Bicycling

2243 readers

14 users here now

A community for those who enjoy bicycling for any reason— utility, recreation, sport, or whatever!

Post your questions, experiences, knowledge, pictures, news, links, and (civil) rants.

Rules (to be added on an as-needed basis)

Comments and posts should be respectful and productive.
No ads or commercial spam, including linking to your own monetized content.
Linked content should be as unburdened by ads and trackers as possible.

Welcome!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

wolfeh

How does breaking affect brakes? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/bicycling

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I was always wondering this. Imagine a steep descent. What is better for brake wear - braking constantly or more powerful just at the end? Anybody knows? Goes for both rim and disc brakes

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] teft 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The amount of wear will be the same.

You don’t want to drag your brakes though because they will heat up and fade if you’re on a long descent and brake fade is very dangerous on steep descents.

Proper braking technique is brake right before any turns and then let off in the middle of a turn. You can brake a little after the turn also. You basically want your bike to roll as fast as it can and just control it before and after turns.

You’re gonna want to train yourself to go faster though because the technique i describe will have you descending very quickly and most people fear brake in descents because fast descents can be very scary for the untrained.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yea, sure, I was asking for a friend (literally) who would break continuously and slowly descend. Me? Pedal right until the turn :)