Specialized Vado SL brake upgrade

Jay12345

Member
Just upgraded the brakes on my vado sl and wanted to share my experiences and errors. My stock tektro brakes were fine but i just couldn't find any brake pad replacements and i even ended up damaging my rotors from metal on metal contact as my brake pads had completed worn down. I tried to look for the official pads from Tektro themselves but couldn't find anyone who had it in stock and even tried to order 2 different off brands that i had 2 others tell me would work but didn't. Long story short i gave up and decided to upgrade to a pair of Shimano XT brakes from ebay only to find out at my local bike shop that my vado sl needed the post mount version and not the popular flat-mount... waited another 2 weeks for my post mount brakes to come in but unfortunately had to get SLX calipers as the XT ones were all out of stock.

Did a short test ride today and while the stock brakes were good enough these new XT ones makes 1 finger braking a dream and i definitely noticed more stopping power. One negative was the spacing between the brake clamp and my grips can no longer accommodate my motor controller which makes it harder to make adjustments to the power settings when riding
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according to the bike shop my controller wouldn't fit in between that gap but i will take another look. Also planning on moving my bell to the right side as that will fit in between that gap
hard to tell but your brake won't go over the grip?
 
oops i see how it works I had to look closer at mine. my control has a small ring and it just fits under the lever.
 
How is itan upgrade? My Vado SL stops perfectly. It literally could not be better!
 
Hi , I have a question if you changed parts to Shimano, did you also replace the hoses, did you use terkro hoses, or if you left tektro hoses, did you use new shimano bh59 olives? or did you just use the original ones.
 
I'm just waiting for warmer weather))) I have a few unused parts and I will also change the brakes xt m8120 4pot shifter xtr 980 cassette xtr 980 rear derailleur xtr 986 brakes rotors xt 160 because it is just lying and getting dusty on shelf , today I changed
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tires from pathfinder to panaracer gravelking ss + 700/38 2.8 bar a little less shakes
 
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