Avids. I have them and I love them... ...make sure you use decent cables and SD levers though.
So, Avids will be the more expensive but better option... ...I'd go for the Deore hydros myself.
Whilst the Avids are GREAT, you need >great< cables to do them justice. I use Flying Snakes (by Transfil, a nice little company in France) and they are fantastic, but they are £20 a box.
Also, the Deore brakes won't need tweaking now and then, and, whilst tweaking the Avid is worth it, it can be a bit of a pain sometimes.
Your choice. Just don't listen to those hydro biased people which account for many members of the site.
Matt Savage is dumb to say hydro are always better than cable, just look at some of the reviews of leaking, poorly working and generally poorly designed brakes out there, both hydraulic and cable. I run avid mechanical disks because they were consistantly well reviewed, they may not be the lightest or the very best but they work consistantly well. A friend of mine bought a bike that came with Deore hydros and after 3 months of constant trouble the shop changed them for Hopes. He,s now happy. I wouldn,t swap my Avids as I can choose which lever to use with gripshift and I feel confident that I could fix them on the trail if anything went wrong.
shimano deore hydraulics have been changed since their first inception. they are now reliable in the main. although there are still oem and aftermarket models, with the oem ones having a considerably higher failure rate than the aftermarket ones.
and with the avids being even better now that the cam arm length has been changed (use with teflon inner cable and sd5 or higher lever of course), you can still hotly contest which brake is the better!!!
Go for shimano as the avid pads need replacing far too often and often need dialing in on wet/gritty rides. They became a real pain so I sold mine and feel so much happier now. A friend has deore's and they seem great with no probs at all and very reliable.
Hmmm. The stock Shimano pads last about 30 seconds - the stock Avid ones much longer.
Aftermarket pads can dramatically improve the life of the Shimano units, but don't forget that the same people make pads for Avids too. But it is true you need to dial in to compensate for pad wear, which you don't have to on the Hydros.
I guess that it depends on whether you want to deal with occasional bleeding with hydraulics, or cable changes and adjustments with the mechanicals. I have run the same set of Hydraulics for a couple of years, and have not touched them other than changing pads and one rebleed. Hydraulics mean you have to learn a new system, mechanicals are similar to what we were all used to. I also prefer the lever feel on hydraulics, mechanicals always feel a little mushier on the back because of the longer cable. But if you are used to V's this wont bother you.
Shimano XT. IMO complaints about hydro problems are because they are set up poorly. Make sure you face off the mounts with a disc optimiser, and bleed correctly. Pad choice seems important, but ....
I set up the XTs myself and have no problems with them at all. They work great and pads last well. Wouldn't go back to any cable actuated brake, but that is my choice, not a reflection on good cable brakes that I haven't tried.
i have avids on my hard tail and deores on the full bouncer. both very good brakes, but the deores have the edge if set up right. the avids do need constant attention but are easy to adjust trail side if needed. difficult to compare pad life, the avids have had more use in the wet and needed changing to gold pads fairly quickly. only recently bought the full bouncer so it is an unfair comparison due to the dry weather.
Would always have a decent hydraulic brake over a cable disc, Shimano brakes are functional but don't have the modulation and feel of the Avid hydraulics imo... if you're after a new set of stoppers I'd save up your bucks and get a set of avid's .. or Formula oro biancos if you have deep pockets..
