Brakes that break

I’m annoyed. Actually I am more than annoyed, I am down right pissed off. You see, I have these brakes for my bike that are supposed to be good; Hayes Mags. I bought them before France last year as I had had trouble the previous year with my brakes over heating and melting. Well, 7 days into France these new ones actually caught fire. Pants. Anyway, to cut a long story short I finally got round to fixing them this week as my other brakes are now back on my other bike. This evening (yeah yeah, i know, the night before…) I tried to bleed the Hayes (bleeding is putting in or replacing the brake fluid). Now, I have bleed probably over a hundred Hope brake systems and generally they go well – its a simple gravity feed type affair where you push the air down and out of the caliper from the lever. Hayes, however, need to be bleed the other way, with brake fluid forced up from the caliper. It sounds simple enough but no matter how I tried I just couldn’t actually get all the air out, resulting in a soft mushy lever with no power that pulls to the bar. So fuck that, the Hayes are going. I shall buy some new Hopes. Why did I ever think Hayes would be better… heaven only knows. I’m sorry Mr Hope, I will never waiver again.