Lucky124

That sounds to me like a problem of the seal in the lever. If you set up the saddle accurate and have a disc which isn't bend, your bite point shouldn't wander. A friend sent back his tech 4 to hope customer service and got a replacement. I have heard there where some issues in the early batches. Replacement of the seal in the leaver wouldn't help if the cylinder has mechanical imperfections like ridges (I mean the little metal pieces after mechanical manufacturing, how is it called?), scratches or a non-round shape of the cylinder. Your note that the pistons in the saddle doesn't come back enough, I could imagine that this is another hint that the lever has a problem with the seal. The seals in the saddle should pull back the pistons, but I think also the fluid which is running back from saddle in the lever should pull the pistons back too (hydraulic fluid isn't compressible). If your lever piston seal is bad, less fluid comes back so the pads remain still too close to the discs. You can further test If you keep pulling the lever, if it wanders slowly to the bar, or hear if the lever makes noises. I would contact hope support (without saying them that you have replaced seals by yourself). I hope that hope replaces your brakes.

I am still riding with tech 3 and race levers but from my technical understanding I think the spongy lever feel is by design. Hope increased the power by 30% when they updated to tech 4 by decreasing the lever piston diameter to 9.5mm and making the lever 5mm longer. From hydraulic/mechanic ratio view the saddles were not updated. The higher pressure in the hydraulic system and the longer lever are leading to more flex in the cables, lever and saddle. I haven't ridden the tech 4 yet, I am not sure if the update for the trial zone was really needed (mtb is a totally different story, the trial zone saddle is with the 25mm piston really powerfull compared to their mtb brakes). Adding 30% to a tech 3 trial zone they end with slightly more power than a trickstuff maxima from a numbers view. On this website is a good overview of the leverage ratios: https://brakes.ddzyne.nl/ Interestingly, on the hope website now only the new evo levers are listed with the trial zone. I am very curious how they feel, especially with the shorter way to reaching the bite point and the option to install a shorter lever.

I think in this case it would be better to buy a new flow (which has nearly the same geo as the old fourplay) or another bike and you still have money left for an upgrade for the brakes if you like (the standard mechanical rim brakes should be powerful enough). When I see a new fork and stickers on the frame, it’s an alarm sign for me that the bike had had hard trials sessions in the past. Check always how the frame looks from below. There are no words in which conditions the rims / wheels are and 480 Euro for xt brakes and 150 Euro for tires sounds way too much.

Hi, your parts look very nice (to be honest, the bars look a bit crazy). I can imagine there are many people who want a more classic trial geometry and an option to change the gear ratio quick out there. Street trial bikes are actual a little bit too short in my opinion, especially if you want to ride in nature. How did you manage the rim brake? Always thought no other company does it this way, because Hoffmann Bikes patented it.

The nearest club is Stadtlohn http://www.trial-club.de/ with a distance from around 70km. An alternative would be looking for a motorcycle trials club or finding other riders who ride alone on facebook. I know there are clubs and riders in the Netherlands but I have no contact.

In which area or city do you live?

I’ve made the experience, that the hope mountain bike brakes (e4) feel not as strong as the trial zone, mt5 or shimano xt. I know that the mt7 has around 8 per cent more power than the mt5, but I don’t know with which lever option (Hc3, two-finger, ...). But I think it’s cheaper to use better pads or a bigger disk. In our local trial club some kids broke their magura levers. The hope race lever is very solid and we have no big issues with them until now. But I have to clean and grease the lever with link regularly to avoid creaking noises. I really like magura disks, because they are thicker than disks from other manufacturers. In Germany its actually very popular among mountainbikers to combine the magura calipers with levers from shimano or formula. And if you don’t care about money, you can use a trickstuff lever. That combination is the strongest brake you could actually have (keyword: shigura, trigura).