The Shimano BL-MT501/MT502 brakes may cost half the price of some more premium hydraulic mountain bike brakes, but this doesn’t stop them from performing remarkably well.

The caliper is a four-piston design with pads secured via a screw. In testing, we found these helped to deliver as much power as any other option on the market. The lever’s hinged clamp is compatible with Hope’s Tech 3 mounts, so Shimano and SRAM shifters can be attached. The carbon fibre lever blade also has reach adjustment accessed with an Allen key, but doesn’t have bite adjustment like some other high-end XC brakes. What shoe size you need can differ per brand. This is because certain brands wear larger or smaller. To help you get the perfect fit, we've also classified the shoes as narrow, average, or wide fit. Read all about it in our blog! Includes resin brake pads, spare olives and inserts so you can cut hoses to correct length – rear hose length: 1700mm, front hose length: 1000mm delivery time refers to destination country Netherlands. to see the country-specific delivery time.

How to burp-bleed Shimano disc brakes

However some hybrid bikes (bikes with flat bars) you will find Shimano v-brakes, which are high enough quality.

This feature is removed from the M9100 super-light-weight XTR brake levers, so it is not to everyone’s taste, but it’s generally considered an upgrade. Despite a few minor quirks, it’s hard to fault these four-pot brakes from Shimano. They bring plenty of stopping power and have a crisp, positive lever feel. Shimano rotors are available in 140mm, 160mm, 180mm and 203mm sizes. Typically 140mm is only used on road bikes, 160mm is a ‘standard’ size, 180mm is a popular upgrade for bikes used in harder offroad conditions (sometimes 180mm front, 160mm rear), and 203mm is used for downhill MTBs. A bike with 160mm rotors can be switched to 180mm, though this will require an adapter for the caliper. Larger rotors provide more braking force. Arguably, this makes applying power with finesse harder than other brakes, but it does give you plenty of confidence that things are working as they should. However, getting the right bleed is critical to the performance of these brakes. The first thing is material. Looking at what Shimano BL-MT501-BR-MT520 4 Pot Disc Brake is made of will give you a really good idea of the quality overall. Take a look at the specs above and you should be able to see the material. It’s then up to you to decide if it meets your expectation.often a freewheel, which is a low grade choice compared to a cassette, with lower durability. Expect 14–28 or 14–34t gears and 6 or 7 speeds. This is something to upgrade away from To get to know what it’s like to live with these brakes, we asked the brands to send us their official bleed kit, then trimmed the hoses to our ideal length. The tubes come out of the brakes at a fixed angle and the tubing for the rear brake is 1,700mm, which might not be long enough for the most progressive downhill or enduro bikes. The SLX and XT levers are essentially identical, however the free stroke adjust screw is missing from SLX. This feature is not very popular with users, so this is not much of loss. Both levers also have toolless reach adjust, which isn’t too important. Practically speaking, you want stoppers with low maintenance requirements, which hydraulic units generally bring (save for the occasional brake bleed), and easy swapping out of brake pads when the time comes.