yuley95
soft-arse Yuley is on the lifts again
Item: Magura Trail Carbon (with alloy levers)
Purchased From: Licensed OS supplier (can provide further details)
Purchase Price (approx): I paid about $250 delivered but prices generally range anywhere from $450 - $850
Usage: These are on my 'one bike to do it all'. They are light enough for trail riding and powerful enough for downhill.
Pros - super powerful and top of class modulation. Sexy chrome calipers and fancy magnetic pad retaining system is pretty handy too.
Cons - 'plastic-y' material of the master has led to some fuckwit moments
Comments: I'm pretty torn about these sexy mofos so here is the good news first... they do everything a mountainbike brake should do and they do it better than most. They have the power to stop a Clydesdale with all the modulation you could ever wish for. The one piece polished chrome caliper is sexy as hell and Magura have sweated the details to deliver some handy extras like the magnetic pad retaining system and torx25 hardware all across the system from caliper bolts to lever bolts and even the bleed screw. Kudos for that.
The standard pads give great feel and bed in quickly to give full power after just 15-20 hard stops. These brakes give plenty of feel back trough the level so you always know how much you have left in reserve. And when it does come time to stop the earth's rotation with a fist full of lever pull, the four pots up front and two out the back bite hard and give you all the power you'll ever need.
So what's not to like right? They are light, they stop good and they are sexy...
Well, for a start there is the price. There is no way I would buy these at the advertised retail price on any of the popular websites. There are simply too many good options for half the price. Even Magura themselves have options that give 90% of the performance for half the price...
The other issue to consider is the 'carbotecture SL' material used for the master. It might be light but is also has a plastic-like feel to it that looks a little cheap and requires careful application of torque. Because I'm a fuckwit, I almost crossed the thread in the right hand lever after shortening the hose and reattaching the sleeve nut. It started to cross but I was able to back it off and use a socket bit (without the hose in place) to press the nut in flush and basically re-tap the thread straight.
If I had've crossed the thread any worse, it would have been goodbye very expensive master.
After that experience I still almost fucked up again screwing the bleed screw back in. Just before I gave it a metric handful of torque, I checked the instructions (crazy, I know) and found it recommended just 1nm of torque. Just 1mn! I didn't know there was such a thing...
After all of that, I was a little gun shy when it came to trimming and re-attaching my rear line. I didn't tighten the sleeve nut enough on that one and it seems like it led to a slight leak and air getting in which would ruin my bleed after a few rides. I tightened it down a bit more and all has been good since then.
As you can see - all of that was my fault, not the brakes BUT if the master was alloy, I wouldn't have had an issue and I would only be carrying a few grams extra weight. Something for potential buyers to at least be aware of.
The final thing to mention is that I had to get a replacement on one of the masters. I had a small crash after a large braking moment and a seal went in the master. It may not be worth mentioning except that I found it impossible to crack open the master to diagnose the issue of work on it. And there are NO diagrams or instructions online for this latest generation Magura MT next masters leading me to think they are non-serviceable beyond the very basics.
The distributor I bought from was very helpful and we sorted out a replacement quickly so all was good from that point of view.
So the bottom line is this - awesome brakes and now that they are working properly I love them. Most people probably won't encounter the issues I did and will just have a blissful braking experience. But you will have to pay a high entry price and I can't really see what they bring to the table that justifies the expense over Magura's own MT5 or MT trail Sport combination for half the price (or less).
Pictures/Videos:
Purchased From: Licensed OS supplier (can provide further details)
Purchase Price (approx): I paid about $250 delivered but prices generally range anywhere from $450 - $850
Usage: These are on my 'one bike to do it all'. They are light enough for trail riding and powerful enough for downhill.
Pros - super powerful and top of class modulation. Sexy chrome calipers and fancy magnetic pad retaining system is pretty handy too.
Cons - 'plastic-y' material of the master has led to some fuckwit moments
Comments: I'm pretty torn about these sexy mofos so here is the good news first... they do everything a mountainbike brake should do and they do it better than most. They have the power to stop a Clydesdale with all the modulation you could ever wish for. The one piece polished chrome caliper is sexy as hell and Magura have sweated the details to deliver some handy extras like the magnetic pad retaining system and torx25 hardware all across the system from caliper bolts to lever bolts and even the bleed screw. Kudos for that.
The standard pads give great feel and bed in quickly to give full power after just 15-20 hard stops. These brakes give plenty of feel back trough the level so you always know how much you have left in reserve. And when it does come time to stop the earth's rotation with a fist full of lever pull, the four pots up front and two out the back bite hard and give you all the power you'll ever need.
So what's not to like right? They are light, they stop good and they are sexy...
Well, for a start there is the price. There is no way I would buy these at the advertised retail price on any of the popular websites. There are simply too many good options for half the price. Even Magura themselves have options that give 90% of the performance for half the price...
The other issue to consider is the 'carbotecture SL' material used for the master. It might be light but is also has a plastic-like feel to it that looks a little cheap and requires careful application of torque. Because I'm a fuckwit, I almost crossed the thread in the right hand lever after shortening the hose and reattaching the sleeve nut. It started to cross but I was able to back it off and use a socket bit (without the hose in place) to press the nut in flush and basically re-tap the thread straight.
If I had've crossed the thread any worse, it would have been goodbye very expensive master.
After that experience I still almost fucked up again screwing the bleed screw back in. Just before I gave it a metric handful of torque, I checked the instructions (crazy, I know) and found it recommended just 1nm of torque. Just 1mn! I didn't know there was such a thing...
After all of that, I was a little gun shy when it came to trimming and re-attaching my rear line. I didn't tighten the sleeve nut enough on that one and it seems like it led to a slight leak and air getting in which would ruin my bleed after a few rides. I tightened it down a bit more and all has been good since then.
As you can see - all of that was my fault, not the brakes BUT if the master was alloy, I wouldn't have had an issue and I would only be carrying a few grams extra weight. Something for potential buyers to at least be aware of.
The final thing to mention is that I had to get a replacement on one of the masters. I had a small crash after a large braking moment and a seal went in the master. It may not be worth mentioning except that I found it impossible to crack open the master to diagnose the issue of work on it. And there are NO diagrams or instructions online for this latest generation Magura MT next masters leading me to think they are non-serviceable beyond the very basics.
The distributor I bought from was very helpful and we sorted out a replacement quickly so all was good from that point of view.
So the bottom line is this - awesome brakes and now that they are working properly I love them. Most people probably won't encounter the issues I did and will just have a blissful braking experience. But you will have to pay a high entry price and I can't really see what they bring to the table that justifies the expense over Magura's own MT5 or MT trail Sport combination for half the price (or less).
Pictures/Videos:
