LOUISE BAT - REVIEWS IN THE PRESS

The Louise BAT is unchanged since last year, but it's still a bargain for the dependable performance and features. It shares its two-piece calliper with the budget Julie brake. The wavy rotor helps cleaning. The L-shaped lever is single-sided but gets a hinged clamp for easy fitting. The long, broad blade gives rock solid feel and there's a bite point adjust dial.

Thorough bedding in is vital, but initial and medium braking power is impressive and modulation is reasonable. Despite mineral (non-synthetic) oil guts, it's still better than most at full pull. You do get a five-year guarantee and the price is excellent value.

 

Value: 4/5

Slightly heavy but impressive power and lots of user-friendly features.

MAGURA's Louise offers superb value for money for a full feature performance anchor. The only change for 09 is a larger lever blade. Tuning is easy thanks to the combination of reach and BAT (bite-point adjustment that actually works enough to properly level the brakes). The hinged bar clamp and angle adjustable "heat eater" hose junction is neat too, but the hoses need trimming and you'll need to do a burn in session to break in the brake pads.
It's direct in feel, but modulates well enough. Power is fine for trail use, with an optional Venti Disc fan rotor available for mountain use. Its realiability is well proven and with a five-year warranty it's an absolute bargain.

MBUK verdict:

Power:         8/10
Control:        8/10
Life:              8/10
Value          10/10

Full feature performance and adjustment at an outstanding price. The latest version of MAGURA's totally proven Louise brake offers all the power, adjustabilty and control you'll ever need at a superb price, making it our overall trail brake winner for 2009.

This German company still makes their brakes in their motherland and the Louise Carbon is ther premier stopping package.

We mounted the Louise Carbon on a Titus Moto lite Exogrid (a five-inch-travel trailbike). We chose to go with a seven-inch front rotor and a six-inch rear rotor. Stock brake pads are the performance version.

Adaptors were necessary to to mount the brakes to the Titus and a Fox fork that both use the International Standard for caliper mounting. The brakes mounted without any hassle, and the Heat Eater hose fitting makes hose routing simple. Lever reach is is adjusted by a 2.5 Allen. Once reach is set, riders can fine tune when the pads make contact with the rotors by turning the red BAT knob. The brakes performed ideally in this application. Their power was perfect to handle the demands of aggrssive trail riding on a bike with ample travel and fat tires. Brake fade was never detected, even after intentionally dragging the brakes on extended descents. We didn't notice that the brake howl.

Pad wear thickness can be checked without removal of the pads, but these pads are so easy to remove (remove the bolt and pull the pads off their magnetic seat) that you'll want to pull them out to check wear.

Finally, a great performing product is only as good as the company that stands behind it. MAGURA backs their brakes with major event support and bicycle shop education programs , so there is support available at many levels for this product.

We bestow the coveted five-star rating because this is the brake that all others brakes will have to compare themselves to. If your are building the ultimate trailbike, the MAGURA Louise Carbon brakes have to be part of your build kit.

MBA Rating: ***** (Five stars)

Louise is Magura`s long-running all-rounder trail brake, and the sixth incarnation is better value than ever. The distinctive (and much imitated) right-angled lever looks are retained, but for 2008 the Louise gains single port bleeding, a hinged clamp and slight reshaping so it`ll sit happily inside or outside shifters. The external BAT bite adjustment wheel gives a usefully wide range of touchy-feely tuning, and the `Heat Eater`hose-calliper junction means the hose can be swivelled to the best postion without the use of tools. Maguras still take a little longer to settle in than most brakes, but it`s worth it to avoid erratic feel later. The lever shape and feel aren't to everyone`s taste, but there`s certainly plenty of power from the broad lever.

WMB verdict:

Power:   8/10
Control:  7/10
Trail:      7/10
Value:   10/10

Remarkably cheap yet powerful allrounder. Overall: 9/10

Gustav M is 10 years old and still going strong. The brake comes with a 210mm front and a 190mm rear rotor and a long, solid lever to boost power straight away. The unique floating design caliper uses twin same-sized pistons on one side rather than opposed pistons.

The huge amount of hose supplied will fit any bike and the hinged lever clamp make set-up easy.

MBUK rating: Still one of the most powerful brakes around. 8/10

It has a massive twin pot one side, a fixed pad the other, and callipers that float sideways on pins to create a self adjusting system that'll run even if you bend a rotor. The result is super heavy and modulation isn't subtle, but the long pads and long lever blade give truly eye-popping power with minimal lever pressure. This monster is for 20stoners, tandem users or extreme users.

 

MBUK verdict:

Power: 10/10

Control: 7/10

Use: 7/10

Value: 7/10

 

Heavy and expensive, but monster power for ultimate hardcore use.

Overall: 7/10