Chinese Carbon MTB > 29er

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RS VR6:
Nothing wrong with that. 8)

Oh...curious why you chose a dual piston caliper for the front. I have the MT Trail Sport on my trail bike and it has a lot of braking power. Seems like a lot of power for an XC bike. ;D

0435235:
Why wouldn't you? :D
What it comes down to is: You may not necessarily need all the braking power all the time, but there will (probably) be occasions on which you'll be sorry if you don't have it.

There is (almost) no worse feeling than having not enough braking power and realising you're up for some "not so fun" time. Maybe it's just too high speed on a new trail and a corner you misjudged. Or ... Last year I was almost run over on my way to a friend's house because a driver didn't pay much attention at an exit . I slammed my brakes but still touched the car and went down. If the brakes had been a little stronger I could've avoided the car by a few centimeters. Luckily just road rash, but still annoying.

Do you have any bad experience with too strong brakes?

RS VR6:
A dual piston caliper seems like a lot of power on a 160mm rotor. I would imagine that it would build up a lot of heat on a smaller rotor if you were to do a long descent. Its typically used on bikes with larger rotors that are used for large descents with longer travel bikes. Just be careful when you grab that front brake hard for the first time. I'm using Shimano XT brakes on my 062 and it has more than enough power to throw me off the bike.

These are nothing more than my own thoughts. It's just not that common to see such a large caliper on a XC bike. If it's what you choose...then more power to you. :)

gohloum:

--- Quote ---A dual piston caliper seems like a lot of power on a 160mm rotor
--- End quote ---

I have to agree on this.  I think it could potentially create a more dangerous situation than safety.  I'm running Hope X2 single piston on the front and it will put me over my handlebars.  You are probably better off swapping out your front rotor for one with a little more surface area if you want more braking power.  I originally had a rotor that had more surface area like the Shimano Ice rotors.  It was just too much.  Too easy to lock up the wheel and not enough modulation.  I switched to a lighter XC design which has bigger holes and much less surface area.  Now I have very controlled braking with great modulation, but still enough to lock up the wheels.

0435235:
Did a quick first ride today, time for some impressions:

- It's huge but steering is great.
- It feels extremely light (especially) on roads.
- The back end is quite bouncy on roots and small to medium stones.

Also to anyone on a strict budget without bike-building experience who might read this ... Stay a little below your budget, you never know which special tool you might be missing until you really need it. In my case it was a cable cutter. Let's just say it's a bad idea to try cutting shifter cable housing without one, let alone brake lines.
 
Parts:
Reba: The 120mm Reba comes without any tokens and feels very linear. It almost uses full travel when riding down stairs, so tokens will be added.
Cassette: 11-46 is most likely overkill for what I'm riding. The steepest climb here is a street with around 14% gradient and I didn't need the 46t cog to climb it.
Stem: 40mm is very short. It's nice if you love having a short stem for descending and snappy steering, but I see why many people (especially racers) choose to run long stems.
Tyres: Mavic Crossride Tubeless Quest don't feel great ... my back wheel lost grip in a regular turn without any braking going on.

Brakes:
I read your concerns and went at it slowly. A few things surprised me:
- The bitepoint on the MT4 and MT5 is very different from each other. The MT4 grabs earlier while the MT5 starts braking with the same force with the lever about a centimeter closer to the bar.
  (Is this normal or could there be air in the system?)
- The MT4 can brake quite strong.
- Maybe the brake pads are not broken in enough yet, but atm. they grab soft enough to provide smooth braking even from high speeds (I hope they don't become more grabby).
- The MT5 seems to be not much stronger than the MT4 (if at all). BUT it feels like it offers (way) wider modulation over the MT4.
All in all I really like them and honestly, my mechanical disc brakes felt way more dangerous because they didn't offer as much modulation which lead to easier lock-ups. I will probably follow your advice and get a 180mm rotor in the front in the future just in case I get to ride some long descents with hard braking.

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