[thomas_r]

Dear road.cc community,

I recently bought a Simplon Pride 1 roadbike with a Shimano Dura-Ace 11-speed Di2 groupset with disc brakes.

At first, after I moved the right STI-9170 Dura-Ace 11-speed brake lever slightly higher, I suddenly had a spongy bite point, meaning play at the brake lever and reduced braking power on the rear brake.
On the left brake lever, by the way, moving it higher did not cause any problems; the brake pressure and braking power remain fully present.

After buying the Shimano bleeding kit and the correct oil for refilling, reading the Shimano dealer manual (DM-R9150-09, page 103 ff.), and watching several YouTube videos, including “GCN – Bleeding Shimano Disc Brakes” and “Tour – Bleeding Road Bike Disc Brakes”, I unfortunately had no success bleeding the brake yesterday, 13/07/2026. I now have zero braking power, meaning the lever cannot brake the rear wheel at all. So I would like to ask you for advice.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. First, I tried bleeding only from the top at the lever:

I clamped the road bike into a repair stand and removed both wheels.

I removed the handlebar tape, loosened the brake lever, and positioned it horizontally. In my case, that meant rotating it downwards so that the bleed screw on the STI lever was horizontal to the floor.

I screwed the funnel with the adapter into the brake lever and filled it with fresh oil.

I dismounted the rear brake caliper from the bike frame, removed the brake pads, inserted the yellow spacer (Shimano bleed block), and moved the caliper down at the lowest point.

I actuated the brake lever several times and let it snap back. A wonderfully firm pressure built up, and at that point everything seemed fine.

Then I removed all the bleeding tools and reassembled the components.

As soon as the brake lever was back in its old position, meaning higher than horizontal, there was again a lot of play at the lever, and the braking effect was even slightly worse than before.

2. Then I tried filling from below at the caliper upwards to the lever:

Everything was set up as before, but this time I connected the oil syringe from below to the bleed nipple on the caliper and screwed the empty funnel onto the brake lever at the top. The funnel was in vertical position.

Now the crucial point: no matter whether I opened the bleed nipple (with the filled syringe attached) using a 7 mm ring spanner by 1/8 turn, 1/4 turn, or even much more, I could not push any oil into the line in order to fill the oil funnel from bottom to top via the oil system.

It seemed to me as if there was some kind of blockage in the system, for example a kinked brake hose, the bleed nipple not opening, or as if there were some kind of shut-off valve before the funnel or inside the brake lever.

In summary: if you could please explain why I was unable to refill oil from below, I would probably be a big step closer to solving the problem.

Many thanks for your advice.

Best regards,
Thomas

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