Review: Lewis LHP+-U4 Brakes - by Cy Whitling

Article From: https://www.about-ride.com/articles/review-lewis-lhp-u4-brakes

Shiny fidget spinners that slow you down.

Lewis Brakes released their newest 4 piston gravity brake to the US market today, the LHP-U4. These brakes are a big deal for Lewis. The brand has in the past been pretty open about the fact that their initial forays into brake design were reverse-engineered from Trickstuff’s Maxima brakes. However, with the LHP-U4, Lewis says they’re bringing a passel of unique new features to the market that will help differentiate them from Trickstuff’s options and essentially set them on a new course as a more “original” brand.

The ethics of Lewis in the past have been somewhat murky, and are further muddied by the xenophobia that inevitably creeps into internet conversations about Chinese-made products. So I’ll just leave this section with two points: Lewis claims that the actual functional design of these new LHP-U4s is significantly different from, and improved over Trickstuff’s options. They have patents on some of these features. Second, buying products made by people paid a living wage is worth doing, regardless of country of origin. There’s a reason I’m a sucker for rims laid up in North America and frames welded by people who I might hypothetically run into on the trail someday. Brakes and drivetrains though are generally where those sorts of loyalties start to run thin. 

Regardless, the Lewis LHP-U4 has a nice list of influences: It looks like a Trickstuff, uses the same pad shape as Hope brakes, and works with a Shimano bleed kit. And I’ve been riding with them on my enduro bike for a little over a month.

The LHP-U4 brings several changes to Lewis’s existing brakes. The most visually obvious is the finned plates which sit between the brake pads and the pistons. These are meant to provide more thermal mass and better heat dissipation, just like Shimano’s finned pads. Moving the fins to a permanent plate should hypothetically make for more affordable pads, and less waste. But what about the rattle? Luckily, these are dead silent. However, these plates do make swapping out pads and bleed blocks marginally more difficult. Not problematically bad, but it is one more step in the process.

The LHP-U4 has a new leverage ratio adjustment knob. This knob is interesting. It allows you to effectively change the lever’s location relative to the pivot to change how the brake delivers power through its stroke. However, it’s not totally tool free. You need to loosen two tiny (1.5 mm) screws, adjust the knob to your desired position, and then tighten up those tiny screws.

It’s also got a lever reach adjustment (truly tool free) knob, and inside that knob is the contact point adjustment, which can be adjusted with the included Lewis tool or a 2 mm allen.

I was sent a set of LHP-U4s for review. They came with Lewis metallic pads, no rotors, no instructions, and shipped shockingly fast from China, wrapped in a lot of tape.

Installation and Setup

My set of LHP-U4 brakes didn’t come with any instructions or information. Luckily, they were relatively easy to set up. I just bolted them to my bike, dug an appropriately-sized set of SRAM HS2 rotors (200 mm on both ends as the lord intended) off the garage wall, and bedded them in. 

Out of the box, the brakes had an excellent bleed, and since I’ve done my best to stick to external cable routing on my personal trail bike, I didn’t need to disconnect anything. That said, if I’d had to, Lewis uses a clever loss-free fitting at the hose end so that you should be able to fish them through your frame with minimal fuss. I popped one off just to check it out, and the combination of fitting and split olive did a good job of keeping all the oil where it belongs. I do wish that they came with extra barbs and olives.

Later on I performed a lever bleed just to check out the process, and my Shimano bleed kit worked nicely. Lewis also sells a sweet on-the-go bleed cup.

The Lewis clamps are frustrating. They are hard to get lined up on the bars, and it’s tricky to make sure that you’re not cross threading the bolt as you try to get it started. I cursed at these clamps a lot. The brakes also take up a lot of real estate on your bars because there’s a brace on the lever body, as well as the chunky clamp. I found that it took a little more finagling than usual to get my shifter, bell, and dropper lever situated next to my brakes. I’m thankful that all the threads are in the clamp, not the brake itself, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to problematically cross thread these if I keep swapping them from bike to bike.

There are a lot of knobs to fiddle with on these brakes, and because I didn’t have any instructions, I just played with them until I figured out what each one did. Your friends will also probably want to play with them. There’s something very satisfying about shiny knobs that click nicely, but good luck finding your settings again after your friends fiddle with them.

The lever ratio adjustment is cool, but, of course, it doesn’t work in a vacuum, it also moves the lever both in angle and distance from the bar. So I found it best to set the leverage ratio first, and then dial in the reach and contact adjustment. 

Make sure to set up your contact adjustment with the supplied tool in the comfort of your own home. It’d be dang near impossible to adjust on the trail with a typical multitool. I found that for my preferences (lever reach pretty close to the bar, lever contact point as immediate as possible) I was maxing out the ranges on these brakes, but that’s not really surprising given that I tend to crank the contact point all the way out on any brakes I’m running.

Finally, centering the calipers rub-free was super easy. My rotors are never straight, but I had no issues getting them running quiet and smooth with these brakes.

Lever Feel and Performance 

Set up to my preferred ergonomics the LHP-U4 has a relatively light lever feel that ramps up as the pads contact the rotors. It’s not quite as feather-light as the Hayes Dominion, but it’s lighter than a SRAM Code or Maven. They also don’t initiate quite as firm a surge of initial power as the Dominion, Saint, or Maven. With all three of those brakes there’s a little bit of a “jolt” when the pads hit the rotors and start slowing things down. I really like that sensation, it’s a useful haptic to let me know what my brakes are doing. But the Lewis LH+ has a more gradual ramp up. I tried adjusting the leverage ratio to get a more linear feel, and this helped, but never quite gave me that “your brakes are braking” feeling I was hoping for.

That said, they still have a nice positive lever feel, and are easy to modulate. As a bigger person on steeper trails. I’m pretty used to brakes feeling a touch vague and undergunned, and the Lewis LHP-U4 never gave me that sensation. Instead they effectively disappeared performance wise. I’ve spent a bunch of time on Saints, Mavens, and Dominions this summer, to the point that I can swap between all three without any frustration. The LHP-U4 fits right into that envelope - plenty of power that's easy to control.

I also haven’t had any issues with overheating. I rode the two-trail combo that tends to make my brakes feel terrible and the Lewis LHP-U4 performed well for the entire ride.

The most surprising thing about the LHP-U4 though is how quiet they are. That’s true in terms of pad-on-rotor action (no squealing, shuddering, or other scary noises in the wet or dry) and in terms of rattle. I was really skeptical of that heat-sink plate - I’ve done my time sticking mastic tape to Shimano calipers to keep their finned pads from rattling, and I assumed this plate was just a permanent rattle built into the brake. Instead it’s been totally silent. No rattle, no creaks or pops. That’s rad. Props Lewis! They’ve managed to be quieter in operation than the Mavens, Saints, and Dominions I have in regular rotation, even after some gross rides.

Issues

I’ve had two small issues with the LHP-U4 in the month+ since I started riding them. First, those bar clamps. I had a note from the first time I installed them that they were frustrating but it might have been user error. And then I swapped them to another bike last week and just got more mad. If you plan on putting them on one bike and leaving them, you’ll probably be fine. But if you want to move them around a bunch, prepare to be annoyed.

Second, the torx bolt that the rear brake lever pivots around has come loose twice. It’s not a common T-25 (it’s a T-15), so make sure to check it at home, or bring a selection of bits with you on your ride. I added Loctite after the second time it came loose, and I haven’t had any other issues. However, the right lever does have noticeably more vertical play or wiggle than the left. I haven’t had any big crashes that I’d have expected to beat up that lever, but I have had plenty of smaller ones, so that could be what caused it. Either way, it’s not a big deal, I notice it when I’m fiddling with the brakes, but not when I’m actually riding.

Who are these for?

There’s a stereotypical person in every mountain bike community who’s always experimenting, always ahead of the curve, or occasionally, derailed off of it. Their bike probably has a mix of suspension brands, none of which are Fox or RockShox. Maybe their handlebar has a weird mix of rise and sweep, or maybe it has elastomers damping it. They probably have run RevGrips, Pedaling Innovations pedals, some sort of range widener for 10 speed, and DVO suspension at some point in the past. They spend lots of time on the forums, they have opinions about every single part on their bike, and many of those parts are anodized, often in clashing colors.

This cohort will love the Lewis LHP-U4. So many knobs to tinker with, so shiny, so many ways to tweak their feel to exactly fit their riding style! It’s a perfect fit for anyone looking to “optimize” their bike as much as possible.

And even if that doesn’t sound like you, the Lewis LHP-U4 delivers a nice combination of lever feel and adjustability that a lot of riders will really like. They exist in the same performance envelope as Dominions, Mavens, and Saints, while having more bells and whistles.

If you think these brakes look cool, and want to buy a set, you totally should. They work well! That said, when I got a new frame last week, I swapped a set of Hayes Dominions on. Why? Well, if I need a new barb and olive, or a new hose, there are three Hayes dealers within 15 minutes of my house. If I break a lever, or lose a screw, there’s a great chance someone in my immediate network has a replacement I can use. The same goes for Mavens or Saints.  I’d love to see Lewis expand their dealer network, and I hope that if I check back in a year, I could go to a few shops in towns and get support for these brakes. But until then, this point stands. Dealer support is worth a lot to me.

So at the end of the day, the Lewis LHP-U4 is a sweet brake. It’s beautiful, and works well. But if I was building a bike with my own money, I’d spend the $370 on a set of SRAM Maven Bronze brakes, and sleep better knowing that I’ve got dealer support anywhere I might ride my bike.