Hydraulic SRAM Brake Bleed Kit: Rider Review

There aren't many things that are more important than the brakes on your bike as far as components go. Proper maintenance on hydraulic brakes is key to not only a fun ride but a safe ride as well. Our friend Nishit shares his opinion on the SRAM Hydraulic Brake Bleed Kit. Check it out!

Overview

I’ve been building this bike for about 4 months, my plan for my Transition Patrol was to build a coveted aluminum frame using largely used parts in order to try and beat the price of an equivalently built new bike. Thanks to the help of the internet, a bit of ingenuity, and elbow grease I’ve been largely under budget for all of the parts I’ve purchased so far. I bought a secondhand Guide R brakeset with rotors and the problems started there. The rear hose was far too short for my frame, forcing me to buy a new hose and banjo cable. Having never worked with DOT fluid run brakes before, I turned to my LBS for some advice. Armed with the research I’ve done through Worldwide Cyclery and the other YouTube mtb pages I knew that I had to buy a brake bleed kit.

I purchased this SRAM bleed kit after much dismay from my local bike shop, who was insistent that I wasn’t ready to work with DOT fluid and bleed rather pesky SRAM brakes. This bleed kit and the resources associated with it were complete, and the team supporting the product was next level.

This kit also came with a stealth-a-majig barb and olive which saved me from purchasing a separate barb/olive kit assuming you only had to replace them on one brake line. Using all LBS’s in my vicinity for advice I was told to adhere strictly to the written manual on the SRAM website and was forewarned that certain tasks had to be repeated a number of times. Being aware of that, repeating the flushing of bubbles in the line and the brake lever is key in a solid bleed.

Since I was using this bleed kit on a secondhand pair of Guide R’s, the extra DOT fluid and the different bleed blocks were indispensable when exercising the lazy pistons in my finicky brakes. These brakes sat unused with the seller, and then with me for a while until I could buy more parts for my Patrol, which is likely the cause of my lazy pistons.

Final Thoughts