Interesting on the Zee being that weak compared to the Hopes. I always read that the Zee's were the poor mans Saints with less bling and weigh more, but were just as strong.
Gemini, are you running the same size rotors on both bikes and do you know what compound the pads are?
Anyone who says Zee's are adequate for legitimate DH is riding really flat trails. Mine have a great bleed on them. Stock pads. Just horribly inadequate. I've heard this from multiple people who ride real DH with them. They just have really small brake fluid volume in the caliper which causes them to heat up badly. I've never had to use 2 finger braking on modern brakes until the Zee's.
Hopes are another world (even avid codes are better!). I just did a long descent (6k feet, but not that not steep) on some 2014 XT brakes on my new XC bike with the fancy ice tech rotors today. Same story. I can't comment on latest gen Saints. I haven't tried them. Although my buddy who is a bit lighter was running the saints on his XC bike today, he seemed okay with them. I'd still go with something besides shimano though. They've really sacrificed performance for weight with the latest generation. It's very disappointing. Everyone I know running XTs, Zees, SLX has the same conclusion.
I was able to do Garbonzo runs (~3k feet of vert) down the steepest whistler trails on my hopes with no fade and no loss of power. But 30 seconds into a steep descent the Zee's become quite sketchy (identical rotors).
