Purple Hayes Dominion A4 Brake

Ticks every box with ease!
Perfect modulation, lots of power in every situation. Ease of installation and set up. One of the nicest lever feels and bite point feeling. Updated all my bikes with them after getting the first one. Completely trouble free over a complete bikepark season with over 70 days riding, just a bleed here and there.

Hands down the best brake within its price class! with a lot of little, but damn effective, innovations!
The only thing i miss a little bit, coming from Hope and Shimano brakes, is a bleed fitting on the saddle. Would be great if there would be an aftermarket or retrofit option for those...

As a mechanical engineer I fell in love with the design of these brakes. The thought porting inside the brakes ensures an even piston actuation, the micro adjustment on the caliper is the icing on the cake, makes brake alignment a sure thing. I love to ride steep descents and I am a big guy, about 240lbs geared when all geared up. I never worry about stopping power. I run the sintered pads so they never have any fade. The thicker rotors don’t warp and I put a lot of heat into them. I have them on both of my bikes, a Yeti SB130 and a Trek Fuel EX.
The brakes also look great. I am running the bronze on the Yeti and the purples ones on the Trek. The purple looks even better on the bike than they do one the web.

These brakes feel amazing! I liked them so much, I had to get another set for my wife! The purple looks beautiful on our bikes!

I have lusted after the Grand Daddy Purple Hayes for many, many years now, so when I got a chance to buy some, I jumped.

Right out of the box, these purple nuggs looked amazing. The finish is just stunning. The other thing that really stood out was the size of the pads. Damn. I got them mounted and bled, which was super straight forward. My Sram Pro bleed kit worked just fine. No leaks, no muss, no fuss, no excessive fluid spillage. I give the edge to Sram's bleeding edge tech, but seriously not by much, and the dual port and crosshair more than make up for that. Speaking of the crosshair adjusters, where have you been my whole life!! Probably the best feature I never knew I needed, and really I don't need them, but I don't see myself giving them up anytime soon. So useful, so convenient.

I haven't done much more that a little burn in ride, but I like the light action on the lever and the power is for reals. I for sure added a couple LSC clicks, and I might have to drop a rotor size in the back, but I'm sure after a couple basic rides, my fingers will adjust.

The only thing that could be done to the Dominions to make them better, was to make them purple! Hayes did and as soon as I heard, got myself a set!

Having been a Hayes fan in the past, when I restarted mountainbiking in the last couple of years, I wasn’t getting on with 2 of the big names brakes, so I started looking elsewhere and was excited to hear great things about the Dominions. I can only echo what you may have read elsewhere;
Powerful
Fantastic control (light action, easy to modulate)

And then the things you may not have heard celebrated enough;
Set up - the cross hair adjustment really makes installation easy
Bleeding - don’t know why, but I’ve had great success bleeding these where other brakes have been a little more challenging.

Enjoyed them so much that we now have all 4 of our MTBs equipped with Hayes Dominion A4s (1 purple set and 3 bronze). My wife really likes the power with the light action in particular.