New Maxima Brake From Trickstuff Claims World's Most Powerful

“Power is nothing without control” is the maxim that drives design at Trickstuff components.

The German component manufacturer is writing the rules for extremely strong and lightweight mountain bike brakes. Their previous 4-piston offering, aptly named the Direttissima (Italian for “most direct”), proved strongest in torque assessment tests against all other leading 4-piston brake manufacturers. With their latest release, they have somehow created an even more powerful version.

While chatting with one of the company’s engineers at Eurobike I was asked, “do you know what the strongest cycling brake in the world was? It was our Direttisssima. Now it will be our Maxima.”

The new Maxima brake uses a pair of 17mm pistons to push the pads, where its predecessor pushed both a set of 16mm and a set of 17mm pistons per caliper. Several other proprietary elements of the brake have been changed to make it stronger while maintaining the company’s legendary controlled modulation, but those details have yet to be released.

Unlike the rainbow of options for other models, the first run of Maxima will only be offered in an extra durable black finish, and quantities will be low. The claimed weight for the Maxima is set at 290g (not including rotor), with a Goodridge Steelflex hose. Maxima levers use a four-way ball bearing system and low friction master cylinder, said to increase modulation. With hand-polished piston barrels and electropolished lever pistons to improve overall precision, these are boutique-worthy brakes. Those tight tolerances and hand-dialed functionality come at a price. The Direttissima retail for €395 per side (includes rotor and hardware) and the Maxima will likely be priced similarly.

Trickstuff reports the new Maxima 4-piston brakes provide more torque than the competition by the following percentages:

23% stronger than SRAM Code
27% stronger than Magura MT7
35% stronger than Shimano Saint/Zee
46% stronger than Hope V4

As a small German manufacturer, outperforming companies with massive R&D budgets is über impressive, and they take it a step further by designing their goods to be compatible with the competition’s components. Though Trickstuff brakes run on fancy Formula1 DOT5.1 fluid, they can swap the seals to make their calipers or levers work with your mineral oil or average-grade DOT fluid component needs. If you wish to try one of their multi-colored levers with your current caliper, or their superpowered calipers with your levers, they can make that happen for you. They also make a cable-to-hydro converter, called the Doppelmoppel, for folks who have cable-actuated levers and want hydraulic calipers.