Basic bleed kit for SRAM, Avid, Formula
Getting shops to bleed your brakes can be bloody expensive. Some shops charge $70 per end, and when you get the bike back the lever often isn't set up how you like it. And don't even get us started about the wait times for servicing over summer 😅
Solve all of that by bleeding your own brakes. It's pretty easy to pick up and, once you've learned, a full bleed takes about an hour for both ends and costs sod all - just the cost of fluid. You'll also be able to do it when you need to - we've saved a lot of rides by bleeding our brakes at the last minute.
Here's a kit that we've made for bleeding SRAM/Avid brakes. We've selected components that are all DOT fluid compatible and will last well. During our research, we were horrified that some kits didn't use DOT-compatible tubing, including a notable local brand. Non-compatible tubing swells after months and will only do limited bleeds before splitting.
These kits include all you need to bleed all Avid and SRAM brakes. They are also compatible with all older type Formula hydraulic brakes (Oro, C1, R1, R0, K24, K18…). They are not compatible with Formula Cura or any other mineral oil brake.
All kits include:
2x 30mL 3-part syringes with DOT-compatible plungers
1x Torx T10 wrench
The fitting options are:
2x Threaded: For avid/sram brakes older than 2016 model year.
1x Threaded + 1x Bleeding Edge: For brakes 2017 model year or newer
2x Threaded + 1x Bleeding Edge: If you want to be able to bleed any avid/sram brake
Other notes
- You will also need a bleed block to perform the service
- You can also add 250mL of Liqui Moly DOT 5.1 fluid if you need some. The shelf life of this is 12 months from the date of opening. Please ignore the cheeky "expiry" date printed on the bottle by the manufacturer, this seems disingenous to us.
- Our favourite part of these kits is the tubing, which can be clamped without being a bodybuilder - if you've ever used an avid kit you'll know what we are talking about...
- The bleeding edge fitting only works on bleeding edge brakes and does not work for reverb bleeds