I have a set of the new HS11 Magura rim brakes and I took a few pics that compare the new lever to a 2004 HS33 and 2005 HS33 levers. I’m gonna get back to you after I have a chance to ride with one for a bit, abuse it, bleed it, take it apart and report back here, but I’ll start this thread off with these pics. Anyone else try these out yet??
First impressions:
This set has the 4 finger lever blade, which I found does accept the KH spooner, but loosely. I think a wrap of electrical tape on the lever blade before installation would help the fit a lot.
I'm trying to figure out the lever blade position adjustment screw, which isn't intuitive . . . and is going to be needed to bring the end of the lever blade closer to the lift handle. Its way out there about out of comfortable reach as it is now.
I don't immediately see how it is possible to swap the 4 finger blade for the two finger blade. Its either a pin that has to be drifted out or a peened over rivet.:( . . not sure yet. I'll check with Magura USA
Yes, the lever body is made of plastic, not metal. Not sure if the new HS33 is also plastic bodied as well? Magura's metal lever bodies were really damage prone anyway. Plastic may actually be an improvement in durability.
The things come with like 6' of brake line out of the box. . .perfect for giraffe MUNI maybe?
Brake bleeding system is totally different and looks to be simpler, though no less messy.
Both the levers and slave cylinders are now "all postion" left or right
The bearing cap style bar clamp (the cap is metal) looks well made and will make installation behind grips a little easier.
The new TPA knob is smaller and better shielded from hits than the 2004 lever, but is also harder to turn. . . might be a little stiff and new?
The lever piston bore x stroke appears to be unchanged from the 2004 and 2005 levers so the slave pistons appear to be driven about the same distance as with earlier levers.
Special rubber boots look nice on slave cylinders fittings and it is still possible to swap the short stock crossovers out for 10" crossovers to clear our 3" MUNI tires.
Slave cylinders appear to have been cosmetically resculpted a bit, but use the same resin rings and four bolt mounts work with them just like before.
The older style stainless braided kits won't work on these without a different fitting at the lever.
The brake line material is unchanged, but these brakes now use no "olives" to make leak proof connections in favor of barbed fittings - which are a real pain to install (and you have to burn the frigging tubing off of them if you want to reuse barbed fittings)
I have the new 2011 HS33 on my trials bike (same as HS11 but silver body and black lever), and I just thought I’d clear a few things up for everyone:
-Lever body is not at all plastic. It’s a completely new alloy that Magura have been developing if you check out some of their ‘mission performance’ teaser videos on youtube. So it’s a lot better than the 2005 versions of the HS33 as those levers were sketchy after long-term use. They had a design flaw that caused the lever body to crack… quite a few bike riders had this issue since they put a lot more power through the brake. NB: Only the covers (bit that says HS11 or HS33 and the bit by the hose) are plastic.
-This new Magura does take olives. When you come to shortening the hose you’ll find in the instructions that you need to remove the barbed fitting at one slave cylinder and cut the hose. Then with the newly cut hose end you have to slide over a shrout nut and an olive … then tighten it back into the slave. So the barbed fitting is just a factory-only fitting according to the booklet. No problem either way.
-Lever blade is harder to replace but can be replaced. There is a pin of some sort stabilising it all together. HS11s come standard with ONLY long 4-finger blade which is ideal for trials riders (bike), whereas the HS33s can come with either 2-finger or 4-finger blade. It’s your choice what you order! I’m afraid you’re stuck with a 4-finger blade if you opt for the cheaper HS11.
-These new Maggies are easier to bleed than previous Magura rim brakes, as you’ll see in the instructions. There’s a bleed nipple at the top of the lever body when you remove all the plastic covers.
-The hose is different to the older Maguras. This one is a bit better and stiffer.
-The 2011 HS11 is totally different from the older HS11s which were known to be an inferior model. Now the HS11 and HS33 are EXACTLY the same brake except for colours and that the HS33 includes stuff like brake boosters and more in the box. Just be warned if you want a shorter blade like on the older Maguras you’ll have to get an HS33 not an HS11.
These 2011 versions are a massive improvement over previous models.
I hated the 2005s because the lever felt crap. Everyone in biketrials (almost) replaced the blades with custom ones or aftermarket ones by other trials brands. Also the 2005 levers all had a design flaw where the blade eventually caused the body to crack near the join. On top of that the thinned out clamp section of the 2005 often snapped if you every so slightly overtightened.
The 2004s (smallest simplest lever in one of the first pics in the first post) were the nicest until these new 2011s.
Thanks Sponge.
So I just got off the phone with Magura USA’s rim brake guy, Buck. His take on the new brakes:
The lever bodies of the HS33 and 11 aren't plastic or metal, but a space-age "carbon composite" material.
The 2-finger brake lever blade is in stock and is available on a retail basis at your local Magura bike shop for approximately $25 each.
The lever pivot pin is a press fit and can be carefully driven out either side to replace the lever blade. The pin is reusable
The early production 2011 brakes use the same brake line materail as the older ones.
Buck says their on-line manuals for the new brakes are wrong and show olives and M8 fittings on the slaves. He said that the early production 2011 brakes don't use olives, but the later versions of the slaves might come with one M6 and one M8 hole (M8's use the olive ferrules and shroud nuts)
The lever blade position adjustmet is working as designed on my set, but I think it could be a deal breaker for unicycle riders: The lever has a small and weak spring (think ball point pen spring) that holds the blade blade closer to the bar as the set screw is backed off, but the spring is really floppy and might make the brake lever really annoying and hard to use as the lever flops around against this spring.
I gotta get this thing mounted up and out for a ride or two.
Hmm, that’s strange. Mine are all M6 of course, and the handbook instructions clearly state that if you want to shorten the hose (which like you mentioned is like 6 feet long!) then you need to remove the main hose (attached via barbed fitting) from the slave cylinder and cut it, and then just slide a shroud nut and olive over it, and then once the shroud nut is screwed into the slave it just seals off everything with the olive and hose end within the slave?
Is yours like this too, Brycer? I’m guessing by now you would have cut down that crazy hose!
yup. I have the same thing here . . .all M6 except the special M8 fitting at the lever only. Looks like maybe the directions are wrong or the slave plumbing is in transition to the set-up they describe in the manual?? I still haven’t cut mine yet, but hope to get it all mounted up next week.
Just wondering, did you get 'round to shortening that hose in the end? 2011 Maguras are new ground for me and still not wrapped my head around them.
If you have shortened the hose, did you use the handbook’s instructions on using the shroud nut and olive (in the little plastic bag) and sliding them over the newly shortened hose end… then just screwing that whole thing into the slave hole that once had the barbed fitting?
^If so, did you find that the furthest the shroud nut would screw in sat about 1-2mm taller than the untouched barbed fitting bolt right next to it on the same slave?
I’m curious as if it’s meant to be this way, as I’d hate for it to start leaking on a ride if it’s meant to be parallel with the factory-fitted barbed bolts, but on the other hand worst case I’d hate to strip the threads in the slave from tightening it too far!
///
I’m hoping this thread will be helpful to any muni riders or anyone else running the new 2011 Magura rim brakes. They do have a few subtle differences from the older models you need to be aware of. Hopefully the info that Brycer and I blogged up should help as a starting point.
Hi Sponge. I’m prepping for the US holiday here and haven’t gotten around to making any changes to the brake I have here yet. I’ll post here when I do. You and I may be the only folks here that care to dive down intho this level of Maggie rim brake nerdery and such, but … . . . … I am fairly certain that all shroud nuts made for Magura rim brakes are M8 and all the holes in my 2011slaves are M6.
Typically the shroud nuts in an M8 slave hole with a ferrule (olive) in front of it should tighten down to show 2-5 shroud nut threads and stickup a little more thant the barbed fitting like you are describing.
Not sure what is up with your set-up there. I’m gonna use M6 barbed fittings to make my brake line connections here.
Ha Ha
I have been Buying all the NOS HS33 2004 and HS22 I can find to save for a rainy day. Plus Mony Y’s too.
After seeing photos of the 2011 HS33/11 brakes at the start of the year it’s started Me looking for more Pre 2005 Magura rim brakes
Looking forward to seeing the out come of Your brake testing for Trials and Unicycle’s
Pete G.
For bikes, which Maguras are designed for, and never ever had uni in mind… they’re pretty spanky sweet for 2011. I definitely see these as an all-round improvement in almost every single way. I just need to understand it and then it’s all good. Plenty of bike riders love them to death already.
The 2005s were horrible and weak at the lever unless you replaced the lever blade with an aftermarket one by Magura or another brand.
The 2004s are nice, but the TPA is fragile.
Monty splitters are nice. I’d like one just because I have a long Python frame (old biketrials fad kinda thing back in '06), but can’t find any anywhere anymore. But they don’t improve brake performance at all. It’s just a gimmicky thing so long as you get past the pain of installing them. Also they’re a very insecure fit on the hosing compared to the regular cross set up. Plenty of people have accidentally ripped the the hosing out of the splitter.
Edit: Also, Monty splitters are not compatible with braided hosing, only the standard plastic hosing. Unless someone does a horribly ghetto bodge… which is not recommended for a hydraulic line.
Yes this is why I have twin braided hose’s on my Muni (Triton) the Monty will stay in the bag for time to come.
I’m lucky to have the tools at hand if I have to fit a Monty splitter.
I’m looking to run the new (2011) HS33 on a Touring bike soon.
Looking forward to seeing some custom Trials lever for the new HS33?
Pete G…
The HS33 2011 with the short blade fits best from our testing. The long one is more likely to have problems with breaking from drops.
When you buy the HS33 you get the extra crap that is of no use to a Unicyclist and currently we have no choise but to buy it with it… this puts the price up. Previously we had negociated not getting this, but currently we must.
We get on very well with the Magura main salesman in German, this may be partly because his daughters both have unicycles… but anyway, he suggested that we could supply the HS11 with the replacement 2 finger HS33 blades. This would then be cheaper and be just as good as the HS33 for us, worth looking at.
He also found out for us what stock of the old HS33’s they have… The answer at first was not many, then he remembered we only want one of them. They have lots of single silver ones in stock… lefts if I remember rightly, not that we care - bikes want pairs… so we may be able to get these for quite some time to come.
brycer1968, thanks for quoting Magura, it made me laugh so much!
“The lever bodies of the HS33 and 11 aren’t plastic or metal, but a space-age “carbon composite” material.”
