firstly, move the lever so that there is room for one finger on the lever secondly, uno the 4 mm bolts on the rear brake and set it up closer to the rim for a harder feeling brake make sure the tpa (red wheel on the lever) is wound all the way in and if its still too soft you can wind this out slightly, set the brake up so its nice and square to the rim and all of the pad is touching the rim when the lever is pulled as for a front brake i'd suggest a vee but thats just me you can use a disk too if you wish avid bb7's are really good cheap and easy to maintain, if your getting a vee the main differences are they hold a lot better, easier to set up, cheaper, and they wont leak or burst like maguras as for performance its all in the pads you use and how well its set up have a look on the heatsink website or on tarty theres a range of vee pads on either of those