to answer your original question BRAKES DO NOT WORK WELL GOING DOWNHILL! some will argue, some will say buy better brakes or that certain levers work better and there may be some truth to that but look at the size of brake pads and look at how big you are. it's not going to work well. I love hauling ass downhills but sometimes you gotta be smart. I was in some hilly terrain yesterday and the road quality was poor so while I could have done 30+mph down some of these hills i made it a point to only let myself go around 23-25mph. Bottom line, the combo of downhill speed and our weight makes braking downhill interesting to say the least.