not sure if serious.
I barely used my brakes at all during the race and my mechanical discs work fine. dirt drops would require that I had a ridiculously tall stem on top of the already huge spacer stack that I have on my bike. I have Cowbells now, which have a decent amount of flair to them. I ride this bike on most of the singletrack that I usually reserve for mountain biking, so handling is not the problem. getting bucked off the bike by washboards and sand traps is, in addition to the sheer mileage of the course.