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Saint M810/820 differences/setup


singang

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I was wondering why Danny, Ali, Tartybikes &&& all use/sell the M810? Is there any advantage over the M820 Lever?

Which Rotor would you suggest? Danny uses en SLX 6 bolt I believe on some pics, on others the XTR. Ali I believe you use the XTR ones mostly?

Last but not least I got an M820 Saint using the standard Hope 180mm discs of my Fourplay Team but I am unable to get the pressure point far enough away from my handlebar. It feels like I have to pull the Lever to the grip till I get the back wheel 100% locked up!? Any ideas how to change that?

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Why do you care who is using what? Use what you like.

He's asking for opinions?

I went from using the M810 to the M820 and I prefer the M810 the lever feel was a lot nicer. However I think the hold is better on the M820.

I've run both a 180 and 203 xt ice tech rotor and they're both awesome. So maybe change to that rotor?

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Hope rotors might be slightly thinner than the Shimano it was meant for, maybe not, but different brands definitely vary a few fractions of a mm. Try taking the wheel out, pull the lever really gently and only slightly, so the pads just move a tiny bit closer together, keep trying the wheel on until you find the right lever travel. That's worked for me in the past, just make sure you NEVER pull the lever in all the way with no rotor between the pads.

I've found Shimano rotors the best, I use the old style 203mm XT (no spider) on my M810's and they're perfect. I found Avid rotors pretty decent, especially the Roundagon one that came with the old BB7. I think they were a touch thicker than Shimano, might be the other way round though. I found Hope rotors a bit less great, no idea why, but Shimano served me best, then Avid.

Edited by LEON
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Thank you all for your help! I'm def. gonna try the XT Rotors, I just noticed that the Hope Rotors are really easy to bend. Broke one like that recently. I read somewhere that they are actually thinner, not sure if that is true though. I might mesure them when I have both off.

@shercofray, have you had any pressure point movements when first using the M820?

@Ali, I feel really honored to get a reply from you!!! LiamW. used the right words, "high profile people" +1 ; )

@Leon, will def. try your trick with the wheel out. Thanks so much!

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The new style lever is pretty lame to get to feel right in my opinion.

The new style calliper also has loads of free area around the pads making pad rock a total pain in the arse as well. I will try get some pictures of that later on but yeah nothing comes close to the m810

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Got a Saint M810 on the front for mine recently, its mega! Using a 180mm Hope Trial rotor and not having any issues though I have to say they definitely dont feel as strong as a Shimano or Avid rotor. I also find the Saint pads tend to move about slightly, say id bunnyhop or just do a couple moves, id hear the pad scraping slightly afterwards, recified by tapping the lever slightly a couple times to reset the pistons. Might actually try pressing the lever with no rotor in for as slightly better bite point.

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That doesn't seem to do much long-term unfortunately as my brake just kind of reset itself, and with mine it just meant the pads sat at an angle the whole time because only the rear of the two pistons on each side of the caliper stayed out (at least I think it was the rear).

I found I got rid of a bike of pad rock/noise by putting a single thickness bit of insulating tape around the pad retention pin. Can be ballache to get it to not get scrunched up when you fit it back through the pads, but made enough of a difference for my brakes to warrant calling a piece of tape a twat a few times.

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  • 2 months later...

Cool to hear about all your experiences. I still run the hope tech setup in front with a shimano slx disc (sm-rt56) which has a constant super good pressure point and grip. In the rear I tried to get used to the shimano saint M820 setup. As mentioned by other members I do also have some thoughts about the lever which seems very flexible, the pads tend to move quite a bit and even generate some noise. I did bleed the whole system and played around with the pistons until I got things to work right. Unfortunately the pressure point and lever travel still tend to change week after week. At the rear I was still using the hope 180mm disc. I change now to the shimano xt 180mm ice tech rotors. Hoping to get a constant brake feel...even when I had a good pressure point with the saint the bite was not strong enough to stop the rear wheel from slipping from time to time.

I mesured the two discs but found no differences in its thickness, sorry the picture quality isn't perfect...

Trying your advice Mark, thanks for sharing :wink2:

Hope

20140202_132605.jpg

XT Ice tech (6bolt)

20140202_132820.jpg

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If the pressure point is too far in, you could try 2 things*. First way is to take the wheel out and pull the lever a bit. Just enough so that the automatic pad wear thingy moves the pads in a bit.

You could also put a syringe on the bleed screw, open it and put some more oil into the system by applying some pressure on the syringe. Works like a charm.

I'm pretty certain that the different rotors don't have to do anything with the pressure point.

Nico.

p.s.: If nothing works, get some 810 levers as the calipers are almost the same.

*Only if you can make sure that there's no air in the system. I also had the 820 and it didn't take too much lever movement to get the brake to lock up.

id hear the pad scraping slightly afterwards, recified by tapping the lever slightly a couple times to reset the pistons.

It's not the pads, its the spring that isn't centered after those moves. The next time it happens, don't tap the brake lever and have a look at the spring. I'm sure it isn't centered, as the pistons don't recenter themselves after having been off. Had/have the same "problem" with the Zee caliper.

Edited by niconj
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I tried my new saint m820 with 203mm ice tech rotors front and rear today in the snow. None of them have fully bedded in yet but the power is insaaane. Can't really see why everyone is bitching so much about the lever etc etc, it works really good and isn't that flexy or anything like that. It's a flexier than the m810 yeah, but not something that bothers me really. This actually works better than the m810 I had on my other bike. And the modulation is 3x better which is nice!

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Rotor thickness makes no difference as the brake is an open system and will auto adjust to the same amount of lever throw every time (providing no air).

Over filling the system can make a short term difference but in the end it will make fluid weep past the diaphragm seal, and you're back to how it was.

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I got myself a new 820 Saint for the front back in 2013 with an 160mm Icetech disc as I was building an Element.

Although being used with just a 160mm rotor it was fine, but I never really liked the short leverblade and I couldn't seem to get a proper preassure-point no matter how long I tried to setup the brake correctly. As I used to have some 810 back on the Skye I was kinda disappointed.

I rode it this way like half a year I think but now I got fed up with it and used the opportunity of a new bike-build to finally do something about it.

The Icetech disc developed a crap load of play in the spider, which, together with the regular pad-play, turned out to be quite creepy when doing front-stuff.

How do you guys get along with IceTechs? After having seen the problem using only 160mm disc in the front I can't imagine running them in the back with with 203mm :blink:

I now grabbed myself a few bargains and try something new..

Link.

The disc on the photo doesn't belong to it, a 185mm Avid G2 will do the trick instead.

Didn't get to test it by now, though :shifty:

Edited by Martin Direske
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On the contrary, my Avid 185 G2 cleansweep and 160 roundagon rotors are among the best Ive used.

I've bought many BB7s over the years and the rotors were never true and bend even more when braking hard. The G2 are better than the roundagons but still crap.

My favorite is the Trickstuff disc and after that a normal low budget SLX one.

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Don't get me wrong, but I start believing there is something wrong with your ability to set up a disc brake properly. Whenever there is an issue with your brake you immediately assume there must definitely be something wrong with either the brake, the disc or even the forks :blink:

If the disc isn't true, it isn't true. It doesn't have to do anything with my ability to set up a brake.

As for the fork issue. If my BB7 caliper touches the disc even when it's all the way to the left with no more possibility to adjust it further out, again, this doesn't have to do with my ability to set it up properly*. The Zee caliper I've mounted now doesn't show this effect and the SLX disc is 100% true, sth. I can't really say about the Avid rotor.

*You can come by and try your best. If you get it set up w/o the disc scraping the caliper and w/o filing down the adapter or fork, I'll give you the Avid rotor and the BB7.

Edited by niconj
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