Hey everyone!
So what do you do on a cold rainy day like today if not dreaming of mountain bike upgrades?
Well, in my case, I'm gonna be looking at these cheapo Shimano brakes that came on this 2020 Norco Revolver
and see if they're any different than something like the Deore brakes.
If you check out the specs of 2021 bikes, you're gonna see that a lot of the builders will save costs
by specking lesser brakes. This MT500 brake set, which is a cheaper Shimano brake set,
will be specked even on like mid-level carbon bikes.
They usually come with these RT56 discs, or even cheaper ones, that only take resin pads.
I assume the good old Deore it's already out of the price range in its latest iteration.
The previous generation, the Deore M6000 is right here, and you see it next to this MT501.
Actually on their website, you're going to see them both as part of that Deore series of products.
The M6000 only comes with the M6000 calipers,
whereas the MT501 comes with both the calipers that I have here, the MT500,
and the more expensive 4-piston MT520,
And they're both different than the Deore launched with the 12-speed gruppo,
the M6100 that I reviewed not too long ago.
At the back of the master cylinder, you can see the MT501, made in Malaysia,
mineral oil as we're used to see.
The M6000 obviously it's going to say M6000, made in Malaysia as well,
but the shape of this master cylinder is identical for the two brakes.
That is different than what the new M6100 provides us, mostly because this one comes with I-SPEC EV
versus the I-SPEC II bar clamp that the old generation Shimano's provided.
From the front, you can see the two levers looking identical, I think they use the same lever.
You have the same reach adjust using a hex key, there is no bite point adjustment on these Deores whatsoever
and the only minor difference I would note is the color of the Deore M6000 versus MT501.
This is a matte black, versus a bit more of a sparkly gray,
same sparkly gray used here on the new Deore M6100,
however this one should have the new or improved Servo Wave in the master cylinder.
Both the older M6000 and MT501 provide Servo Wave as well.
All these brake levers can be used with either SM-BH90 or SM-BH59 brake hose,
however the MT501 lever is the only one that uses the older BH59 for this MT500 cheaper brake set.
Main difference between BH90 and BH59 is the actual inner diameter of the hose.
The outside diameter of the hose is the same so you can use the same olives, however the insert would be specific.
You see, the silver one is for BH90, the BH59 would be gold, and have different dimensions so don't mix them up.
And with the levers removed you can see this extra hole on the M6000
and on MT501 it says "for J-kit", I don't really know what that means but that's the only other difference that I noticed.
The bigger differences are here on the calipers.
M6000 next to the MT500, otherwise both of these made in Malaysia.
They're both post mount calipers, they both use that cotter pin or split pin to retain the pads,
however you can see that the 500 is a slimmer caliper.
Also, just by looking here from the top
you can see that you cannot really remove the brake pads from the top,
so on this one you have to remove the wheel before you can do that.
And with the wheel removed, you would push the pads and remove them from the bottom,
This is different from all the other higher end brakes that give you the ability to remove the pads from the top.
And both calipers seem to use that 21 mm black piston, the black ones are made of resin,
the higher end calipers use the white pistons made of ceramic.
And in case you're wondering, the new Deore launched with the 12-speed drivetrain
has a slightly different design, otherwise uses the same 21 millimeter piston,
and uses the same brake pads that the M6000 uses.
I called the MT500 calipers slimmer and with that you expect to see a smaller brake pad.
However if you look at this carefully you're going to notice that the MT500 pad is a bit taller, and it's almost as wide,
so I would argue that the braking surface here on both these pads is identical.
And interestingly that could mean the same braking performance from these two brake sets!
But the MT500 only takes this B01s resin pad,
whereas the other design not only that can take both metallic and resin pads, but it can take the finned version of them as well.
So MT500 is resin only, no fins, but cheaper overall.
And Deore or the newest Deore if you want resin or metallic, with or without fins.
And obviously you would pick the new Deore M6100 if you care about the I-SPEC EV mount, and the arguably improved Servo Wave for better modulation.
On the scale, the MT500 is 276 grams on this front brake, add about 20 grams for the rear brake.
The M6000 is 10 grams less at 265 grams, a few grams lighter than the newest Deores M6100.
So what should you do if you get a new bike with something like the MT500 brakes installed?
At a the minimum, I would say replace the discs with something better, this is an XT RT86 but even the SLX RT66 would do.
If you want the bite and longevity of the metallic pads, or ability to ride finned pads,
just get the Deore M6000 or even the new M6100 that I reviewed not too long ago.
And that's pretty much the end of my little video. Do you guys have any questions?
Let me know below, if you found this useful
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keep an eye on social media,
and until next time, hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!