Aliexpress Hydraulic Brakes Thread

[Fat Larry]

Thought it might be good to have a central thread for people to report their experiences and ask questions for Ali's hydraulic brake options given there's lots of separate threads and what a minefield brakes can be.

To start off: My experience with Wheeltop flat mount road callipers that come in their TX wireless group set has been flawless so far. Installed them on a flat bar gravel set up attached to a shimano mt200 lever. Push bleed from the calliper was perfect first time with no faffing about, just one syringe up into a cup. Pads seem decent. Stopping power seems good.  Cannot comment to long term use yet as they're only a few months and half a dozen rides old.

Also running a Tanke branded TRP HY/RD knock off on my commuter. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007218455879.html

Again no issues. Braking power was sufficient. Haven't had a lot of time on it yet and probably won't any time soon as i'm not riding the bike its on much. They feel pretty heavy but I don't have an original TRP to compare to.

[Dan S.]

I have the ZRace XG calipers and they’ve been rock solid. Shed a ton of weight on the 105 ones. Had initial issues with bleeding the front caliper, but after a second bleed, everything’s great. Swapped the pads for OG Shimano L05A ones, and the performance doubled.

[lavistaa]

I have the iiipro flat mount 4 piston calipers (hope clones).   A bit didge to bleed as they the old style removeable bleed bolt rather than having a separate “tap” you can nip up before removing the hose.  I use bh90 connectors, olive and hose with no issues. Pads are also unique- look for Hope e4 I believe.   Once on and bled theynare great as well as great looking

[Bender87]

I have the ZRace XG calipers and they’ve been rock solid. Shed a ton of weight on the 105 ones. Had initial issues with bleeding the front caliper, but after a second bleed, everything’s great. Swapped the pads for OG Shimano L05A ones, and the performance doubled.

Same for me with the ZRace XG, bleeding is a bit of a mess without a nice bleeding screw like on shimano ones.
And also the default pads are okayisch, but they make noise and are far behind the L05A pads performence.
I use them with the Wheeltop EDS TX shifters.

[tez]

Ive used the Ltwoo hydro calipers (original version with all those adapters) and the braking was good with the stock egg roll pads.

Currenly running the original style Wheeltop flat mount calipers and they have good performance too. Stock pads were noisy so I put some Bucklos branded L05 compatible pads in and they again work well.

[RickyM]

I have the Zrace as others mentioned here (the blue ones)
No problems with bleeding. I use them in my BXT145 with Wheeltop EDS tx.
I haven´t change the pads yet, but the wheels still lock when I press the brake.

[Tijoe]

I went all in on the IIIPro MTB E4 brakes starting back in Nov. 2022.   I purchased and tried to run 4 sets of these brakes on my bike builds.   My conclusion after wasting endless hours trying to get them to work reliably is that they are garbage!  They are too hard to bleed to get all the air out.   I also discovered that it appears that if you let the brake pads get worn out over 1/2 way, the seals start to suck air back into the the calipers.  This drove me crazy wondering why a couple of my brake sets worked well, and the other 2 sets kept having problems.  I replaced the seals, and the problems didn't go away. Then I purchased a Hope Tech E4 brake set, converted one of the IIIPro calipers to run DOT3 fluid, and was able to confirm that the new seals still sucked in air despite having new DOT3 compatible seals.
I only have one set left in operation, on the bike I ride the least.

 lavistaa, I suspect that the flat mount PRO III calipers are basically the same IIIPro caliper design, so don't let you pads get too worn out, or you will probably start suffering the same caliber failures as I did.

Regarding Wheeltop brake calipers.  I've been running the original RA700 flat mount calipers for over 2 years without any problems.  They have been fantastic calipers to date.   I had a problem with my shift levers where the pistons in the lever set locked up solid.  I replaced the lever set about 1.5 years ago and all has been well since.  All I can say is positives regarding the Wheetop road calipers.

I tried a set of ZTTO M840 MTB 4 Piston Hydraulic Disc Brakes back in 2023, and didn't like them.  Not very good modulation and I didn't think that they had very good stopping power.

Frog wake FV4-L:  I have been running one of these as my front brake on my bikepacking rig for about 9 months now, 2000+ mile of heavy duty work, and have been very please with this brake so far. To date, thumbs up so far.

In general, I am making my comparisons of what is a "good brake" to my Hope Tech E4s, and Shimano XT brakes.

I'd like to hear more about riders experience with Lewis brakes.   (They are too expensive now versus a couple of years ago, but I still have interest in them.)