Downhill Mountain Biking Brakes

Video Transcript

MICKEY DENONCOURT: Besides making sure that you have the angle of your brake levers and the position of your brake lever's setup well to suit your hands, other things that you want to make sure when you're doing downhill riding is that ideally, you're running larger disc brake rotors. On this bike, I have six inch rotors front and rear which is the standard size for just normal C riding only because I don't ride very many long hills with this bike and I use it for other things besides just pure downhill. So a larger brake like an eight inch rotors versus a six inch rotors here gives you 20 percent more stopping power, that immediate stopping power which helps when you're going faster to slow you down and also because it's larger, it dissipates heat better. Things to remember when you're using your brakes is that these disc brakes which I really recommend disc brakes to ride downhill are extremely powerful. Slight digital pressure on the brake lever is enough to completely lock up the wheel. So you don't need to use your brakes nearly as much as you may think and both brakes are important parts of slowing you down. The front brake is really where most of your stopping power is like 70%. Back brake for downhill's almost more for steering than it is for slowing you down, so you want to apply them both pretty gradually. But you make sure that just when you're on the handlebars, your hand's just real natural, smooth angle on your wrist to reach the levers. It's comfortable to get them with one finger and that's really all you need to know about brakes.

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