SRAM Maven B1

by

SRAM Maven B1

Intended Use: Gravity

Fluid: Mineral Oil

Pistons: 4 x 18 mm

MSRP:

  • Maven Silver: $265 / €290 / £260 per brake
  • Maven Ultimate: $299 / €325 / £290 per brake

Stated Weight:

  • Maven Bronze: 381 g per brake
  • Maven Silver: 379 g per brake
  • Maven Ultimate: 363 g per brake
David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Silver Lever
Review Navigation:  Specs //  Intro //  Design & Features //  Bottom Line (For Now)
Get $0 Deductible, $25k-Per-Injury Insurance Coverage
Get Personalized Gear Recommendations From Us
Stay Up On Our Weekly Gear Giveaways & Latest Content

Intro

The original SRAM Maven brakes were a massive, massive step up from the Code — formerly SRAM’s burliest gravity brake — in terms of outright power and heat management, but a lot of folks found their lever feel to be stiff and wooden, and their power delivery to be very on / off. The new second-generation Maven brakes are meant to keep the excellent power of the originals while offering a lighter lever feel and easier modulation. Here’s what is (and isn’t) new:

Design & Features

The new Mavens look very similar to the originals, and most of their high-level design details haven’t changed a ton. Apart from some slight tweaks to their finishes, the new brakes look nearly identical to the originals, and they use the same pad shape, mineral oil fluid, bleed kits, and so on.

The first, and probably most significant, change is that the new Mavens use a different lever cam that’s meant to make the initial part of the stroke much lighter, while delivering slightly higher leverage for more power deep in the stroke. The original Mavens used a cam with very low initial leverage to move fluid quickly at the start of the stroke and keep the free stroke short, but it also made for a firm lever feel through the free stroke; the new cam is said to nearly cut the initial breakaway force at the lever in half.

David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Ultimate Lever
The leverage curve from the updated cam is a lot smoother than the original, and varies much less through the full stroke. SRAM says that makes the new brakes easier to modulate and that they feel less on/off in their power delivery than the original version.
David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Leverage Curves
The Maven’s lever blades have also been updated to go with the new cams. The top-tier Maven Ultimate now gets a carbon fiber lever blade, while the Maven Silver gets an updated forged aluminum one with some CNC-machined relief to cut a little bit of weight; the OE-only Maven Bronze gets a similar lever blade to the Silver, just without the extra machining. The new lever blades and cams can be retrofitted to the first-generation Maven A1 brakes, and upgrade kits are available to do so. The new gold cams need to be used with the updated lever blades, and the old red cams are only compatible with the original versions. The Maven Silver and Ultimate upgrade kits are cross-compatible (i.e., you can have your choice of the carbon fiber Ultimate or aluminum Silver lever blades on either tier of brake), but the Maven Bronze needs its own dedicated version since it uses a bushing lever pivot instead of the bearing one on the higher-end versions.
David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Silver Lever Upgrade Kit
David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Ultimate Lever Upgrade Kit
SRAM has also tweaked the calipers to go with the new lever blades. The original Maven Bronze, Silver, and Ultimate used two 18 mm pistons and two 19.5 mm ones, but the new calipers step down to four 18 mm pistons, since the new cams provide slightly higher leverage than the old ones. The idea is that the new lever assembly cancels out the slight reduction in power from the smaller caliper, and SRAM claims that the Maven A1 and B1 end up with equal power and similar total lever throw. Running the updated cam and lever blade with the old calipers, therefore, results in a slightly longer free stroke and about 9% more power than the stock brakes.
David Golay reviews the SRAM Maven B1 brakes for Blister
SRAM Maven Ultimate Caliper

As with the original Mavens, the Maven Ultimate gets titanium caliper hardware in place of the stainless steel bolts on the Maven Silver, but the calipers are functionally identical otherwise. The Maven Bronze caliper forgoes the banjo fitting on the higher-end versions for a non-adjustable inline fitting. The Maven Base, which already had four 18 mm caliper pistons and doesn’t use a swinglink cam in the lever, carries over unchanged.

Some Questions / Things We’re Curious About

(1) A lot of folks, myself included, found a lot to like about the original Mavens, but didn’t get along as well with their lever feel. Have the new Mavens really maintained the excellent power of the old ones while making big improvements in feel and modulation?

(2) How do the new lever and cam perform in the first-generation brakes, with their bigger caliper pistons? Is the power bump noticeable? And how does the lever feel shake out?

Bottom Line (For Now)

The updates to the new Mavens sound great on paper, and we’ll have some impressions on them up on the site very soon. Stay tuned to find out how the new brakes stack up and how the lever upgrade kit performs in the original versions.

Leave a Comment