THE MT5’S PLASTICKY feel and blunt power won’t suit everyone, but this distinctive German anchor is massively powerful and well priced.
Magura mainly produce injection moulded plastic car parts so their use of a moulded ‘Carbotecture’ lever body isn’t surprising. It gives a spongy feel to the two-finger alloy blade though, and power comes on very strong and early in the stroke. The blunt, limited modulation feel is compounded by the fact that Magura’s four-pots are the most powerful brakes we’ve ever used by a fair margin.
If you’re after maximum power for your pound they’re worth taming though, because after a bad start – we broke the cover off the reservoir and suffered complete brake failure on our first ride – we’ve had no issues since. We’re still on our original set of four small pads despite a busy year of testing on our GT Force long-termer, and the ‘wood screw’ style bar-clamp bolts haven’t caused any problems either.
The super-long hoses need to be cut to fit your bike, but we didn’t have to re-bleed them and the mineral oil driven system hasn’t needed rinsing through since either. While value is impressive, the MT5 is only available as a complete bundle with rotors and hardware.
Weight: 463g
Price 187$
