I need brakes that work are these any good?

spongtastic

Currently my superlight team is fitted with a Sora group including brakes. I can live with the drivetrain, but the brakes are woeful to say the least.

I'm looking at spending about £50 so that's around the Sram Force, Shimano Ultegra, Planet X forged range.

Which of these would be the best option or is there one I've missed?

rolf_f

New brakes won't make much difference - new pads might.

Brakes are a couple of bits of metal that you pull together by a cable - as long as the metal and the cable aren't springy, the Sora ones will work pretty much the same as Dura Ace - just with a little more (unnoticeable) weight and less attractive styling (not that Shimano and 'attractive styling' really fit together anyway!).

Monkeypump

Are they set up properly? They shouldn't be that bad.

As above, try new pads first.

spongtastic

They're set up properly but seem to offer very little if any power, the pad material seems to be very 'plastic' so I'll try new pads first.

sandyballs

Regardless of what you want to get you should check compatibility with cable pull ratios. Try the ever recommended Shelton brown for details. I run SRAM Red levers with Rival calipers and supllied swisstop pads and have no complaints. Before I had Tiagra and they were just as good to be honest. As others have said good pads make a hell of a difference, and cost less.

rake

some cheap pads are woeful, a place to save money. get some coolstop or swisstop pads.calipers wont make much difference unless theyre soft as cheese.