The Avid Elixir is no more!

Angus Young

Briggo wrote:

Take what you read with a pinch of salt, too many people clearly get drawn in my the internet hype.

5 people had bad experiences with Avids, therefore all Avids are bad*, ignore the thousands of users who don't have much of/no issue.


*this figure is made up

Moaning is always louder than silence.

rockmonkeysc

I think the Elixir had dropped way behind Shimano, Formula and others but the price (rrp) was still very high. The only reason they are fitted so often as oe brakes is that SRAM probably offer huge discounts for the full SRAM kit of Rockshox suspension, SRAM/Truvative transmission and Avid brakes.
My experience of elixirs was not positive.

supersonic

Shimano's recent record with their brakes has been pretty much universally praised. Very few develop problems, all seem to work well out of the box, all are easy to bleed - and they are damn cheap.

ilovedirt

Briggo wrote:

mattv wrote:

Let's hope quality control has improved at the same time as the name change. Elixirs are better than juicys, but still leave alot of room for improvement.

What quality issues, I've had my Elixir R SL's for 3 years from new on my bike, had to bleed them twice and that's it.

I guess QC is fine if they're intended to have awful stopping power in the first place.

ilovedirt

supersonic wrote:

Shimano's recent record with their brakes has been pretty much universally praised. Very few develop problems, all seem to work well out of the box, all are easy to bleed - and they are damn cheap.

Yep, my shimano brakes have been faultless. I've literally done nothing for 18 months since the initial bleed, bar a couple of pad changes, and they're still running great. It took a lot and often to get semi-okay braking out my old elixirs.

BigAl

Briggo's point is fair - just because there's some folk moaning about Avid's it doesn't make them all bad brakes.

However, I've owned Avids (juicys), Formula, Hope and Shimano. My Juicys were a lot of trouble and, truth be told, unreliable. Hence I haven't bought another pair (of Avids)

Right now, for me, nothing compares to the current Shimano offerings on a price / performance basis. Deore / SLX / XT can be had ridiculously cheaply and all perform brilliantly

I very much hope the new SRAM brakes are great. More competition is good for the buyer, pushing performance up and prices down

ilovedirt

Yep, there's a reason that most people I know have Shimano brakes now. A few years ago they would have mostly been avids, mainly because they were cheap, back in the days when everyone complained about their brakes not working.

apreading

I bought a bike with Juicy 3s on about 4/5 years ago. They were nothing but trouble - almost every ride. It was my first bike with disc brakes and I desparately wished I still had rim brakes... They would need the calipers aligned every other ride or the constantly scraped, the front one kept 'pinging' the spring clip, changing pads was a nightmare and the pistons kept sticking. I dont know why but I struggled on for two years with them and was close to trying Shimanos more than once. the only good thing to come from this episode was learning how to bleed brakes.

Just as I was about to get shot of the juicy's, I bought a Boardman Hybrid, with Elixir 1s. These have been perfect from day 1, for nearly 3 years and thousands of miles now. Only thing I had to do was let a little bit of fluid out when replacing the pads with some from Superstar which were a little wider than the Avid pads, to get the pistons to go back far enough. I dont think that I have had to realign them a single time in that period and they have always worked well.

So, thinking that maybe Elixirs fixed the problem that I hated with my Juicy's, I decided to give Avid another go - I saw some Elixir 3s come up cheap (second hand but unused) from someone round the corner from me and I had already invested in bleed kit etc - so I bought those and put them on my mountain bike (the one that had the Juicys before). Again, the Elixirs have been perfect at all times.

So when I got a bigger bike for my son, I bought another cheap set of Elixir 3s that were stupidly cheap on CRC. Again, perfect but only had them 6 months so far.

And I have just bought another set of Elixir 1s for £15 each from Planet-X - thats almost as cheap as a set of pads! The rear on my Boardman is starting to look a little tatty externally from all the winter abuse and salt on roads etc, so will probably replace the caliper at some point.

Maybe one day I will try Shimano and realise they are even better - I like the sound of the greater pad to rotor clearance they are supposed to have, but for now I am happy with Elixirs.

ilovedirt

apreading wrote:

I bought a bike with Juicy 3s on about 4/5 years ago. They were nothing but trouble - almost every ride. It was my first bike with disc brakes and I desparately wished I still had rim brakes... They would need the calipers aligned every other ride or the constantly scraped, the front one kept 'pinging' the spring clip, changing pads was a nightmare and the pistons kept sticking. I dont know why but I struggled on for two years with them and was close to trying Shimanos more than once. the only good thing to come from this episode was learning how to bleed brakes.

Just as I was about to get shot of the juicy's, I bought a Boardman Hybrid, with Elixir 1s. These have been perfect from day 1, for nearly 3 years and thousands of miles now. Only thing I had to do was let a little bit of fluid out when replacing the pads with some from Superstar which were a little wider than the Avid pads, to get the pistons to go back far enough. I dont think that I have had to realign them a single time in that period and they have always worked well.

So, thinking that maybe Elixirs fixed the problem that I hated with my Juicy's, I decided to give Avid another go - I saw some Elixir 3s come up cheap (second hand but unused) from someone round the corner from me and I had already invested in bleed kit etc - so I bought those and put them on my mountain bike (the one that had the Juicys before). Again, the Elixirs have been perfect at all times.

So when I got a bigger bike for my son, I bought another cheap set of Elixir 3s that were stupidly cheap on CRC. Again, perfect but only had them 6 months so far.

And I have just bought another set of Elixir 1s for £15 each from Planet-X - thats almost as cheap as a set of pads! The rear on my Boardman is starting to look a little tatty externally from all the winter abuse and salt on roads etc, so will probably replace the caliper at some point.

Maybe one day I will try Shimano and realise they are even better - I like the sound of the greater pad to rotor clearance they are supposed to have, but for now I am happy with Elixirs.

I rode one of the new Gamblers specced with elixir 1s out in the alps last summer after my bike broke - they are the most woefully underpowered brakes I've ever come across and needed a bleed constantly (took it back to the shop for them to be bled, didn't help). Maybe they're a little better on an XC bike, but jesus christ they were fucking awful.

Chunkers1980

Alps, bottom rung XC brakes - what were you expecting? Probably had small rotors too.

ilovedirt

They had proper rotors, but my point is that they shouldn't be under-powered. If you put the bottom rung shimano deore brakes on there, they would have no less power than the current XT brakes, they would just be heavier, not as nicely finished, less adjustments etc.

The Rookie

Avids have 2 main issues for me
1/ Feel, they just don't seem to offer the natural progression and linearity I get with Shimano
2/ Pad position control, the pads often retract off the discs instead of staying close giving inconsistent braking until they settle down, again Shimano just don't seem to have this issue.

For power there is little between any of the Avid or Shimano XC/Trail offerings, My old Juicy's stopped the bike just as quickly as the Shimano XT I now have, just not as 'easily'.

Avid are more prone to noises as well, some of the fault for that I am convinced lays with the stupid CPS washers reducing the mounting stiffness.

Thewaylander

http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/12/23/lon ... il-brakes/

felix.london

ilovedirt wrote:

my shimano brakes have been faultless. I've literally done nothing for 18 months since the initial bleed, bar a couple of pad changes, and they're still running great. It took a lot and often to get semi-okay braking out my old elixirs.

Exactly this ^^ I limped through another season with the Elixir's last year and swore I wouldn't do it again. "semi-okay braking" is just not what you want on Alpine DH!

The Rookie wrote:

Pad position control, the pads often retract off the discs instead of staying close giving inconsistent braking until they settle down, again Shimano just don't seem to have this issue

And also this ^^ "inconsistent" is the word for sure.

...this month sell Nukeproof Snap, buy a set of Zee's. The Elixir R's will be cast into the tub of shame

Thewaylander

Yet the avid trail brakes were superb when I tried them.. Perfect lever feel.

stevieboy308

avid 5's came on my bike, xt's stop me on it now!

just because 90% have no issues doesn't mean they're good, but if 10% have issues, it probably does mean they're bad.

i think enough people have had problems to mean they're bad.

i think they're the only hydraulic brake system i've used that didn't self adjust for pad wear.

i've had 2 sets of avids, both had problems and 2 sets of shimanos that have been faultless.

Revhound

My 7 trail have been brilliant,but are still newish so time will tell i suppose?

holiver

So are the Avid DB brakes just simply a rebrand or has some engineering work gone into them?

http://www.sram.com/avid/component/hydr ... isc-brakes

oxocube1

holiver wrote:

So are the Avid DB brakes just simply a rebrand or has some engineering work gone into them?

http://www.sram.com/avid/component/hydr ... isc-brakes

I would imagine they use the same tech and system as the Elixir 1 and 3, just a slightly different shaped lever body (it's more bulky). We've had them on the 2014 Boardman Comp since it was released in October. The previous version came with Elixir 1 so I would assume the DB1 is the replacement (and the same with DB3 and Elixir 3).

cobba

holiver wrote:

So are the Avid DB brakes just simply a rebrand or has some engineering work gone into them?

http://www.sram.com/avid/component/hydraulic-disc-brakes

The Tri-Align Caliper Positioning System isn't used on the SRAM brakes or on the Avid DB brakes.

SRAM brakes: http://www.sram.com/sram/mountain/component/brakes

The Code's and BB's still use the Tri-Align Caliper Positioning System.

The Rookie

cobba wrote:

The Tri-Align Caliper Positioning System isn't used on the SRAM brakes or on the Avid DB brakes.

It's gradually going, in fact the last Elixir 1's had done away with it but you still had to suffer it on the 3's, just goes to show how blinkered they were to how cr@p it was!