Originally Posted by
RFEngineer
I moved to Colorado this year and rode my steepest descent today. ~10% down a windy road. Having not ridden this before, I was pretty nervous going down, so I bled off quite a bit of speed (averaged about 35 mph on the way down with heavy braking). I was worried about heating my rim and blowing off my tire. Has that ever happened to anyone?
I know Disc brakes can fade due to rotor heating. Does anyone have feelings about which potential failure is more likely, rim brake heating causing tire failure or disc brake heating causing loss of braking?
Thanks!
Alan
Best thing you can do is restrict your braking to just before corners and then brake at close to 100%. This will allow you to use aero drag to absorb most of the energy as you descend. You'll end up going faster on the straight stretches but your brakes/rims/discs will stay cooler.
If you're not too heavy and don't mind a bit of speed you shouldn't have any problems with normal rim brakes.