I have a bike with XT on and my new bike which has Avid Elixir CR SL. I do all my own bike maintenance. My experience is: 1. Avid breaking performance is better but not materially 2. Avid are much much easier to adjust, both at the lever level and the calipers 3. The Avid’s floating calipers make adjusting away rotor drag a 1 min job. One can spend 30min getting this right on the XT units 4. Avid’s pad contact adjuster is the best! 5. Avid organic pads seem to wear much quicker than the XT resin pads. Avid’s metal pads are crap 6. XT is an absolute breeze to bleed – you don’t even need a bleeding kit. Avid is a nightmare (this may be why bike shops give back bikes with half serviced Avid breaks) 7. XT tends to leak fluid if the bike is inverted or lays on its side for a while. Avid doesn’t. 8. I have found the XT pistons stick more often than the Avid. This is something that needs to be cleaned regularly which most bike shops don’t bother with.
