Shortyesquire profile

I've had 10+ Thomson's over the years, as well as Chromag's, Hopes, Renthals, Funn, Ragley, FSA etc etc etc.

I like that Thomsons are stiff, silent and have never marred a bar or steerer. The Renthal in particular didn't meet any of those criteria. I broke one Thomson faceplate under warranty back in the 25.4mm bar days on a Titec Hellbent (?) before I had a torque wrench and used carbon paste. The M3 heads can be swapped out for M4s but with good hex tools (Bondhus or Wera) I've never needed to.

Syntace and I9 are probably the gold standards for stems, but my Funn stems have performed admirably especially considering the price from Aliexpress. They also have a good low stack height (30mm) option in the Funndruro. Not as pretty as a Deity but about a 1/3 the price.

No mention of Thomson stems? You monster!

Australia isn't exactly a Mecca for wet weather riding, but when I have had to ride in the mud I've found EBC Gold and Clarks VRX pads are excellent. I'm pretty sure they are both the same rebranded Carbonne Lorraine sintered pads. 

Re the Dominions, I just wish they had avoided the devils hydraulic fluid.

My Trickstuff pads lasted a week at Maydena in Tasmania. So not quite Whistler levels of punishment but still plenty of elevation and I drag my brakes like its going out of style.

Do you guys have a distro in Australia?

If you guys are interested in going further down this rabbit hole. The Uberbike Racematrix and Trickstuff Power+ pads are worth trying. I've got a set of TRP Quadiems which I find are a little down on power (but up on modulation) compared to Saints, but the Uberbike pads more than make up the gap (without losing modulation). 

I also have an old set of m755 XT 4 pots and they happen to use the same pads as Trickstuff Direttissima. The Power+ pads have turned them into monsters. In a blind test you wouldn't be able to tell the brakes are over 20 years old.

Hehe I hope you kept a big stock of IS to PS adapters. They are getting hard to find these days. 

I've never felt a pair of Gustavs but I've been told that they were very powerful and came on STRONG!

I have a thing for esoteric but brutally effective components. 

I have two complete sets of m755 Xt 4 pot calipers still running on bikes. Combined with Trickstuff pads and m785 levers they are still awesome. 

I also have a set of Navigator 6 pot calipers hooked up to Saint m810 levers with carbon ceramic pads and huge Hope V2 discs. Surprisingly civilised brakes given their sheer physical capability.

Finally I have a set of OG Middleburn rs8 x-type cranks. Fully modular, direct mount, dh rated, and ever so slightly wonky spacing on the spider because british!

But that's the thing, servo-wave has been with us since the 9 speed era with the m770 and m810 brakes. But wandering bite point only really became an issue when the m7000/m8000 brakes were introduced.

Also for master cylinder wear, I've got lots of m810 and m785 levers that are still going strong over 10 years later.

After running m785, m810, m820, m8000, m8020 and m7120 brakes I'm almost certain the wandering bite point is down to a combination of tiny air bubbles in the lever reservoir and the placement of the port to the master cylinder. 

If you get a really good bleed by either flicking the lever a billion times or using a syringe to pump oil in and out of the reservoir, and chase out all the tiny bubbles in the reservoir. There is no wandering bite point. 

Even if I don't get a perfect bleed I sometimes find the wandering bite point disappears as the bubbles migrate to the top of the reservoir over time. 

As for the Cura4s, holy shit they are good with sintered pads! I can almost hear individual bits of sinter gouging my Hope floating rotors.