The Lewis LHT Ultimate hydraulic disc brakes bear more than a passing resemblance to the eye-catching and exotic Trickstuff Direttissima.
However, at £500 / $509 / €550, the LHT Ultimates cost less than half as much, with Lewis aiming to offer similar performance to the Italian brand.
Lewis brakes may not yet be a household name amongst mountain bikers, but the brand is rapidly making a name for itself, going up against industry leaders such as Shimano and Hope.
Chinese manufacturer Lewis makes CNC-machined hydraulic brakes for mountain bikes, road bikes, gravel bikes and even electric motorbikes.
The LHT Ultimate brakes are the brand's premium stoppers for downhill, enduro and all-mountain riding.
Lewis LHT Ultimate details
The LHT Ultimates have titanium bolts and pistons, with the latter insulated using ceramic material inside.
All this titanium reduces the weight to 285g for a rear brake and 270g for a front (including pads). Lewis claims this is 39g a pair lighter than the standard LHTs.
They have reach adjustment and bite-point adjustment, which you may expect, because these features are found on many of the best MTB disc brakes.
Upon opening the box, the CNC machining, and black and gold colour scheme, are instantly arresting.
Fitting is straightforward, although the olive and barb assembly isn’t the most quality-feeling kit and seems to splay apart during the process. No leaks have happened yet, though, so this doesn’t appear to be an issue.
Bleeding the brakes was a challenge. It seemed difficult to get all the air out due to the location of the bleed port.
I had some great support from Lewis’ team of experts in the UK, who gave me some tips.
Removing the levers and bleeding at different angles seemed to do the trick and get them performing OK.
The toolless lever-throw adjuster is easy to use and intuitive, but the bite-point adjustment is more difficult, needing a small Allen key to make changes.
Annoyingly, the Allen key doesn’t fit well because it has to be put into the end of the master cylinder rod at an acute angle. A ball-ended Allen key makes this easier.
The lever-progression adjuster is really inventive. This is a cammed bolt that effectively changes the rate at which the lever pull ramps up through the lever’s travel.
Lewis LHT Ultimate performance
The long lever blades provide a straight arc, which felt natural under my fingers. The lever profile is similar to Hope's but a little more rounded, which was welcome, and they felt comfortable to use.
The sealed cartridge bearings (as opposed to nylon bushes) in the lever-blade pivots feel reassuringly flex-free.
The bedding-in process was over quickly, with the discs and pads developing a good bite within a few hundred metres.
Once you're rolling, stopping power is instant and impressive. If you have a creaking crown steerer unit (CSU), this is the way to find out. Especially with the large, thick 200mm rotors, these are substantial-feeling brakes.
The levers feel more as if they're position-sensitive rather than responding to how hard you’re squeezing on them.
If you’re looking for an upgrade to reduce the amount of brake pressure you input, and with thoughts of reducing arm pump, these brakes could be a suitable purchase.
They’re not quite perfect, though.
Out of the car park and onto the trail, and the modulation on offer is great. The yielding lever feel in the workshop translates to acres of informative feedback on the trail.
It’s possible to modulate the braking power to the wheel with pinpoint accuracy, adding and subtracting stopping force easily by changing the pressure of your finger by a small amount.
I put in the standard pads Lewis provided and never suffered any issues – no pad fade or burning smells on long descents, and no disconcerting loss of performance when the brakes got wet and muddy.
I did struggle with a wandering bite point, though, something Shimano has also been seeking to combat.
It manifested as an inconsistent amount of lever throw: when using the brakes after a period of riding, the lever throw would be fairly long, even with the adjusters wound to the max.
However, when riding a braking-heavy piece of trail, requiring multiple repeated braking efforts, the throw of the levers (front and rear) would decrease rapidly, becoming shorter and shorter, and further from the handlebar.
This was disconcerting because it required me to think about braking earlier, just in case the throw was longer than I was expecting. It's not confidence-inspiring stuff.
I spent a bit of time playing with the progression adjuster, which was really interesting because it’s a piece of tech not seen on most brake levers.
It works as advertised and enables the stroke of the lever to be adjusted between more linear and more progressive.
It perceptibly changes the feel of the lever and allows for customisation of the lever from a more solid feeling, as on a Hope Tech 3 lever, or a more yielding feel – as you get from Shimano’s Servo Wave levers. It's clever stuff.
Lewis LHT Ultimate bottom line
These brakes look great, offering a chunky feel with bags of power.
They are fiddly to work on compared to the market leaders and the wandering bite point could be off-putting.
Lewis told me the bleeding issues have been rectified on later versions and it's keen to explore the wandering bite-point issues, which may have been specific to my test set.
However, at this price point, the LHT Ultimates are up against some of the biggest brands in the brake business. You’re going to have to be committed to standing out from the crowd to forgo more mainstream options.
Product
| Brand | Lewis |
| Price | €550.00, £500.00, $509.00 |
| Weight | 555g |
Features
| Brake type | hydraulic_disc |
| Features | Weight: Front - 270g (inc pads) / Rear - 285g (inc pads) Features: four-piston callipers, titanium pistons with ceramic insulators, titanium hardware Adjustment: Reach adjustment, bite-point adjustment, tool-free lever adjustment |
| Rotor sizes | 200mm |
