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Thanks for this man. I'm using what I assume is the Hayes pro bleed kit (without the O-rings), and did a bit of testing for leaks while bleeding. The seal still isn't perfect, but only introduced bubbles at the connector when pulling a really strong vacuum (strong enough to actually pop the seal off the plunger inside the syringe). With lighter vacuums the seal was solid and I couldn't see any bubbles at all.
The bleed process I used was :
1 - vacuum the fluid from one syringe to the other back and forth in the caliper
2 - close the caliper bleed port on the hose side, repeat the vacuum process back and forth between caliper and lever
3 - use the lever to pump a full syringe of fluid through the system to the caliper
4 - repeat 2/3 then close off the caliper
5 - vacuum bleed lever while flicking the brake lever
6 - pressurise and seal.
I might try a quick lever bleed now without touching the caliper and see if that reduces the dead throw at all.
good point!
@NicoZesty96 what i loved: breaking power, modulation, looks, the fact it's a hope brake.
What I didn't like: certanly not the complete brake failure during one race (including crash) and lost of bite point and brake power in the next race.
directly compared to the dominion (apart from the failures) modulation is better with the hope, braking power in theory better with hope, in reality: couldn't find any differences (using purple galfer pads on both). looks: point goes to hope. lever feel: dominion
Cornelius Kapfinger left Trickstuff and went to Intend where he designed the Intend Trinity brakes that look nothing like his old work.
Lewis started from the "Loongze" brand who first started getting in the fishing reel business to "compete" with Shimano.
Shimano: https://fish.shimano.com/en-SG/product/reels/baitcastsw/a075f00003jz5pnqay.html
Loongze: https://www.loongzefishing.com/dbc-b50.html
They probably saw the Trickstuff brakes and thought hey we can copy that too! At first they started selling the brakes under the same name of Loongze through AliExpress. By the end of May, 2023 they chose a F1 racer's name since it is and changed their top cap.
You can find the Loongze - Lewis connection on Xigua Video (China's YouTube): https://www.ixigua.com/home/3767365704883325
Their original video has a nice beat to it: https://www.ixigua.com/7234433545815786041?logTag=63cd4aa8738d17d802b4
AFAIK Cornelius was the designer of the Trickstuff brakes, not the founder of the company.
IME, the bleed instructions on the Doms miss an important mark. The timing and compensator ports are parallel to the reservoir cap screws. Without getting those to the highest point in the system (i.e. 12o'clock), I don't think one can get all the air from the system easily. Another item for consideration is the reservoir bladder. I haven't seen it yet on the Doms, but it may be possible to deform/tear the bladder if you draw too hard of a vacuum. Saw it on the Nines ages ago, and I've seen it happen to Shimano. Worth a look since you're getting the same experience from both brakes.
Hayes does say to rotate the MC so it's level on the bar, then rotate the bar/bike so that it's at 45 degrees (placing the bleed port at the highest point). Are you saying it needs to be steeper than that? I don't actually bust out a level to check that I hit exactly 45 degrees, but as long as I rotate the bar so that the bleed port is higher I haven't had any issues.
Correct, hence the bit in my comment about a missed mark in the instructions. There's a reason every vehicle using MCs with a timing port/compensator port arrangement all have those ports oriented to 12 o'clock. Bicycle brakes are pretty much the only exceptions to that. That said, the two sets of Doms I've bled out for friends haven't had any issues. Not a large sample to base a conclusion on but it seems to work for them. I arranged the bar and MC so the reservoir cap screws were at 12, pushed fluid up from the caliper. Close the caliper, and gently push & pull on the syringe at the MC to draw air from the MC bore into the reservoir, then rotate the lever to their recommended 45deg and do the same push pull again, finishing with a slight push to overfill the system, wrap a rag around syringe hose, unscrew the syringe from the hose to let the overfill balance out, then remove the hose from the MC. Thread in bleed plug, clean with iso, and done. None of this is to say the Doms suck. My little time on em has them on the top of my list should my Ali experiment brakes crap the bed. They feel better than any other brake on the market IMO, both in power and lever feel.
Great insight on Lewis, although saying that the intend look nothing like his old work is completely untrue, they’re a copycat of the Piccola HD, with some cool tweaks just like a LHT VS Direttissima/Maxima
although it’s the same mind behind both here so it’s ok
Having the exact same problem, rear brake goes to the grip after 2-3 rides but the front is always mint. Can't see any leaks anywhere and using the Hayes pro bleed kit, using the exact same method to bleed the front and rear but the rear brake just wont hold up after a few rides.
I just measured the lever's bite point, did another bleed (lever horizontal with hayes pro bleed kit, zero bubbles) then put the used pads back in and the throw is identical, and matches the other brake that I didn't re-bleed. Seems like the throw is slightly reduced when fitting brand new pads, but as soon as they bed in properly you're back to loads of throw. I've now bled these brakes almost as many times as I've ridden them with no improvement so at this point I've given up.
For what it's worth, I've experienced the throw increasing on my Codes too if I really cook them, but never from normal riding and resetting the pistons with the bleed block gets them back to feeling new again anyway. No such luck with the Hayes.
I’m running Shigura setup with XTR/MT7. I took the time to do a proper bleed before going to AngelFire BP and these brakes worked amazingly. Zero issues with wandering BP or brake fade while riding. Did notice a slight pump up on rear brake after riding the steeps on Supreme. These brakes can feel very on-off while parking lot testing but I’ve not felt that when riding faster technical sections. IMO, Really slow speed tech sections where grip is extremely low and that require precision braking to maintain as much traction as possible is where they show their weakness. The heavier you are I’d think there would be less of an issue. I do appreciate not having to think about them at all when riding
No personal experience with the Dominions, but I have seen rare occasions with other brands of brakes where there was a bad batch of caliper seals, or a bad surface finish on a batch of pistons, which would keep the pistons from advancing properly, and causing excess sea rollback. The fact that you get a slight improvement with thicker pads kinda sorta suggests something of that nature might be at play. If you bought them new and they're still under warranty, and you tried lubricating the pistons, it might be worth sending them back for an assessment. When I did that with some oddly behaving Shimanos they replaced them and it was a night and day difference.
Anyone got any good fixes for the insane amount of pad rattle on the dominions? Makes the Saint/finned pad rattle seem quiet in comparison.
things that people do on Shimanos, like spread the spring, or like on the hope v4, some shrink wrap on the bolt that holds them in place, or you can see if Serafino Billet makes some magnetic pistons for those ( on facebook )
I haven't experienced any pad rattling with my Dominion A4 calipers. Using Gold pads from Top Brake.
I had super rattling brake pads on my Dominion, front and rear with T100 pads. I tried a lot of things to quiet down but lastly the only fix I found was putting a really small ziptie around the bolt including the pads spring. This worked really well. Then when I switched to organic T106 brake pads I found out that the rattling was gone, even without the ziptie trick.
I had the same issue with the pad rattle.
flexing out the pad spring instantly fixed it for me.
Morgan Blue do sell a sticky paste kind of compound that you can put on the backing plate. Haven’t tried it but I know there was another product back in the day that was similar and worked really well
So I've got a few rides on the Lewis LH4 brakes and they've been pretty great thus far. A few things about me:
- I'm 6'4 and about 280lbs kitted up.
- Bike is a 2020 Rocky Mountain Slayer A50 29". Was previously using SLX 4pot brakes with Galfer 220/200 rotors.
- I live in Calgary and my home trails are in the eastern slopes of the Rockies, but I also ride in the Columbia Valley (Invermere, Panorama), the Purcells (ie - Mount 7, Kicking Horse), and the Kootney's (Revelstoke), but also make it further west to Kamloops, Sun Peaks, and the Squamish every year. I am not the greatest jumper in the world, but still love a good jump line. I prefer steep, technical dh trails, though.
On the new brakes, I've ridden trails at Moose Mountain and a big day at Mount 7, including a couple of runs down Dead Dog (average approx -45* grade) and the full Red Bull Psychosis course (1090m or 3500ft of descending). I'm not sure there is a better brake test.
My first impression is that I have tons of power, but way more modulation than I did with the Shimano's. It took a little to get used to, but I think I've been able to adjust pretty quickly. I don't think it's quite as easy or quick to lock up as the Shimano's, but the power feels more manageable. At no point have I felt like I was running out of power or losing control. I didn't get any fade while riding, but will probably do a lever bleed just to top things off a bit as things were feeling a bit softer by the end of the day. It was nice to be able to play with the bite adjustment. I definitely had TONS of control when things got slower, steeper and more technical. Overall, they are very quiet, even with stock pads. I was starting to get a little bit of squeal after 1000m of descending, but nothing nearly as bad as I got with Shimano metallic pads. Pretty on par with the Galfer's I usually stick with.
I can't say I've got any complaints so far. I think the big test will be durability and support if something goes sideways. My shop says they've been super responsive to any questions they've had so far, which is definitely encouraging. I'll continue to update as the season carries on and if there are any issues that pop up.
Cheers
I am reviewing the Lewis LHT front and rear brake with the lewis 200 mm front rotor and a 180 mm rotor in the back I am also running the Lewis brake pads. I weigh 186 lbs. Full disclosure I paid full MSRP for these brakes. I placed an order for the bleed funnel, rotors and front and rear brakes. They arrived at my door from China in 11 days. They were packaged very nice and in a protective manner. Customer service was great and responded within 24 hours every time.
I am running them on an ibis Ripmo AF.
For reference I have used magura mt7 , shimano xt, shimano saint , shimano deore , sram G2 sram gs2 so that is mainly what I will be comparing these to
Fit and finish.
The fit and finish on these is incredible They have no visible defects scuffs or scratches. All of the parts lineup perfectly in the CNC work looks amazing. One thing I also noticed is how nice the hardware is that is provided on the same level not better than high end hardware. They look and feel extremely good quality. Comes with extra barbs and connectors just in case.
Installation
Installing these were a dream compared to some nightmares, I have had with SRAM and magura. Not that it is difficult, but getting both levers to produce a consistent and firm feel could sometimes be a challenge and would need several attempts at bleeding to get them to feel consistent.
Out of the box, the front brake was perfect length and installing was a breeze. The clamp onto the handlebars lined up perfectly and created a snug fit without too much torque one thing I really like is Barb at the lever side has a no leak system that makes it easy to take apart run through the internal routing and connect to the lever.
These were some of the easier to install brakes I have had. When removing the hose there will always be a small loss of oil or pressure. I re bled the brakes and it was a breeze. Used the Lewis thread on funnel and a standard bleed kit for the caliper. Also used the provided brake blocks. This was super easy and straight forward. It was easy to get a solid consistent feel on both brakes.
Installing the calipers on the rotors was easy and straightforward. They centered perfectly when squeezing the lever while the bolts are not fully tightened, then torquing them down. For some brakes this does not work so well. They were bedded in after about 10-15 times of getting to speed and slowly braking to a stop.
Feel and adjustment.
Now for my favorite part of these brakes and what I think sets them apart from others on the market. They have 3 different ways to adjust the feeling lever throw, bite point, and leverage ratio. Two of them the bite point adjust and the leverage ratio both have a patent pending design. The lever throw is adjusted by twisting the knurled knob. The bite point is a 2 mill allen located inside of the lever throw knob can be adjusted with the provided 2 mill allen. This can be adjusted to have a long throw feel or a very sensitive short pull to get stopping power.
The most unique one is the leverage ratio adjustment this. Moves the center point of the brake lever giving you the option to dial in this unique feel to the brakes. The different positions make the braking point start earlier and feel more consistent vs a softer feel with increasing pressure. Some people do not like having so many things to dial in and adjust but was super quick and easy just adjusting each one at a time to see what feels best and set and forget.
I like a short throw to the bite point and the reach relatively close to the handlebars. The leverage ration was also closer to the handle bars rather than further out.
Performance
The feel on these is honestly something special. The only thing that I have ridden that feels close is the maguras. The throw is smooth than comes to a mild squish resistance that is very easy to modulate. The power is the best I have ridden also.
They do not feel too powerful as the modulation is so great. I haven’t felt my self grabbing too much brake throwing off my body position which has happened with the maguras before. I understand that is probably more of a me issue than the brakes but just what I have noticed. The braking action is light with a long lever feel. I’m sure you could get a sharper braking feel if you were to get different pads.
The feel on both the front and rear are incredibly consistent. And even if they are thrown off due to hardware off being able to use the bite adjustment is huge in getting them to feel perfect and both feel the same.
I never found myself wishing a had more stopping power, or felt that were not responsive enough. I was able to easily hit my braking points smoothly without and sticking or noise.
Customer support
One thing I was not sure of was the level of support behind these parts. I had concerns about getting spare parts or replacements.
The only issue I had that was 100% on me was over torquing the grub screw for the lever ratio adjust. I over torqued leaving a small dimple in the barrel that the leverage ratio rotates 360 degrees causing it to get hung up when rotating. It still functioned to 100% but didn’t feel super smooth. I reached out and was told they would replace the part free of charge if I covered shipping. To me there is nothing more I could have asked for handling this. They have always responded withing 24 hours and answered all of my questions in an informative manner.
Are you running XTR levers to MT7 calipers or the other way around? I'm not so familiar with this setup, but I know it's a pretty popular one among this forum.
Stoked to see another person happy with the Lewis brakes. Also love to see the racists downvoting any post with the word Lewis in it
Everyone I know who's gotten a set has been blown away by the performance, and everyone who seems to dismiss them has never even tried them let alone seen them in person
it's not racist, they've just been dumb copying trickstuff, if they just came out with their own shape it would've been amazing, but of course nobody would talk about them or even buy them
IMO there is only so much you can innovate the general design of a brake. I agree they could have gone a different route but I see no problem with them taking an existing design and putting their unique adaptation of it .There is enough features that are not a gimmick that set the Lewis apart enough from the trick stuff.
Another person speaking out of their ass and doing no research lol. The internals of the brake are definitely different than Trickstuff, they have their own patents on the brake too. Yes they definitely took some design cues on how the lever looks but internally it's not a copy. Pretty amazing we can get a brake of this quality for under $500 but of course you still have people looking for something to complain and argue over.
Since the topic is hot, I have too tested a set of Lewis brakes, which I have mentioned in the Tech rumors thread.
Given all the hate attributed to the brakes from all over the place by what I guess is mostly people that haven't even seen them in the flesh, let alone touched them or even tried them, I decided to give them a go, just for the heck of it considering I had the option right under my nose.
Caveat number the one: a good friend of mine is the local, Slovenian distributor for them and has loaned me the test set of Ultimates. I am though not making him a solid in any way by sharing my thoughts on a worldwide (US focused?) forum, I would be posting it on a local FB board if I was doing him a solid. I am in no way trying to defend Chinese manufacturing as well, if anything I my professional life is very much focused on local production.
Caveat number the two: aside from running 2-piston Shimano brakes in XC days (05-08), Juicy 3s for a year and a set of Formula Oro K18 without any bleeds for ~5 years after that, I have been running Sram brakes since 2015. First a set of Guide RS on a Giant Reign and Code RSCs since 2019 (I am on my second set since last year, the previous set was fully rebuilt with all new pistons before that). Other than that I have tried out a few sets of Maguras on some test e-bikes over the course of 3 days. My experience with brakes is, compared to quite a few people here, very limited. I do like modulation though, Shimano brakes have never seemed like a good choice to me with their on/off feel.
As for Lewis LHT Ultimate brakes, I ran them with factory sintered pads and ran them on my 200 mm HS2 rotors on my Bird Aeris 9 in what is best described as Alpine terrain.
Build quality is, as has been mentioned by other people, good. The clamp is a bit finicky and it's not easy to mount the shifter if you run it close to the grip. As I normally run Matchmakers reversed left and right, I didn't have a problem with that. The pivot adjust mechanism maybe could be a bit better as currently it's just a grub screw clamping onto an aluminium cylindrical surface, which means it gets indented very quickly. The pad screw using a flathead screwdriver on a set of brakes costing over 500 € is... beyond me. They are apparently using fully rebuildable hose fittings though, which is something to give kudos to as you just need a few meters of plain hose if you need to replace it, making it cheaper (and more sustainable).
One issue is that Lewis ships out the brakes with a 165 cm hose for the rear. My Bird is a size Large and it juuuuuust fit with external routing. Comparing that to my previous XL Bird Aeris AM9 (external routing), where the old Code RSCs were transferred to a Medium Commencal Meta TR with very little hose slack, I'm guessing a 165 mm hose will fit very few bikes. The friend of mine has apparently pointed this out to Lewis a few times, so don't know if it has been remedied yet or not. I have also ran the factory bleed. And I ran the pivot position mostly as it came from the factory (as I liked it there)
Aligning the calipers is harder than with Code RSCs as pad clearance is smaller than with RSCs. The rotor did tend to rub a bit more than with Codes.
The feel of the brakes is... good. Very good. Lever action is really light, but modulation is very good. The one 'problem' is the power, as there is tons of it. So much you have to get used to it, really used to it. Once you do, braking is easy as it's an amazing mix of light action, modulation and low effort. People not used to them doing the parking lot test can even fly over the bars if they are not warned beforehand. And this is on cold, sintered pads.
One negative I have noticed after a minite or two of sustained braking int he steeps or on longer (10-15 minute descents) is that the lever did get a bit stiffer than normal with an earlier bite point. I did not investigate if a thorough bleed would cure that, but I did notice that the factory bleed on my Codes has been very lacking in all cases (4 sets of brakes).
Trying out the pivot point adjuster, I more or less tried out the extreme opposite of what they came like from the factory and the result was, ironically, a very mushy brake with very little modulation and I'd say even less power. This goes a bit against my understanding of brakes and physics, but here we are...
Going back to Codes, and we did a long, steep ride yesterday, the power is lacking compared to the Lewis brakes. I didn't have problems stopping, but my arms did hurt more than when I ran the test set of Lewis' brakes. Maybe running a different set of pads did contaminate the rotor a bit for my Codes as initially after mounting them back they had ZERO power.
There, my experience. I will not be buying them. Maybe a set of LH4s might make sense as they are much cheaper than Ultimates, but considering I have been otherwise happy with my Codes, I'll be sticking to them, regardless of their lesser power. And not having an option to try them out (or hearing multiple people locally raving about them) would probably make me VERY hesitant on buying them given the price. If we are talking about ~100 € for a set, it's not an expensive experiment. At 300 or even 500+ it's a different story and the company does not have the track record that many others have.
I suppose I have been around here enough for this not to come out as astroturfing?
Shimano XTR brakes also use flathead pad screws. Just saying.
And loads or mechanics are giving shimano shit for still doing it especially on road disc caliper.
Nothing to add except to say that my XT/MT7 "Shigura" setup is still going strong after a couple of years, and have no interest in trying different brakes. I run Red Line Likewater fluid as well for its low viscosity.
Whats the Go to for Shimano Brakes rotor wise?
Got some deore 4 pots on the ebike and feeling a little under gunned power wise (im 100kg + 25kg ebike)
Do 2mm rotors like galfer or hs2 fit?
I have some Galfer Purple ebike pads to go on that was recommended to me but need some new rotors.
I would buy anther set of mavens but they are damn expensive here.
Worrals Tax does not help, Sram prices in NZ are nutz, get some 220 hs2 front and back maybe, you can fit even 2.3mm rotors on shimano no problem
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