I just thought I would give a quick shout-out to Brennig Hughes who put together one of the best Freeride videos I have seen recently (props also go to Travis “Headcam” Birdsall).
I might be slightly biased seeing as I was riding with them at the time and it’s the proposed run for the 2012 England leg of the ATBA Downhill Competition....but screw it, we need all the good vid's we can get!
Whinlatter Downhill from Brennig Hughes on Vimeo.
Respec!
Unfortunately “technical difficulties” meant that I didn’t manage to finish Honister and Wrynose pass. As you know from my past few posts, I was testing out some Heatsink brake pads on my ABS – trying and get a bit more braking power out of an already great piece of kit. Initial tests on sections of local fire-track went well and they were definitely grippier than the standard Magura pads that the ABS comes with.
The thing is, my local fire-tracks aren’t 25% gradient tarmaced roads….
I had the first problem on our second pass – Honister. Literally 100 yards from the top; at the first 20-25% gradient section, I started braking and noticed that after about 2 seconds, the brake lever offered no resistance at all. I looked down to see the left brake pad riding up the disk and onto the tyre wall, with shards of brake pad flying off in all directions. I swear some of the rubber shards were on fire as well…. I managed to stop and when I got back to the car the pad looked like this:
Not to be deterred, I swapped out the damaged pad for an old Magura one and we went over to Wrynose pass.
At Wrynose, pretty much the same happened at the first big gradient – after a second or two of braking, the brakes started screaming and when I looked down, the pad was actually deforming and there was smoke coming out of my hub.
After stopping, I managed to have a look at the damage and what I think happened is that the pads were actually beginning to melt and were no longer rigid. The pad was then “squidging” up the brake disk and being carved up by the edges of the disk.
Luckily I had another spare Magura pad and managed to fit it with no problems – but by this point I wasn’t overly confident about taking on Hardknott (in the dark), so sat that one out.
I managed to ride Kirkstone, but the torch I was using (we were riding it in the dark) cut out on a straight. After I had stopped and changed my pants I was able to get the light working and finish the run.
Have you ever had a day where things just don’t seem to go right?
On a brighter note, the next day we checked out the proposed track for the England 2012 Downhill comp and it was sweet!
When I got home I compared the Magura pads with the Heatsinks and the Magura’s were in still in great condition. What I am taking from this is that Heatsink pads designed for Trials riding might not be the way to go – yes, they are super grippy, but apparently not that durable under downhill conditions. I think I’ll be looking into the pads Magura has to offer next.
If you do have some Heatsink pads – I would advise that you get them as fully on the brake disk as possible to minimise the chances of them slipping and I would also be wary about using them under heavy braking conditions….
…Not my brakes…
In my last post I talked about getting a new set of Heatsink brake pads for my ABS brake.
Well I managed to get out to the Test Track on Saturday morning to give them a try-out and they seemed to work fine. Admittedly, it’s not as steep or fast as the descents in the Lakes, which made it hard to compare the braking power against the old stock pads.
What I can say is:
Quiet...I know! Who’d have thought it? Admittedly they were a bit squeaky on the first couple of runs, but then they seemed to bed in and were silent. I shot this video to show how quiet:
Note – it wasn’t running particularly fast and I was purposefully braking before every right turn to demonstrate the noise…so I never really got up to a decent speed which is why it looks so slow.
So – all in all they seem good, but I guess this weekend’s trip to the Lakes will show how effective they really are.
Until the day I win the lottery/persuade the missus to let me buy a NoSno Pro Downhill with Hope disk-brakes (*drool*), I will have to make do with my (admittedly rather splendid and quite effective) ABS brake.
I’ve had very few problems whilst using the ABS (I had the mountings slip a little during some extended and particularly vicious braking and lack of power on Skiddaw…which was stupidly steep) and on the whole I think they are absolutely awesome! But then…nothing ever got worse by making it that extra bit awesomer…did it?
In advance of the Five Passes Mountainboard Challenge next week, I thought I would beef up the ABS a bit more, just in case the passes are a bit too steep/quick. Goofymark over on the Surfing Dirt forum first had the idea of looking into custom brake pads for the ABS so I decided to follow in his footsteps.
Heatsink Bikes produce custom Trial Biking braking solutions – specialising in Magura compatible parts. Word in the biking community is that they are pretty good. Since Goofymark first tried out the pads, Heatsink have come up with a few different pad compounds so I dropped owner Steve an email and he gave me some advice on what pads to try first.
Excellent first impression – Steve emailed back with some suggestions on pads and modifications to the brake disks. The pads arrived quickly and turned up with some Haribo! Winning!
I went for Heatsinks Yellow Magura pads (£18 inc. P&P). Fitting them was a piece of cake – wheels off, pop out the old pads, stick in the new ones and put the wheels back on! The pads are slightly longer and thicker than Magura pads, so the brake then needs to be re-aligned.
The easiest way I have found is by putting a 1p piece (or something of similar thickness) between the pad and the wheel and then tightening the mountings up. Knock out the 1p and the pads are a perfect 1mm away from the wheels.
As I said – the pads are slight longer than the standard Maguras and I found that I had a tiny part of the top corners hanging over the edge of the brake disks – but that shouldn’t matter. Rinse and repeat for the other brake.
I took my rig for a very quick test by rolling down my street and the Heatsink pads are definitely more effective than the standard Magura’s and that was in the wet (although they aren’t NoSno brake level yet..). They were also bloody noisy! Hope that stops soon….
I’ll be testing it out properly at the Test Track this weekend, so will post an update on how they do.
