Some people try really hard at not understanding. Maybe next time you are travelling 55 mph down a steep, steep road, try not stopping for the stoplight or car at the bottom. Using brakes to stop is where the brake usage applies to this thread and the need to sink the heat load applies to the rotor.
I didn't say mountain biking was/wasn't more demanding, only the duty cycle was different. It may be a crazy idea to you, but all the time the brakes are not activly being used is when the heat is dissapated.
Good Lord, it is clear some people here have no experience riding road bikes, touring bikes, tandem bikes, down mountains or exceedingly steep hills at high speed in the city.
How is getting "X" mass stopped, from "X" speed, on "X%" grade controversial? Road bikes have higher speed, more
sustained load, where brake fade from a high speed descent is more than likely than not to leave you sailing through a busy intersection. As has happened enough times I felt the need to upgrade. As cool as mountain bikes are, all the trail riding I've ever done has never resulted in no brakes & gun metal blue rotors that get warped AF like they did on my road bike. Maybe
your mountain bike rotors get blue. Maybe
your mountain bike pads start to smoke & get smelly & you think they work just fine. Good for you. If that is the case, you're more hardcore single track rider than I ever was. I always took brake fade, blue rotors & smelly pads & warped parts that to mean that my equipment was inadequete on what ever bike I was on. Funny. The road bike when it had 160mm light weight open design rotors is the one that needed the upgrade to 180mm IceTech due do conststant failure & inadequete design. Yet, the same size but open design rotor on the mountain bike doesn't have the same blue tinge the road bike with the IceTech is currently getting.
Jeez! How many others here have pushed these things to failure? I have. It sucks. Heating cycle/cooling duration is the difference.
Originally Posted by
Kapusta
Good lord, it is clear some people here have no experience riding mountain bikes in the mountains,
It is blaringly obvious to anyone who has spent time riding both that mountain biking is far more demanding on brakes both in terms of frequency AND duration.
And not just DH racing. Plenty of trail riding situations are like this as well.
BTW, the reason you are going 55 mph down a 14% grade on your road bike is becuase you are not ising your brakes. You would use a heck of a lot more sustanined braking if you were trying to keep your speed down to 15 on the same hill. And while 14% is considered a very steep road, it is only moderately steep for many trails.