Shimano XTR M9220 Brakes First Impressions & Review - Optimized Precision

Words & Photos by Jared Erickson

With Shimano dropping their ground breaking XTR Di2 wireless drivetrain, they've also fully revamped their fan favorite XTR brakes hosting a full suite of improvements. Read on to find out more about how they perform on the trail and if they've addressed concerns about the previous line of brakes. 

Overview

Shimano XTR is often associated with the top tier, best of the best components that money can buy, and they certainly look the part. But previous generations of XTR brakes suffered from some unfortunate pitfalls like the infamous wandering bite point, fragile pistons and insufferable brake pad rattle. With these well known issues, Shimano knew they had to go back to the drawing board and come out with a new brake that addressed these particular issues so riders could be confident in their product once again. Have they actually fixed them, or is it all marketing mumbo jumbo?

Before jumping into on trail impressions and real world performance, let's go over some of the improvements that Shimano has made to these brakes. According to Shimano, the brake levers feature Shimano ERGO FLOW technology and have been redesigned to move the pivot point closer to the bar, ensuring the levers follow the natural path of the rider’s finger when pulling the brake. The lever shape has also been refined with a new asymmetrical upswept design that meets your finger at its natural angle, encouraging an aggressive riding position and even weight distribution for better riding control.

When it comes to power and consistency, the BL-M9220 brake lever features a redesigned SERVO WAVE track, which ramps power smoothly but quickly, and is ideal for trail and enduro riders. The new ERGO FLOW lever design ensures consistent rebound speed at any temperature with a reformulated low-viscosity mineral oil that flows consistently through the system in a wider temperature range. The combination of these two ensure stable piston movement within the system, delivering consistent performance and smooth power modulation. Essentially, they've reworked the internals in addition to using a new Low Viscosity oil that helps eliminate the wandering bite point, they've ovalized the portion of the pad pin that should reduce pad rattle, and the pistons are no longer a fragile ceramic material. In addition to these improvements, you'll notice the way the brake hose exits the lever body and how it's more parallel with the handlebar. I think they did a really nice job with this aesthetic where it will play nicely with both headset cable routed bikes and normal, internally routed and externally routed bikes. They've also done a great job with the lever reach adjust dial, making quick changes very easy. With all that said, how do these brakes actually feel on the trail?

Ride Impressions

Having ridden various brake brands over the years including Shimano, SRAM, Magura and others, I was looking forward to seeing how these new XTR 9220s would compare and how these improvements would feel in the real world. The first things most riders will likely notice when pulling on the brakes is the ergonomics and how the upswept lever feels. It is certainly unique and takes some getting used to, and I'm not sure I can tell if there's any tangible benefit, but there could be something there if you are doing a long day at the bike park or something like that. They certainly still retain that classic, snappy Shimano lever feel that you either love or hate.

Having ridden SRAM brakes for the last 7 years or so, the on/off feeling of the XTRs took a couple of rides to get used to again, but once I was able to feather the brakes and utilize some of the modulation, I really got along with the brakes quite well and they have plenty of power, especially with the 203mm Ice Tech rotors I'm using. We don't have a whole lot of traction on our dry, dusty trails at the moment, so really there's only as much braking power as traction on tap. But I have yet to experience the full brunt of the power of these brakes - if you are familiar with Shimano's current offerings and the power they offer, I'm sure you'll feel right at home with the new XTR brakes. Once I get the chance to do some more downhill oriented riding I'll be able to more properly comment on the full extent of the power, and that will come in our full long term review - but in a trail bike setting with average climbs and descents, so far, so good.

Time to address the elephant in the room - do the brake pads still rattle and is there still a wandering bite point? I'm happy to say I haven't experienced any sort of bite point wandering during my time on the brakes so far, as limited as it currently is - I've had these brakes on my bike for about 100 miles/one week and I have been quite happy with their performance. We'll be sure to report on that later when we have a full, long term test and see if the new design and fluid really continue to hold up. With only a brief top bleed, I was able to get the brakes feeling good and ready to ride. I'll likely perform a full bleed to get them absolutely dialed but for now they are feeling up to par for daily riding duties. The new LV Shimano oil seems to be doing its job and I'm looking forward to getting many more miles on these brakes. To put it simply, they were quite easy to set up and so far have been enjoyable to ride out on the trail, with plenty of power tap and that classic Shimano feel.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the rattling pads - the finned pads definitely still rattle quite a bit on chattery trails, and I'm looking forward to trying some non-finned pads to see if they remedy this. For some riders, it might be frustrating to splurge on some fancy new brakes only to have them make an absolute racket out on the trail, or have to devise some sort of half baked home remedy to fix the rattling. For some they may not care and will just install some non-finned pads right out of the gate - but it's still something to note and wouldn't be genuine of us to say they no longer rattle when in fact they do. That's some honest, heavy hitting MTB journalism if you've ever read it.

Final Thoughts

Shimano's new XTR brakes have some much needed updates, and so far it's shown out on the trails. In my time on these brakes, the power has been impressive, the consistency has been solid, and they have that classic Shimano feel. I'm looking forward to putting tons of miles on them, which is a sign of a good bike component, but so far so good.