rid of the heat. Yep. Um heat can, you know, aside from expanding the fluid, it can cook the fluid. Yeah. So you can actually burn your fluid. And so there's basically two main types of fluid right now in the market, and that's a mineral type oil, and that's not standardized. Uh, so that's something that's important to understand. And then there's a dot system.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:06

So there are so when you say not standardized, that means that there's actually different types of mineral oil, and you can't just like go to the grocery store and take that mineral oil and put it in your brake. It's not designed for that.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:16

You you could, but you could ruin your brakes.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:18

Yeah, because you could also pee in it if you really wanted to, but you shouldn't.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:22

But you could ruin your brakes. Like that, like anybody who's like, oh, I can put water in my brakes and they'll work. Yeah, whatever, dude. They you may ruin your brakes or they may not work right. Like basically anything that you put in your brake system that isn't what the company tells you, you could possibly hurt your brake and you would be fully responsible for it.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:40

I almost feel like we should test out urine in a braking system at some point.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:49

Not gonna do it.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:50

I might have to do it. Just give me an old set of brakes if you don't need any more, and I'll I'll test them out.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:55

Yeah, I'm I'm not doing that. Um so early on I did, I can't remember which one. We had these You did it early on? No, uh I always do it early on. Um I got these really high zoot, like super like machine, like lightweight brakes, and they were prototypes, and there was no info on them. Of course they came from Asia and there was absolutely no info. Like an AliExpress purchase here? No, this was before that. Okay. Uh but this was one of our manufacturers that was making these like stupid light cross-country disc brakes, and my job was to evaluate them and see if they worked and make sure that they were safe. And uh nowhere did it tell me what fluid to put in them.

Host - Josh Anderson 15:35

So you didn't know what the fluid was?

Host - Dane Higgins 15:37

And they come preloaded typically, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they had a um brake pad that was a copy of another popular brand that used uh mid uh mineral oil. So you just assume So I put mineral oil on them. Well turns out they were dot fluid. Yeah, they were dot. The the those the rubber in that expanded and like looked like it had an allergic reaction. Like it was just all bloated and it just not nothing went back together. You ruined the brakes. Ruined the brakes. Absolutely. They were beautiful, but I ruined the brakes.

Host - Josh Anderson 16:08

So the first lesson here is make sure you know if you are working on it uh or bleeding or whatever, make sure you know what the proper fluid is for your brakes.

Host - Dane Higgins 16:16

Yeah, the fluid um when it comes to dot, it's usually four or five point one. Um most manufacturers are are getting smart enough to put it on the actual brake. Yep. Uh if you're not sure, you can look up the specs. Uh that's important that you don't put anything weird. Um dot fluid is pretty universal. You can usually go to the hardware store or uh auto parts store and get it. You can get it almost any country. That's one of the reasons some companies have used it. It's so easy to get. It's prolific. Yeah. And um, so when I say that, uh there's some caveats. Dot fluid does it uh likes to absorb water uh or moisture, and that can cause problems. And so you don't that big, huge you know, bottle that you get out of autozone or whatever is usually way more than you need. And then if you stick it in a real humid environment, it could suck up water and that could contaminate the actual fluid. And then you can actually need to bleed your brakes much more often because of that. Um desert, it's dry here, it's not as big a deal. But when you go to buy, like um in the past, Shram would sell their dot fluid. Yep. Um, they don't sell it in a big quantity.

Host - Josh Anderson 17:24

It's in small coins.

Host - Dane Higgins 17:25

I always wonder why that wasn't. Yeah. I understand now. And that's why. And so and they're adamant about it. Like they will like they're just like, yeah, just sell somebody a new bottle every time your leather breaks. You know, you shouldn't have that stuff sitting on the shelf. Yeah. I think if you're in Wisconsin or Chicago, that's very, very good advice. I think in the desert we get away with a little bit more here. Um, but it is true.

Master And Slave Cylinders Explained

Host - Josh Anderson 17:47

Okay, so dot fluid can suck it up. So what are the so how does like how so you you talked about the reservoir, what happens when it heats up, but just in general, like how does a hydraulics brake system work?

Host - Dane Higgins 17:57

So basically there's a master cylinder and a slave cylinder. A slave cylinder is going to be the at the caliper, and those are in most cases two pistons or four pistons, and they're um and in the olden days there used to be only one side that moved, and it would move the caliper over, and you have a floating caliper. On everything now has two moving pistons or four moving pistons. Um there may be some exotic brakes that have six.

Host - Josh Anderson 18:22

So just to make sure so folks don't know what the term caliper means.

Host - Dane Higgins 18:25

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 18:25

Like on your wheels, you've got disc brakes, and then you've got a caliper attached to your fork on the front, and you have a caliper attached to your frame on the back. And inside that caliper is either two pistons, typically like one coming from each side. Yep. And that's typically for like cross-country applications. Yep. And as you get bigger and go to more steeper stuff, uh, or e-bikes or heavier bikes, you start to move to a four-piston system where you have two pushing from each side.

Host - Dane Higgins 18:52

Yep. Yeah, and so uh the two or four piston just depends on the model and and who makes it, right? Whether they make it or not. Um and then uh the that's the slave cylinder. So there's really there's a calculation that the brake company uh has, which basically knows um fluids are non-compressible, so technically if you push the piston like a syringe, think of like a syringe, if you push that fluid, it will equal out at those pistons and want to push those the same amount. Right. And so uh so that's how hydraulics work. You know, that's basically just moving fluid. So where's the master cylinder? Master cylinder is up at the lever, and because these are open systems and they have a reservoir, uh you have a master cylinder that's got a port that allows fluid to go back and forth when the lever's not engaged. And so what happens is the fluid is sitting static. So this is something, you know, if if you want to hear about a bike shop secret, little bike shop secret, um, when that piston is static and not being pulled, the reservoir is open and you can have air uh moving back and forth freely. So when people tell you don't hang your bike upside down because you have hydraulic disc brakes, their concern is that if there's any air in that reservoir, it's gonna get down into the line. It could go into the line, and then because air wants to go up, if that reservoir is way down at the bottom, the air can travel up into your caliper. Caliper. This doesn't really happen um until you pull the lever. So in most cases, that air won't get into that line until you pull the lever. Uh when you pull the lever, it'll pull the air in. Interesting.

Host - Josh Anderson 20:38

So if you do have your bike upside down, definitely don't use the lever to stop it, which I do all the time.

Host - Dane Higgins 20:44

Yeah, and and so uh one of the things that you can do really normal out here where we ride is sometimes you have to go through a gate and they'll create these uh cattle gates that are basically you have to kind of pull a wheelie with your bike and walk through it. Yep. It's like a chicane where you have to go around it and it's not long enough for a bike, so you can't just have the bike on the ground. And often people will hold their rear brake to control the rear wheel, and they'll pull that lever to kind of keep their bike from looping out or getting away from them, and their lever will go soft, you know, and then they put it back down on the ground, level, and if you tap that lever just slightly to agitate the fluid, which gets the air bubble to move and to then actually want to move through the system, you can just get that air bubble to pop back into the reservoir and your brake lever will come back. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners have actually done this. Just kind of pumping the brakes. Yep, exactly. Pump up your Yeah, you don't need to get aggressive and pull full pulls, you know. Um you're just kind of trying to jiggle that thing where the air bubble goes back in the reservoir. Um most most of the time when you bleed a system, you're trying to get that air out, it doesn't always come out. And the reservoir is designed that if you don't get it all out, it doesn't hurt the brake. It still works.

Reach Free Stroke And Lever Feel

Host - Josh Anderson 21:58

All right. And then what are the adjustments that are available? Oh God. Pardon me. Sorry about that. That's okay. I know that there's different variations from different brake companies that do different things, but like what are the different categories? Like one or two different categories of adjustments.

Host - Dane Higgins 22:17

The really basic are lever reach adjustment, which just moves the lever back and forth and doesn't really change where the piston engages. Yep. And it just lets you fit different length fingers for the most part. Some uh brakes will have a kind of a leverage adjustment, maybe a pad byte or where the pads engage, and they may have an ability to preload the system a little bit so that the pads get a little closer and so you have a little firmer feel. Sometimes this is mechanical where it's not affecting the hydraulics because it's hard. You can't, like I was saying, that port where the air uh it comes out and the fluid goes in to the brake system, uh, you can't just engage that piston and block that port to give you a firmer feel because then that port won't be available to take the air out. And um, so sometimes they do this with a mechanical like change in either a linkage, there's all kinds of stuff. So there's so much gobbledygook going on in there. Uh Shimano has this thing on a lot of theirs they call free stroke, which is I will tell you that I've had Shimano people, uh, they're like, I don't think it does anything. Like, but it does. Uh what it does is it's literally a screw that goes in and it basically when the piston comes up against it, it kind of stops how far it can come. Uh and it does not make a big difference. However, we've had systems where when it's fully engaged, the system, that little port I was talking about, is blocked, and we can't bleed the system. And it feels like you're trying to push fluid from the bottom uh up with it closed at the top. And it and it's closed. And and uh we had one of our texts like we pulled the What the hell's going on here? Yeah, we ended up pulling the lever off and the line out to to push the fluid through the line to make sure it wasn't a blocked line before we even realized it was the free stroke was all the way in. And so there's little things like that that they make these tiny little differences that you may never notice, but sometimes will affect your your brake uh bleed for sure. So um the big thing that a lot of companies Hayes, uh Shram, even Shimano, is they're messing with a linkage that uh basically ch changes the leverage from your lever, from your finger, to pushing a piston straight, which is not a natural thing. And a one-to-one ratio doesn't feel as good. And so they're trying to create through linkage these tiny little linkages in the lever, uh different feels, you know, right and this is so now we're gonna talk about kinematics of your brake lever versus kinematics of your suspension design. Yeah, and and yeah, and it's it's it absolutely is and ergonomics, right? So like it's not even the ergonomics. So like some of them have two lever uh levers, you know, that are real short and some are real long, like uh like a full hand, you know. Some of the cheap Shimano brakes we put on like commuter bikes are like full hand brakes, you know. And uh so yeah, there's it's a really complicated system and there's a lot going on in there. So how many fingers are you supposed to break with? Whatever stops you. There's there's uh I think a pro that I was just reading about who uses two fingers uses their like middle and and ring finger, and not their index finger to break, which would drive me nuts, you know. And I tend to use my uh pointer finger indexed, right? I think most people do that. And my middle finger. That's usually what I do. Use two fingers? Yeah, yeah. In most cases. Really? Yeah, yeah. So it's natural for me to put two on there.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:12

All of my training, all of my coaches have all told me. They broke me of the two-finger breaking and said it has to be one finger.

Host - Dane Higgins 26:17

Has to be one finger.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:18

Yeah, that's what all my coaches taught me.

Host - Dane Higgins 26:20

I don't know. Well, I mean Maybe that's why I suck. I don't know. I don't know. I think it's just a personal thing.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:26

So we're we are not a coaching website or podcast here, anyways.

Host - Dane Higgins 26:31

But the angle, you know, is like people will tell you this is how the angle it needs to be because your tendons and blah blah blah. And then Jackson Goldstone goes out and just slays everybody with these goofy looking levers, you know, and and then my one friend that rides like that's like, see, you know, that's how you're supposed to ride. I told you. Yeah, exactly. And it's Is that Justin? Yeah. Okay, of course it is. But it's it's it's has nothing to do with that. Like, uh, it's really what you're used to and what you like and what's comfortable and what you learn. My theory with Jackson is that he started at such a young age that his levers were like that as a little kid.

Host - Josh Anderson 27:05

Because they couldn't not be.

Host - Dane Higgins 27:07

Because they had to be, yeah. For his hands to reach. Because my kids are like that. They have their rakes way more flat than down. And as he learned at such a high level At such a young age. At such a young age he never wanted to change that. That's my theory. I could be full of BS, but that's just my theory. I don't think there's any mechanical uh advantage. The uh the other prevailing thing is that if you have your fingers kind of sit on the levers and they line up with your forearm, you're just not bending your tendons as much, and it's healthier for your body. And I don't have a problem with that either. Right. You know, uh, I think that's a good enough reason too. You know, it's really just whatever works for you. There's no right or wrong answer.

Pistons Pad Area And Rotor Size

Host - Josh Anderson 27:52

So I'm gonna stop myself from going down a rabbit hole on Jackson Goldstone's new grips. So we'll save that for a later podcast. Because I almost went down it, but I caught myself. All right, all right. All right. Okay, so um two-piston, four-piston brakes, we talk all hydraulic disc brakes, we talked about some of the how how the system works, open systems.

Host - Dane Higgins 28:09

Oh, you want some interesting info? Go for it. How much do you think they have to change the lever when they go from a two-piston to a four-piston?

Host - Josh Anderson 28:19

So would this be how much do they have to change their the pull ratio?

Host - Dane Higgins 28:23

Well, yeah, like how how much different do they have to make that lever to accommodate for whichever caliper?

Host - Josh Anderson 28:30

It feels to me like it would be require more on the four-piston than the two-piston, because you're moving more.

Host - Dane Higgins 28:38

Uh-huh. So you'd like you need more fluid.

Host - Josh Anderson 28:41

More fluid, and you need probably more leverage to move that much fluid. That's my that's my guess. There's no difference.

Host - Dane Higgins 28:48

No difference. No difference. If you take a a Shimano two-piston, you know, brake lever and hook it up to a four-piston, they're the same, they're the same levers. It's the same lever. So that blows my mind, you know, because for the reasons I just said. Exactly, yeah. It it does. It blows my mind. Um, so I went down a rabbit hole because we were talking about power, and I use two piston brakes. I use two piston haze dominion brakes on most of my bikes.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:18

And we don't recommend you do that, by the way, but keep going.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:21

Yeah, I I do. Well, like Dane is weird. No, it's not that. Uh it's I look at more how a brake has power. Yeah, and um, I'm looking more at like what its power output is rather than how many pistons. And so, for instance, I did a comparison, I did a video on Guru, um, where I just compared the Hayes Dominion two-piston brake pad to a guide four-piston brake pad, and the Hayes two piston brake pad was much bigger. Uh, so the guide four piston was much smaller. So the debate came about whether or not the surface area has more to do with the braking power than how many pistons there are.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:05

Did you come to a conclusion?

Host - Dane Higgins 30:07

Uh, you know, I did that its surface area has more to do with it than the amount of fluid that's being moved because it's the same amount of fluid. And that's why the brake levers are the same. Interesting. So the four pistons allows you to have two things. Sometimes they'll alter the piston size. So sometimes in the caliper there'll be a bigger one and a smaller one. Bigger one and a small side. On each side. On each side, yeah. And that is supposed to give you two different feels, almost a modulation, which means that the brake is going to engage at one firmness and then engage at a second firmness. I'm not a hundred percent sure how much that actually happens because some of the companies now are balancing their pistons and having the same size pistons. So I think that's still in the wild west.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:53

Bro, bro, when I suggested this, I had no idea how deep we were gonna get or how much you actually knew about the inner workings here.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:00

I'm super impressed by the way. I could draw you so many pictures.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:03

All right, keep going. I'll cut you off.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:04

I just wanted to give you a compliment real quick. So uh surface area is t is tricky, but then rotor size. So like when it comes to braking power, how much does the size of the rotor matter versus the breaking surface area versus the power?

Host - Josh Anderson 31:23

Like general consensus, I believe, is like the bigger the rotor, the more braking power you have, more braking power you have. Yeah, that's you agree with that.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:31

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty true. And that's one of the oldest tricks that we've always had to increase the power of the brake.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:37

So and I would believe that like a bigger rotor is gonna have more impact than what's going on in the caliper for for breaking.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:46

Yeah, I think I think for a lot of people for many, many years, we found that bigger rotors made the biggest difference. The biggest drawback to the rotors when they go bigger is they get farther away from their attachment point and they can have more uh deflection and warp. Right.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:02

And so they're harder to maintain and keep rocks, they get but yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:06

Well, not only that, but they just tend to be noisier, they tend to have so much degree of float back and forth and not be able to be perfectly straight that that you tend to have more rotor uh pad contact. So when you're riding, you hear that. So what size rotors do you ride with? I tend to be a 180 to 200 or 203, depending on like those are big rotors. Yeah. On my cross country bike 160.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:29

Okay. I mean that's what I run.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:30

Yeah. And so um the 220s, I'm not really into.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:36

I didn't even know if they they made those.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:38

Oh yeah, yeah. You should have seen this one that came in on this tandem. I forgot. I think it's like a two forty. I th it made huge. It was so big. It's like a dinner plate. It was bigger than the Eagle cassette, which is you know like but it was so big. Like I I had I had no idea they made them that big. Um but That's what she said. That is what she said. And um, really honestly, when it comes to all of these Is that for you or me? You said it. Oh, okay. So um when it comes to the all of these little ways to get more braking performance, they can all be combined in different ways to give you different characteristics. Uh-huh. So when people are not happy with their brakes, it's not always just get different brakes. It's sometimes, you know, the big thing that bugs me uh lately is just people don't even want to look at a two-piston brake anymore. Like they just turn their noses up at it. If a bike has a two-piston brake on it, they're just like, oh my God, I I would die. You know, like you even said that.

Host - Josh Anderson 33:40

No, I I believe that. And the the you know, I'm giving you credence because I actually heard the North American product manager from Shimano in a different podcast say that today.

Host - Dane Higgins 33:52

Say what?

Host - Josh Anderson 33:52

That he thinks that he's running two piston brakes and that they're way more powerful, and he put a bigger rotor on it, and they're way more powerful than you would think.

Host - Dane Higgins 34:00

Yeah. It's it it the the big thing is is how you brake and and where you use your brakes. So I'll give you a good example. I I've been experimenting with brakes lately. You know this because you're with me as I go careening by and can't stop. Uh but um one, I've been playing around with these Haze 2 pistons, and they're called the A2s. Um and I have a couple different sets, and some of them are titanium, and some of them are just aluminum.

Host - Josh Anderson 34:25

Um so the the A2s would be the That's their two pistons ones. Aluminum ones, and the T2s would be the titanium ones. Two different models.

Host - Dane Higgins 34:33

Yeah, and titanium, when we say that on in a haze break, it's just the hardware. It's just Bling.

Host - Josh Anderson 34:38

And I think the T2s also have a carbon fiber lever.

Host - Dane Higgins 34:41

Yeah, I like it because it says Reynolds, and I like I write a lot of Reynolds stuff, so it's cool. So did you know that Hayes and Reynolds are the same company and Manitou and ProTaper? Didn't know.

Host - Josh Anderson 34:53

Pro taper. Wow. Yeah, that didn't know though.

Host - Dane Higgins 34:54

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there's a it's a big company, and uh I often say this. Uh I've I was trying to get them on the podcast, so I'm doing a little public call out to Hayes, because I'm like, you should I wanna I want to do a podcast with Hayes because they're really a big company. Yeah, they don't do the best job of marketing. Um and I like those companies. You know, I like the underdogs. I like the companies that make really good stuff that not everybody knows about because I feel like I'm an insider or something. I don't know. Yeah, you know.

Host - Josh Anderson 35:22

I don't know that calling them an underdog is gonna motivate them to come talk with us though.

Host - Dane Higgins 35:26

I I think it I think it you know, I think it uh you know what I noticed is after we did a podcast with Vittoria, yeah, I am seeing them a lot more. I saw them at the 24 hour, I've seen them on some of the YouTubes. I I see them way more active in the marketing space.

Host - Josh Anderson 35:42

Yeah, we can we can talk at some other point about all the other podcasts that seem to be following our lead. Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 35:48

I know it's just it's our own paranoia and it has there's no substance to it.

Host - Josh Anderson 35:52

I keep sending Dane text. I'm like, look at they copied us again. Yeah. We got our number.

On Off Bite Versus Modulation

Host - Dane Higgins 35:58

Okay. So uh two piston, four piston, uh all of these are are s are similar. So when we're we started this off with just Hayes versus Shimano Hayes versus Shimano.

Host - Josh Anderson 36:09

And now we're deep into but we had to set a baseline.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:12

For the most part, we're gonna be talking four piston versus four piston. Uh we're gonna be talking Hayes Dominions uh versus Shimano XTs or SLX.

Host - Josh Anderson 36:21

And and SLX are gone.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:23

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 36:23

So it's Dior, XT, and XTR these days.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:26

Well, like when we bring up Lacey, she had SLX. She did. Yeah. Now, do you feel like if she had XTs that she would have a different experience, or do you think it's inherent in that break?

Host - Josh Anderson 36:36

You know, it's interesting. Um I I ran some analysis to kind of see like what the difference was. And there definitely is a breaking power difference between Shimano's lower end products and their XT product.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:56

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 36:57

So if she had XT brakes or XTR brakes on that bike, would it have had been a different experience? I think she would have had more a little bit more braking power, and it probably would have been a little bit more uh different experience. But I think her control her issue was not that she didn't have enough braking power, it was that the it was locking. Um what are you trying to find there, brother? I was just gonna go some of the brakes. These are the old ones, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 37:25

Um cheap ones. So basically it was the feel and it was the engagement. So what we talk about in So more power without locking up, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 37:34

To make it really simple.

Host - Dane Higgins 37:35

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 37:36

And so Does that resonate with you for for Hayes versus Shimano?

Host - Dane Higgins 37:40

That's kind of how I describe uh Hayes. They have uh so Shimano has a term that a lot of people will hear and and maybe they don't even know what it means because they're so used to their Shimano's, they never On off. On off, yeah. They have an on off feel. And if you are always riding Shimano, you may not know what that means. You may not understand why somebody could see that as a bad thing because you loved your brakes, and there's nothing wrong with your Shimano brakes. But I mean, I'm wearing a Shimano shirt right now. Yeah, it's a feel. When I um when I uh was growing up, I loved Hondas. I was a Honda person. When I met my wife, she had a Toyota car, and I drove that Toyota car and I didn't want to like it, but then I got used to it, and I did like it, and it was a very different car. They were two things doing the same thing, just different ways. Yep. And once you got used to them, you know, uh it was it was the same. I couldn't now I I interchange them, but I they definitely feel different. So and that's how brakes are. And so um Shimano's on off feel is is mainly to do with the fact that they have a lot of power that comes on immediately, uh, a lot of bite immediately, but then they don't have a continuing amount of pressure that really is significant as you pull harder. And so you get it all up front and it's on. And and then if until you really get to know them and really work at like learning them, trying to feather that and have that not come on suddenly is much more nuanced than some of the other brake companies. The irony is that people will sometimes say that they're they're um they'll they'll try a new brake that doesn't have that same feel that has clearly way more power. It feels like you can't stop. And they will say that that break with no with way more power, it can't they can't stop.

Host - Josh Anderson 39:30

And that I have felt that sensation. Being a lifelong Shimano brake user, I have felt that exact same same some sense uh sensation.

Host - Dane Higgins 39:37

Yeah, and that and it is it's funny. And so you see these funny videos where people are like, you know, putting somebody, you know, oh, this is how people stop with Shimano and Magura, and then and then this Shram person goes like careening off the screen because they can't stop. Uh I had this happen with a we sold a bike that was brand new and it had uh codes, uh, which back in the day were were one of the most powerful brakes on the market. I would run them on my downhill bike. They're very powerful brakes. And um, whether you like shram or not, they were very good brakes. I I did really well with them. And we put these on, you know, a bike, a brand new bike. They came on it, they were brand new. They had 203 millimeter rotors, so they had plenty of stopping power. And the customer kept coming back saying that there's something wrong with his brakes, they don't stop uh like his Shimanos do. They don't have enough power and he feels unsafe. And and I'm going out in the parking lot and I'm riding them, locking them up. I can do stuff. I can feel fine. I can do stoppies, you know. I'm having no problem doing wheelies, like my there's nothing wrong with the brakes. They're working, they're not making noise, they've got plenty of power. It took me a while to kind of figure out what was going on. And really what it boiled down to, he just was not used to pulling the lever harder than just that initial bite. And when you pull that, if you were to put a machine that that delivered that push onto that lever at the amount he was pushing for the uh Shimanos to bite, that would be a lower pressure than what it would take to get the same power out of a shram. Does that make sense?

Host - Josh Anderson 41:21

Yeah, but so could bring it back to Hayes, because we're talking about Hayes.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:23

So same kind of thing there, or well, that's why I'm bringing this up, because so one of the drawbacks is in the past there was these two big companies fighting it up.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:33

Shram and Shimano.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:34

Yeah, and so what you had was you had the the on-off Shimano, and that some people will get used to that initial soft pull that got you tons of power. And if you did a shram, you got way more power, but you had to pull harder. And so you had to train yourself to pull harder. And that's what I'm saying. This guy could not actually just pull harder, and because he was forcing himself to pull harder, he felt like they weren't working. He didn't realize that was for some people an advantage. Okay. And so Hayes came on the market and said, I don't know if they actually said let's let's do both, you know. Right. I don't know what they did. Like honestly, I they they were so quiet coming onto the market because there was a dark time for us in the bike shop with Hayes where they made some awful, awful brakes. And there was a whole period between those early ones that I told you I used to race and these Dominions that Hayes doesn't want to talk to you about. Like nobody wants to talk about those brakes. And they and I I wouldn't sell them, we wouldn't carry them, like we wouldn't work on them. Like there was a whole period where Hayes was just not Yeah, they they're not scattered. Yeah. The Dominions came out and they didn't it's like they didn't tell anyone. And for a few years, what would you say it was like 18?

Host - Josh Anderson 42:50

2018 is what yeah, my information says is when they came out.

Host - Dane Higgins 42:53

I think we were testing them on the downhill team in 2020.

Host - Josh Anderson 42:58

I think Yeah, it says the A4, Dominion A4, Four Piston uh came out in 2018, the Dominion A2 came out in 2020, along with the Dominion T two, and then the Dominion T four came out in 2022.

Host - Dane Higgins 43:12

Yeah, yeah. So we were testing them a good year or two after they were already out, nobody knew they were out. And what they have done is giving you both of those scenarios. So when you pull, I don't I don't want this to be an infomercial on Hayes, you know. I I still think XTs are amazing. Yep. And we're still gonna talk about the new XTs. Yep. Which are different, which is is different from what I'm talking about. So I need to make that clear right now. The in the past, we're talking about a standard mineral oil 8120 or whatever it is break.

Host - Josh Anderson 43:48

Um in 2025, um, Shimano released a new version of the XT and XTR, both two piston and four pisson in both those models, and they have a different mineral oil uh look.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:05

Yeah, I'm talking about what what they built their reputation on. And so Hayes came out with a brake that had much more uh light lever feel, so you didn't have to pull as hard. And the power came on pretty quick, but it was very uh consistent as you pulled the lever. So it wasn't like it came on and then just you didn't get any more. As you pull, you got more and more and more and more. And it was really easy to move your finger a little bit to change how that brake felt. We call that modulation. So basically you can really make the brake even let go a little bit of the rotor so that it can turn just a little bit and not just brake free. And so that modulation is really important when you're doing technical riding, technical steeps. Um if you're doing trick riding, you know, doing wheelies, things like that. Uh uh, in and more importantly, when you're trying not to break traction under, you know, uh really weird conditions. So like if your brakes are on off and you hit a rooted muddy section, it's hard sometimes not to just engage that brake, lock it, and then instead of rolling over with controlled speed the roots, you're sliding down them and crashing. So that modulation is important. And so that's one of the things that they were able to do. They did this with that little bit of scissor link technology in the lever. They also included ball bearings uh that the lever rotates on so there was no bushings or crud that would get in and kind of make the lever gritty or weird. Uh you didn't have plastic that would break and have kind of a floppy lever. You had a really consistent feel. And then they did it through, for the most part, their balance of how much fluid is in the lever versus in the uh pistons. And that is also a secret sauce that a lot of companies don't want to talk about, and it's very hard to get out of them. But that is something that really makes a big difference with brakes is balancing that lever pull, that lever engagement, but also that the power comes on consistently. And that has a lot to do with the whole system, not just the lever.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:16

So would you characterize Hayes as being from a lever pull perspective, an engagement point on off, would you characterize it as being somewhere between shamano and sh and shram?

Host - Dane Higgins 46:26

Yeah, yeah. It is it is um much easier to get the power out of it. But as you pull more, you get more and more power. So it's not.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:37

Once it turns on, it's on. Yep, with Shimano.

Host - Dane Higgins 46:39

So you don't have to put so much lever pull like a sh like a shram to get that out of there where you're you almost have to, you know, take your fingers to the gym and they have to work out if you're gonna go with shram. You know, if you're an XT, you kind of like have like little wimpy arm levers. Like, you know, your fingers are not as strong, you know. If you're a shram rider, man, when a shram rider gets on Shimano, if they it freaks them out. Like uh the riders that we've had that are go from shram to Shimano, they're like, oh my god, I almost flipped over the bars because they're pulling so hard. They're used to pulling so hard. And Shimano riders have the opposite effect when they go to Shram, they're like, uh, the brake doesn't even come on because they're not pulling as hard, you know. And it's just getting used to the brake and learning how to break how to work with it. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:29

All right, so so just for the the sake of simplicity, let's just pick one from each model that are comparable. So let's say Dominion A4s, those are four piston kind of number one trail enduro gravity kind of uh brake with Shimano XT, four piston. Yep. And they're kind of if we go down the categories, they're right about the same price.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:55

Yeah, similar.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:56

They're like 250 bucks a wheel.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:58

Yeah, so it's not uh uh cheaper versus more expensive, so and they're also pretty close in weight.

Host - Josh Anderson 48:04

The uh XTs um with no rotor, I have here at 300 grams, and the Dominions I have at 310. Oh, so they're just right there, really super close to each other. Nice. Um if we look at the the fluid that they use, the Hays are using DOT. Yep, yeah, and the Shimano's are using mineral oil. Yep. And in the new version that came out in 2025 of the Shimano's, they're using a new mineral oil that is uh a low viscosity mineral oil. Yep. Uh that also enabled them to change the seals, which they believe helped smooth out the piston or the uh cat not caliper, what is it that comes out? Yeah, the pi the piston at the caliper, how it how it good goes in and out, how it returns.

Host - Dane Higgins 48:57

Yeah. They also got rid of the ceramic um pistons, which were very what are they made of?

Host - Josh Anderson 49:03

Yeah, because i i I've broken those in the past, but what are they made of now? Is it metal or is it a bully. I think it's a composite. It's another composite, but just not the ceramic that would break easily.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:13

Not 100%, but it's not ceramic. That's the important part.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:17

Yeah. Some of the old Shimano's you had a problem when you when you were maintaining them pretty much, you could actually chip the piston.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:24

You not only chip it, uh we've had them broken, we've had them cracked where they're not leaking until you have where your pads down enough to where the crack allows fluid out. So like people would come in and they're like, I don't understand. They've been working for six months, you know, and now all of a sudden every pad that goes in it is ruined is ruined, and we find it's got a cracked piston. And they're the the ceramic pistons were a problem. They were fixing another problem, which is like uh a pitting a pitting problem with um uh alloy. Alloy pistons would kind of pit. So as they're ridden outside and they're kind of you're halfway through your pads, your piston's prowled from the uh outside of the the um seal, yep, and it's exposed, and they pit and they get uh corrosion on them. And then when you try and push them back, they either tear up the seal uh when you're resetting them for new pads, or they get stuck or sticky. We called a sticky piston. Right. And that and then that piston wouldn't move freely, but the other two or three would.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:30

And then you get all kinds of weird performance.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:32

Weird rubbing, and like they uh, you know, they work great in the in at the bike shop. I picked it up, I rode in the parking lot, they were great, but like five miles into my ride, they're rubbing again, you know. And that and that that was a frustration that a lot of people had, including bike mechanics, because they did work great in the shop, but we didn't know why the one piston would just stop moving.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:51

So public service announcement there, if you didn't pick up on it, you cannot use the same brake fluid in 2024 and older uh XT or XTR brakes as you would with 2025. It's a different type of mineral oil.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:07

Well, and to my earlier remarks about mineral oils and how they're not standardized, anytime you have a brake that takes mineral oil, you need to really follow the manufacturer's recommendation. If you if you're gonna go to your buddy's house and have him fix your bike because you don't want to take it to a bike shop.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:26

He's talking to all my friends right now.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:28

Uh I I'm not. You kind of are. I'm not, but I'm I'm I am referencing some people that we did have this experience recently. Recently, and where, you know, oh I can my buddy down in you know where I live, you know, he he just fixes all of our bikes, you know, and we go over to his house, we have some beers, and he just fixes our bikes. Just be careful, because if you put Magura uh mineral oil in a Shimano, you may have issues, you may not. Uh there's a lot of hacks out there where people combine them. Um if you put uh LV in other systems, you're gonna have problems.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:07

Low viscosity.

Host - Dane Higgins 52:08

Um in any of these wrong fluids in there, uh like for instance, now Shram is using mineral oil. It is in their Mavens. If you put something other than Shram's fluid in theirs.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:21

It's maximal, right?

Bleeding Microbubbles And Rotor Thickness

Host - Dane Higgins 52:22

They're using a maximum fluid. And it's for their brakes. Yep, any of these companies, immediately you void your warranty. So just make sure you're following your manufacturer's, you know, and if you're suggested fluid. And if you're going to the store and getting mineral oil or baby flu baby oil or whatever, this isn't a P. Diddy. And putting it in your shit. Uh if you're putting this in your brake, do a YouTube video about how you can, then you know, just it might work once. It's just, I mean, I don't know. I mean, $500 brakes to really want to ruin those. Yeah. Just it doesn't take much to make sure you're putting the right stuff in there.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:02

So um, okay, so we're kind of comparing the XTs, uh four-piston STXTs, the 2025 version to the Dominion A4s. Um what I'm seeing here from from a rotor perspective, from a rotor diameter, is that you can get so first of all, interestingly enough, there's two different widths on the rotor.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:22

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:22

And Shimano rotors use 1.8 millimeter.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:26

Yep.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:27

And the Hayes ones are 1.95 millimeter.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:30

Yeah, or 2.0 or 2.0 because I hate that.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:33

Oh, yeah, 1.95. I like round numbers. But I'm actually using Shimano rotors on a Haze brake system on AC switchblade right now.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:43

So um what I've noticed in my extensive using of these products is uh so let's we're comparing these products, okay? Yep. And and let's not get off too track. Uh we talked about the power. We talked how there's more modulation on the haze side. Uh Shimano's have uh a good bite. Yep. Um they're similar weights, they're similar prices. Yep. So if I was a customer, you know, like what's gonna make the difference to me, right? You know, on which I would buy. One of my drawbacks, I would say, with Haze is they are not as easy to bleed. Uh the the Shimano's are probably the best bleeding, easy to bleed. Like just easy maintenance? Just so easy. Like, I can't even tell you. At some points, you know, we've cut a brake line, put the you know, compression ferrule and and and barb in, stuck it back together. And it just works. And it and it works. And you don't even bleed it. Like, I mean, I don't recommend that because there's God for Japanese engineering. There is air in there, but remember that air is going to the to the uh reservoir.

Host - Josh Anderson 54:53

By the way, this is the first time I ever understood that there was actually air intentionally in the system. I thought the systems were designed to have no air. I understand now you gave a great explanation, but I didn't understand that.

Host - Dane Higgins 55:06

Let's not confuse. They don't want the air in there. But the open system, uh, so I I maybe didn't clarify that on these open systems, unlike closed systems, they actually use a rubber bladder.

Host - Josh Anderson 55:18

Okay, so it's not necessarily air that's moving, it's the bladder. The bladder expands.

Host - Dane Higgins 55:22

Yeah, it gives it room. Got it. So but in most cases the reservoir is a stop gap. So you're not supposed to have air in there at all. You're not supposed to, but the chances the chances that you do are very good. And that the system can actually pull air out, boil the the the um fluid, and actually create an air uh bubble that will then ro hopefully inside the bladder. Up to the reservoir. Up to the reservoir. Yeah, the bladders in most cases are on top and they are just so um so so the bleed process, one thing that Shimano has done that a lot of people don't know about, uh they had this really cool break one year at at Interbike, and it was an XT brake where they made it out of poly plastic and they had it a fully operational. So you could see it was so the basically the caliper and the lever were poly and everything worked, and they had air bubble in there that you could watch move around. And what they've done is the amount of time and effort they've put in the caliper and in the lever to create no places for air to get stuck on.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:35

It's a big deal.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:36

It's a big deal, and it makes the air bubbles really want to get out of there as fast as possible, either while the bike's being ridden or uh in the bleed process. And they just have done a very good job. They're they are the goat when it comes to easy to maintain and bleed.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:53

So on serviceability, that was one of my areas that I looked at, and I and we we kind of went but went out and looked at all the different reviews that were out there and and gave it a five five-star scale. Uh-huh. And uh the analysis here says five stars for serviceability for the Shimano XT and XTR. We're talking just XT, but only three stars for the Dominions.

Host - Dane Higgins 57:18

Yes, yeah. And I would say that's our experience in the shop and my experience personally. I've been on the trail with you, had to stop, pull my wheel out, and reset my pads to get whatever air is in my system. I've seen you do that, yeah. And so you hung it from a tree.

Host - Josh Anderson 57:34

Why did I bring this up when you brought up rotors? Why did you bring it up when you brought up rotors? Well, I was I was gonna talk about something we never got to, which is the availability of different rotor sizes, but at first had to stop and say, hey, there are actually different rotor widths. Yep. And I said Shimano uses 1.8, Shram or uh uh Hayes uses 1.95, you said 2.0, quit saying 1.95. Uh and then you went down a rabbit hole and I've lost the bubble, well, so to speak.

Host - Dane Higgins 58:00

So the reason I the reason I took us off that and and we went down the rabbit hole is because one thing that I've been trying to figure out is why are Hayes a little more finicky? Why do we have more issues? In general, uh it's very common that when we're installing a new brake system, especially if you're putting a lot of fluid in the system, you can get what's called uh aerated fluid. And that means that there's just a lot of micro bubbles, we call them micro bubbles, in the fluid. And and those microbubs sometimes don't really present as a spongy, like big bubble.

Host - Josh Anderson 58:34

They They're just distributed throughout the oil or the fluid and you can't tell where they're at.

Host - Dane Higgins 58:38

They're so small that they just on each of their own don't have enough elasticity to create as much sponginess as when they all congregate into one bubble. When they all settle and and turn into one bubble, then they create this big sponginess. And so microbubbles is something that we've known about for a long time where when you're bleeding a system, we actually warn our customers, hey, if if the m there's microbubbles, because sometimes it happens, uh, let's say a barb has got like a little edge to it, and basically there's an eddy current as you're moving fluid, and it's just kind of churning up the oil or fluid, whatever you're using. There's a lot of different ways, you know, that can happen. Manufacturing defect, uh, where that little port uh where the fluid's supposed to come in and out of maybe has like a irregularity. Yeah. There's lots of different things. It could be just when you pull it out with a syringe, you can actually pull it too fast and mix in a bunch of air bubbles. That's very that's probably the most common. So and we know that the system will clear itself and the air will go up to the lever. That's pretty common, and that's why they're designed with a bladder, and that's why they have reservoirs, is so that if you do happen to be riding a system with air in it, it is most probably going to be much more safer system. Uh if you didn't have that reservoir, that air would just never go anywhere and it would keep floating around. Right. Um so with this, um Hayes doesn't have all of those little corridors that they've smoothed out like Shimano. And so we have to they have a caliper that has two bleed ports on it. So you can bleed each side of the caliper. So at first we thought that was redundant. You don't really need it. I think that's manufacturing. Maybe that's just how they put the hole in the caliper, because a lot of these calipers they just need to drill a hole through it.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:00:28

Now you know that's not they're not redundant.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:00:30

Yeah, for for us, it's a main it's now it's now we bleed both of those. We want to make sure there's no air stuck on one side or the other. Um there's uh also compression, uh ferrule and uh or olive, they call it, and a barb that go together, and those need to be not only assembled correctly, but then torqued to a certain torque rating. And one of the things that happens, and this is with Shram, Shimano, and all the brakes, uh, is sometimes the um the nut that you're tightening to compress those. Well, it's it's eight, but yeah. Um it's an eight millimeter nut, but the threads will be dry and you can get the wrong torque reading because as it's going into an aluminum or magnesium uh lever and you're tightening it, it can create friction and heat and create uh what seems like a higher torque. And so if you're using a torque wrench, you can get the wrong torque reading. So we now know that there are certain uh lubricants like a dot fluid lubricant or something that we use to grease those threads to get to the right torque measurement. Because if you don't, you can sometimes create a little gap. Uh and I got it.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:01:39

And that gap can let air in.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:01:41

Yeah. Not only let air in, but when you return the lever, there's a big vacuum that's put on the system that's actually pulling those brake pads back away from your rotor. That vacuum is super powerful. And O-rings don't like to work under vacuum. They actually work much better on a compression. And so when there's a vacuum, it's a way easier for air to get pulled in than it is to be when you compress the fluid. So you can have a system that you're putting your full body weight on that lever, trying to stop that thing, and it's not necessarily leaking. But when it's returning, that O-ring or that interface may allow for the littlest air to get sucked back in. And so all of these companies are trying to figure this out.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:02:24

There's a But these but these problems that you're talking about are specific to the Hayes side of the equation in our comparison.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:02:30

No, they're they're actually problems with all brakes. Okay. But the haze has has them more. We're trying to figure it out. We're still trying to figure it out. Are we doing something as a shop? Are are the brakes doing something? Like what is going on? One of the things that came up is the rotor size. So what I've noticed with my haze is I love weight weenie rotors, which are narrow, uh like a Shimano, 1.8, sometimes even thinner because I'm reusing them and been worn down a bit. And they've been worn down a little bit, and I think they're so trick and light that I don't care, you know, and I put my brand new haze on there.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03:09

So you put the brand new haze on some old ass Shimano or some other brand's rotors.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:14

Yeah. And what you can do is you can accidentally push the pistons too far. The pistons will will pull basically. So imagine that piston now has to get closer and closer and closer, and there's more of that piston extending out of the caliper towards the rotor, and that creates area behind it that has to be filled with fluid, and that fluid now is dropping the level of fluid in my reservoir. So now my bladder, instead of expanding out when it gets hot, is now sucking in. And if there's any air up there, it's sucking that into the it could suck that in, and it may just run out of fluid. Like, and so now if I've got a brake that I've been using on a heavy bike and I've been doing some downhilling on it, and I'm getting pretty thin on my pads, and I'm running narrow rotors, I may start to get a soft lever. And that's what I've noticed. And so now our experiment is okay, let's go with thick rotors.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:04:13

Let's actually put what the manufacturer says you should use, which is the 1.95 two-inch rotor or two millimeter rotors.

Shimano Squeal And Wandering Bite Point

Host - Dane Higgins 1:04:21

Well, it it other brakes may not have had those issues. And that have maybe never been an issue when you're dealing with other brands. Yeah. Because maybe we don't know. You know, is it the ro is the calories, is it the is it how much fluid is being displaced? Is it the size of the reservoir? What's going on? Like if they have big, huge reservoir and you never ran out of fluid, I don't think it would happen. Right? Yep, yep. And so uh that's my theory anyway. So I don't have those kind of questions with XT. With XT, there is a totally different uh problems uh with XT.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:04:56

Just to be fair, you need to summarize those.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:04:59

Okay. So number one is the XT squeal, like the noise, the XT Shimano's brake. And we we hear it in the bike shop. We can tell you what brakes are on your bike just by hearing your brakes. Like it is so common. And for some reason, it's another issue that we see where uh Shimano pad material seems to be really, really porous and seems to contaminate way easier than other brands that we've dealt with. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:24

So this is interesting because if you look down at what the reviews say for noise.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:31

I think that's when there's not a problem.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:33

So so so under normal conditions, the XT brakes are rating five stars for noise.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:40

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:41

And the Haze brakes are rating three stars for noise.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:44

I think that's under normal working conditions. I think the squeal will always be oh you have you have contaminated pads. Contaminated pads. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:54

And and so And you're just saying that you you've noted your hypothesis is that the Shimano pads Get contaminated quicker. So easy. And is it does it matter if it's steel or resin, or is it both?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:06:06

It seems to be both. I think what it is is the pad material just accepts something way easier than others. There's all kinds of people that will tell you you just stick them in the oven or you blowtorch them or don't do any of that. Just replace them. But that's that's what I mean. There is so many people trying trying to fix this problem. Why aren't people saying this is a problem, you know?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:30

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:06:30

And I it doesn't not seem to be an issue on other brands. Now, you put any brake in the wet and they make noise. And maybe uh some brakes will do better when they're wet than others, but they'll all make noise. That's just how it is. Like you you just can't stop that sometimes. And sometimes noise comes from alignment, like if you don't align the caliper perfectly. Um sometimes it can be pad, it can be the the rotor, like if you do have a different rotor. Some of the older rotors didn't really have any thought into the venting. They would sometimes put designs on them and and do whatever and just drill holes and they didn't really put any. That's about heat management to get to what when you when you say venting. Yeah. And then uh and then the other the other thing that tends to affect the noise is is usually contamination. Absolutely.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:18

So is there another besides the contaminated pads, is there another thing with Shimano, just so we could be fair?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:23

Yes. So the the other problem that we see all the time is what they call wandering bite point. And so Which they claim.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:30

I haven't seen it yet. I haven't They claimed in 2025 the redesigned pads or the redesigned 2025 XT and XTR brakes have solved that problem.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:38

Yeah, I don't know if solved is that I think they've reduced it quite a bit.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:44

What they said was that the wandering bite their data showed that wandering bite really was tied to certain geographic areas in the country. And they believe that their brakes performed differently based on the elements that those brakes were under, and that in certain regions the wandering bite point was a big problem. And in other regions, people didn't notice it at all.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:08:08

So I I would agree that. Here's why. Um so I rode Saints on one of my downhill bikes, and when I got that bike, um I I remember we sold a set of XTRs to a customer, and he would come back and tell us that one minute they're rigid and the next they're soft. And he's like, I can't ride these, they're unsafe. And we actually warrantied two sets of XTRs for this customer. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on with this guy. I have never heard of this. And then I took my brand new downhill bike with brand new Saint on it. Uh yeah, this is yeah. I mean, this was probably 15, 2015.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:08:50

And by the way, it's the same model of the Saints that are still out today for 2012.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:08:55

I know. And I'm at Angel Fire and I'm on my runs. It's in nort northern New Mexico, and I have this weirdest feeling that the brakes feel great as I'm braking, I let go, go through a corner, and then hit the brakes again, and they feel rigid. And like my levers are not at the same place, they're not pulling at the same rate. I'm like, what the hell is going on? I let go of them for two seconds, luckily because I could, and then they were normal again. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And basically these it's they call it the wandering breakpoint. Basically, the the wandering bite point. Bite point. The fluid is heating up and cooling down. And so what I was doing is when I let go, it would let the caliper cool a little bit. And remember that fluid is expanding uh in the in the caliper and in the and that was keeping basically the brakes close. And so if you look at Shimano, they have done a lot of work to try and get rid of heat uh in those wandering break points. It didn't help. I had the full-on shram or sorry, uh, Shimano um top line Saint rotors with with fins, the pads had fins, everything, everything had fins. It was designed for heat dissipation. Yeah. Did not fix it. And I pulled those brakes off after that weekend and never rode them again. I sold them, sold them in a heartbeat because people want them, but I could not handle that that wandering break point. That break bite point. Bite point, sorry. Uh that bite point did not ever happen on a trail because I never heated those brakes up. In Tucson. And so where you can get that to that heat point and and feel that difference and how heavy you are, uh, how much you break. Remember, I break a lot less than other people. Um, I break quick, hard, and let go quick. And I don't drag my brakes, you know, like a lot of people will. So that's real cool. They don't they don't heat up as much. So I think what they're saying is that it's really hard to nail down what's causing it, but I think it's heat. And they've been working on that for many, many years.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:11:01

And in 2025, they say, I haven't ridden them yet, but they say they've solved that with the new ones, that with the low viscosity mineral oil and these new seals, has solved the wandering bite point. And it was interesting, one of the questions they got was um, should we, you know, should I should I if I've got XT brakes and I'm I'm I'm enjoying them that were pre-2025, should I replace them? And the answer was, well, if you are experiencing or have experienced wandering bite point in your geographic area, then yeah, this will solve it. But if you haven't, you probably won't notice much of a difference.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:11:37

Yeah, and I think that's fair. So I think that's probably pretty fair because I I had two different experiences where I wouldn't see it and then where I would. And it really had to do with the type of writing that I was at and where I was at.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:11:50

All right, so let's summarize what we talked about.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:11:51

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:11:52

They're about the same price. Again, we're we're focusing on the four piston XTs, four piston Dominion A4s from Hayes. About the same about the same price. Within spitting dip, within ten bucks of each other. They're about the same weight within ten grams of each other. Uh the Dominions use DOT, the the uh XTs use the new low viscosity mineral oil, the XTs use a 1.8 rotor, the Dominions use a 1.95 rotor, and we're learning that you probably should actually file the manufacturing spec on the rotor width, uh, which is contrary to the device you gave me six months ago.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:12:26

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:12:27

Well except for this one.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:12:29

No, you actually told me it'll work, dude. Trust me. It it works, but yeah. I I would say that if you are gonna run a different rotor for for whatever reason, because it looks cool, it's red, whatever, you know, uh, that if you are running into your brake pads may need to be replaced a little sooner because you may run into the same problem. Gotcha. I I'm not 100% sure if there's something else going on, but I've tried this on multiple bikes, and the only thing I can tell you that's consistent with all of these bikes is that I don't run the haze rotors because they don't make a center lock, and I'm running as light rotors as I can. So um the haze aren't necessarily a light rotor.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:11

So we talked about the different modulation feel the lever where the Shimano's are more kind of an on-off, and the haze you actually get get the power early, but then you get more power as you squeeze, and you probably have to squeeze a little harder.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:25

Uh you don't. So remember, haze come on like a Shimano and then keep giving you more as you pull.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:31

Shimano's come on full.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:32

Yeah. And then and then don't really give you much more as you pull harder. And there's there's it's very hard to go from it's it's on off. And that's the so like okay. I got it. Yeah, okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:44

I got it. And then uh serviceability, Shimano wins hands down on serviceability.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:50

I I I don't want to say wins hands down. I would say that It's easier to serve a shit. If you told Lacey, uh She doesn't care because she doesn't serve. Exactly. So so if you're in like me, I don't mind working on my brakes and figuring them out. I even though that they're more of a pain for me to bleed and I'm still figuring out what the perfect setup is, yeah, I would rather have the haze. Uh that's the thing. We'll get to we'll get to the final discussion, but there's no winner there. That's what I'm saying is So it's it's hard.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:14:21

What if we just say it's harder to bleed?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:14:23

Yeah, it's a drawback.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:14:24

One drawback is it's harder to do one one and then from a noise perspective, again, under normal circumstances the hazes are a little noisier. I don't I don't know if I've noticed that or not. You haven't noticed that. Okay. That's what the re that's what the summarized reviews say. I d I couldn't tell you if that's true or not. Yeah. But but definitely you've got lots of experience that says that the Shimano pads can get contaminated easier than the haze pads can. Yeah. And I've experienced that myself. Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:14:51

So that's been a known issue. And and I so like if we if we really do a summary on XT, the biggest problems that Shimano has had has been ceramic pistons.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:15:03

Yep. Those are gone.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:15:04

Heat dissipation and wandering bite point. In theory, those are gone. Yep. And uh the the the uh contamination issues. Still still don't know. Yep, exactly. Uh those are pretty.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:15:17

But they changed the pads, though, I don't think.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:15:18

I know they they they have new ones, but I think they're you can use the old ones in them. But I would say that the things that they did really address, the wandering bite point and hopefully uh and no ceramics, so that so you don't have those whole problems. Anyone who's had to replace a whole caliper because they're piston cracked. That sucks. That's an expensive that's an expensive. It really sucks. Um and so and then I would say the other thing is basically the on-off feel is supposed to also be helped with their new lever uh link inside. And so it's supposed to give you better modulation. So if they get those three things and the new ones, I would try the new ones. I would I would I would try the extra because those are the two the three things. Still haven't talked about the pads though, and that breaks wheel, and that drives me insane.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:09

That drives you insane. Okay. So uh so you run sh you run Haze.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:15

Yeah, I I run Haze and Shram for the most part. Yeah, and I run Shimano. Yep, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:21

And I think everything we've said today, I've experienced um from ca because I have Dominions in the fleet as well, from the difference in serviceability to the difference in noise, to the contaminants, to the different feel. But I would say my wife, who is a fantastic rider, way better than me. Doesn't have to work on them. Doesn't have never has to work on them. And at first was like, they're just okay. Yeah. Now is like pull those goddamn Shimano brakes off my bike and put the haze on. I want the haze.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:54

I I think that's a great representation of who is buying the haze. The people that have been kind of frustrated with Shimano are finding that they can go to the haze and get just as good a break, if not better. However, they may be a little more finicky, you know, to set up. And so I think those are the people that are really gonna like the haze the most. Right. Um, if you're a shram maven, you know, writer, it's gonna be a really different break. Like they're a different break.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:17:21

Let's you know let's save that for a different podcast.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:17:24

But I mean, that's what I mean. Like, like who's going out and buying these things? I I do pay attention to the World Cup, and I see how many Hayes are out on the World Cup, and they are getting rave reviews by professional athletes.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:17:37

Is this enduro her World Cup? Because it they really so people are putting dominions on downhill bikes.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:17:42

Dude, Hayes is getting phone calls from pros saying, please sponsor me so I can ride your brakes. Like that is no joke. Like that's a legit thing. Now, Shimano, yeah, I mean they're you know, who doesn't want Shimano to sponsor them?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:17:55

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:17:56

But how many people are like, hey, I want I want you to sponsor me just so I can ride your brakes? I don't think Shimano's getting that. I I I could be wrong, but I don't think they're getting as many of those. Right on.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:18:06

Okay. So I don't know if we've concluded anything other than highlighted some of the strengths and weaknesses of both options. Yeah. Um I think one of the things you said at the very beginning stuck with me is like these are both high-end systems. They're both really well performing brake systems with lots of RD and design and success behind them. And they're very popular. Both of them are very popular. So you can't go wrong. We're just we're debating the weird nuances between them, but they're both amazing systems.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:18:34

Yeah, hopefully people will hear this and maybe hear that little nugget that makes a difference to them. That one person that's like, oh, I do not want to deal with any bleeding issues. I'm gonna get the XTs.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:18:45

Or I do not want to deal with any contaminated brake pads, so I'm getting haze.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:18:49

Or I I want I I hate that that they're on and off. Like when I'm on a rock slab and I'm going down it, I want to be able to regulate my speed and not just go into a skid. Right. You know, right. And and so those those hopefully will help somebody go, oh, this is a better break for me.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:19:05

Or I have weak hands, so I should probably have Shimano break.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:19:08

Yes, yes. That's very very well, or or haze, but not tram. Great job tonight, Danny. Hey, thanks, man. Appreciate you, buddy. Okay.