Review
Do We Really Need New Mavens?
Maven B1? You might be wondering what that means. These aren’t a totally new brake, rather they are a tweak of both levers and calipers. This seems to be a response to complaints some riders had, primarily about lever feel.
These riders found the dead stroke of original Mavens* too heavy, and a minority complained about hand fatigue. Personally, I have gone back to back with several different brakes and my experience was the opposite. I experience less hand fatigue with Mavens than most other brakes I have used. An exception was Hope Tech 4 E4s (which seem to have been discontinued), which were also excellent in this regard.
*Aside from Maven Base, which have an initial resistance that is half that of Maven Silver or Ultimate.
The B1 Calipers don’t look much different from the outside but they no longer have two different piston sizes inside. Photo – Deniz Merdano
A portion of the resistance at the brake lever remains once the pads hit the rotors, so lower is obviously better. It’s important to remember, however, that the leverage ratio increases in every Maven system (and other braking systems I’m aware of), meaning the resistance you feel in the deadband is lower than the resistance you have to overcome once you start applying braking force. This continues through the stroke and, as you can see below, the leverage is highest when the force you need to apply is at its peak, which means the resistance you feel is at its lowest.
Because of this and the vast difference between the force you need to apply to any disc system in order to stop on steep trails, and the small amount of deadstroke resistance, I am led to believe that deadstroke force, particularly the initial force, is of little importance once you have passed bite point. Maven brakes are so powerful once you grab a fistful of lever that less strength is required than many other brakes.
An A1 Silver lever (which is deceivingly black) below a B1 Ultimate lever. Aside from the carbon lever on the Ultimate and the SwingLink Cam, the only difference between these levers is an internal part that is interchangeable between the two. Photos – Cam McRae
The B1 caliper (top) compared to a Maven Silver.
Torque Required: B1 vs. A1
When you pull the lever of an original Maven (aside from Maven Base) the resistance at the very beginning of the stroke is significantly higher than other brakes, at 8Nm. Once the lever is in motion, this number goes down immediately. This is easily felt with your finger and also borne out with SRAM’s graph. Once you get to the bite point, the resistance has been cut in half, and it continues to diminish as far as you can pull. When I’m riding steep technical trails that require frequent braking, I hang on to my levers partway into the deadband, meaning that 8 Nm has already been overcome. In other situations, if my levers are fully extended before a pull, I don’t notice that heavier initial resistance at all.
This shows the leverage ratio of each lever (Maven A1 (original), B1 and Maven Base) as each moves through its arc.
So for me, this is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. At the same time, there is no downside to lighter initial lever action as long as the lever still has a positive feel, which this one does.
The difference in feel seems to be realized through an ever so slight adjustment to the cam profile. I spent some time turning the two SwingLinks around in my hands and photographing them from different angles and even weighing them before I noticed the difference, most of which turned out to be in the cam on the lever blade.
The updated SwingLink (gold anodized above) is the only difference aside from the levers. Kits with levers will be available so you can change the feel of your A1 brakes. Maven Ultimate and Silver owners can choose between carbon levers (109 USD) and new aluminum levers (89 USD) for the upgrade while Bronze gets a different lever (69 USD).
Maven B1 Ultimates come with carbon levers. You can also get them if you have a set of Silvers and you buy the B1 upgrade kit for 109 USD. Photo -Deniz Merdano
Originally Mavens had one 19.5mm piston and one 18mm piston. Now, because the new lever makes more end stroke force, both pistons are 18mm, which apparently makes the top end power of A1s and B1s identical. You can use B1 levers with A1 calipers, you’ll just have to deal with even more end stroke force.
Where Does the Magic Happen?
In the photo below, the profile of the top of the red SwingLink from the original Maven (A1) is round and very consistent in its arc. A careful look at the gold link reveals an ever-so-slightly altered lobe shape. It turns out any differences there won’t have an impact on lever feel, because the lever presses on a roller, which you can see below where the levers are closest in the upper half. The placement of the roller could make a difference though, and it appears the roller in the gold mechanism is slightly higher, but I can’t be certain.
The levers are a different story. The black SwingLink Cam at the top of the two levers appears to be the biggest difference between the two systems. To be certain, I swapped the levers from the B1 to the other Maven Ultimates I have on a different test bike.
I didn’t measure the initial torque but both swapped levers clearly had a little less initial resistance than the A1 lever and a little more than the B1 lever, which seems to indicate there is a small difference in the gold B1 SwingLink that isn’t immediately noticeable to my naked eye.
Can you see the difference? I can see a slight difference in the outline at the top of the two SwingLink, but that shouldn’t make any difference. The cam on the brake lever pushes on the black roller you can see between the two mechanisms, attached to the small pivots. It’s possible the roller on the gold link is slightly higher but if it is, it’s not more than a millimetre. I was hoping there would be a weight difference that could tip me off, but they were too close to provide any meaningful data (7.4g red and 7.3g gold). Photos – Cam McRae
It seems the biggest difference between the two is in the SwingLink Cam at the highest point of each lever, beside the spring, in the image. The B1 on the left has a shorter flat section and and is more abruptly rounded at what I seems to be the beginning of the stroke.
Maven B1s On The Trail
So far my experience with Maven B1s has been aligned with my experience on other Mavens. I find both power and modulation to be excellent. Less hand force is required to produce serious braking force, and when you need to really drop anchor, you get all the bite you need. I have ridden Mavens with 200/180 rotors and, for the most part been fine, although I overheated a 180 rotor riding First Blood in Chilliwack.
I can notice the decrease in initial resistance in the lever when I’m sitting still on the bike, but once I start riding, I just notice Mavens. Testing sometimes requires a more immediate comparison, however, so I tried to get some back-to-back impressions.
I was riding with Adam Harrison of Dialed Bikes (not pictured) on the weekend and he has a theory about why some riders feel like they get more arm pump from Mavens. When your brakes are more powerful you can brake later and when you do, this puts more pressure on your hands and arms. The bike is pushing back at you harder and more effort is required to keep your body from pitching forward. It’s as good an explanation as any I have heard for something many of us can’t figure out. Photo – Deniz Merdano
Back to Back
I went riding with my 20-year-old son, and he rode the Specialized Turbo Levo I have been testing while I rode the Yeti LTe I recently wrote up long-term. The Levo has a set of Maven A1 Ultimates, and the LTe has the B1s. We switched back and forth twice, and once we got going, neither of us found anything abrupt or dramatically different about the brakes while we were riding. My son actually thought the lever pull on the A1s was “smoother.”
For some background, I didn’t give him any prior info about the comparison and he’s not a very experienced rider. It’s possible there would be differences over a day of riding, but that’s much harder to quantify. I expected we would feel a difference almost immediately. When I slowly pulled each lever from fully extended, I could feel the difference from the saddle, but that’s something I rarely do while I’m riding, making it an almost irrelevant data point.
I thought this graph was also useful alongside a comparison of the three levers.
All Maven B1 Prices – but not in Canadian just yet.
It may turn out that some riders notice a difference in performance riding the B1s, particularly those who get the aforementioned arm pump on the A1s. Maybe I’ll even start to become aware of some B1 benefits on particularly long descents, which are mostly snowed in this time of year. At this point, I’m just as happy on either version, and that is quite happy indeed.
A new aluminum lever for Maven B1 Silvers.
The Maven B1 Silver caliper gets all black hardware.
In The End
It probably wasn’t an ideal strategy to release Mavens with such heavy initial lever resistance, at least not in terms of P.R., but it seems the vast majority of riders get along with them very well. For most of us, there is no Maven problem. That majority will continue to get along just fine if they either get their hands on B1s either by purchasing a set, a bike that comes with them, or one of the Brake Lever Tuning Kits for a set of Mavens you already own, or if they stick with their A1s.
For riders who had issues with the originals, this may be your ticket to powerful, consistent, well-modulated SRAM brakes filled with mineral oil.
If you’re happy with whatever brakes you are currently riding, well done. Carry on.