Tomm Willians

I discovered awhile back that I enjoy climbing more than most any other type of riding. This of course results in descending which is where I’m looking at brake upgrades. I’m currently using SRAM Rival brakes and wondering if going to Hope RX4 would be a noticeable difference?
There have been times during long descents that my hands become so fatigued from braking that it gets a bit scary.

elcruxio

Are you just swapping the caliper? I have no experience with the RX4's, but I doubt they're worse than the stock rivals. But I suspect the main problem with SRAM brakes is at the lever side.

If you want effortless braking, the best option (albeit not cheapest) would be to swap the shifters and brakes to shimano as those are worlds apart from sram hydraulics.

PeteHski

Really? I have Shimano 105 R7000 on one bike and SRAM Force AXS on another. Braking performance is about the same. Both are very good. Maybe older SRAM road hydraulics are much worse?

elcruxio

It's certainly possible that Sram has made a quantum leap in their braking tech. Because their older road stuff wasn't even on par with mechanic disc brakes. Truly horrid pieces of kit they were.

However from what I'm hearing from the MTB side, Sram brakes are still lagging behind badly. That of course does not necessarily translate to the road side of things, but a few years back the issues of mtb and road were the same (serious lack of initial bite and a weak power curve throughout).

I wonder which generation Sram brakes OP is using, because that might make a big difference in what to recommend.

DaveSSS 

I'm curious how much you weigh. I've been riding the Colorado mountains since 2003. The majority was done on rim brakes, but I'll soon have 3 years on disc brakes. The descents I do only require braking for a few seconds before each corner. I never have to ride the brakes for lengthy periods. I only weigh 135, so my Force AXS brakes work great. I'm not fond of stock SRAM pads. I use Galfer standard pads. It may be possible to increase the rotor diameter to increase braking power.

Troul 

The hope caliper will be a noticeable change. It does seem slightly wider than 105, so I'd check to make sure it has the clearance needed before making the swap. The initial bleed can be 'fun' , hope you have a better experience.

Tomm Willians

I have the current AXS

Tomm Willians

I weigh 177 and tend to descend carefully as I’m also 62 and not looking to scream downhill.

PeteHski

I have high-end SRAM brakes on my Canyon mtb and they are fine too. Not lacking in either power or modulation.

PeteHski

These should be comparable to my Force AXS brakes, which I've done epic 4500 m Alpine climbing days with long technical descents without issue. Maybe you have contaminated pads or a very poor bleed?

t2p

have three bikes with Shimano disc (two XT, one Tiagra / RX400) - one bike with SRAM disc (Force ?)

the SRAM equipped bike stops well - similar to the Shimano equipped bikes - although the SRAM rear seems a notch down from the front (possibly due to smaller 140 rotor)

the rotor and pad choices might be more significant - larger rotors should provide better stopping power - and better quality rotors and pads should also provide better power

elcruxio

I had high end SRAM brakes on my fatbike but even with 203mm rotors they kinda sucked. After a fast downhill run at the bike park my forearms would be totally spent.

The current brakes I have (magura mt5 calipers combined with Shimano SLX levers) with 203mm rotors are finally adequate. Or rather they're pretty great. I've heard that the Shigura combination with servo wave is comparable in power to the Trickstuff Maxima. Difficult to verify that in person, as trickstuff is pretty rare in the wild.

PeteHski

Fair enough, the downhills on my local mtb trails are not long enough to stress the brakes. But they are steep and one-finger braking is fine for me.

But back to SRAM AXS road brakes, I’ve ridden those down the steep side of the Galibier without any issues and that is an epic road descent (see Tom Pidcock on the 2022 TdF Queen’s stage). Any inherent brake issues would have been obvious there. So I’m just suggesting that the OP gets their brakes checked out before resorting to an “upgrade”.

It could be something as simple as lever reach causing the hand fatigue.

mattcalifornia

I'll let you know soon. I just replaced the SRAM Rival calipers on my gravel bike with Hope RX4+ calipers last week. However, I've only taken it on a test ride around the neighborhood so far. It's been hot up in the hills near here recently, so I've mostly been paddle boarding and little road biking near the coast. Based on my neighborhood test ride, I can already tell that it is likely to be a massive improvement over the SRAM brakes. My experience with the SRAMs has been the same as yours -- they suck and cause hand cramping on long descents.

To address the comment above, I bled my SRAM brakes a couple of times myself and had it done professionally 2 more times and had the whole braking system checked out and tuned up and experimented with different pads. None of it made any difference. They were always terrible for gravel riding down mountains. They were fine for the road, but horrible on steep trails.