Video: Brake Like a Boss - How To Bike Season 2 Episode 4

Dec 1, 2022
by Pinkbike Originals  

HOW TO BIKE
SEASON 2 EPISODE 4


Ben Cathro is back with another season of How to Bike. This time he is taking the learning process further with hands-on tips and tricks that will help you get better at mountain biking.

Braking is learned by all but only mastered by a few. Join Ben as he explains the principles of braking and drills that will have you slowing quicker so you can go faster.




Huge thanks to the brands who have helped make How To Bike Season 2 happen.

Continental - tires
Shimano - drivetrain, brakes and pedals
Santa Cruz - frames
Reserve Wheels - wheels
Dharco - clothing
Deity - cockpit & saddle
Bluegrass - helmets and protection
Adidas Five Ten - footwear
Swatch - official timing
Cushcore - inserts
Ohlins - suspension
RideWrap - frame protection
Outside - support
Pinkbike Racing





photo
Cam Zink's advanced trail riding progression course.

Outside Learn offers courses and lessons from riders like Cam Zink and Joey Schusler for everything from basic trail skills to advanced jumps and drops. Learn more.


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Member since Feb 15, 2012
1,095 articles

52 Comments
  • 47 0
 I worked for 10 years in the automotive field teaching skid control and collision avoidance. Hundreds of hours on the skid pad. We used the term threshold breaking to describe that sense of modulation. Bringing the wheel to the point of locking (threshold of traction) and then easing back enough to get the wheel rolling again. Learning the sensation difference between the locked wheel and the rolling wheel. Maximum braking is in that pocket and modulation keeps you there. Interesting connection between braking and vision was that if the eyes lock on a target the brakes lock too. If you can unlock your eyes from a stationary point the body tends to unlock the brakes and find the threshold. If the vision stays locked so do the brakes.
Thanks for the great content Ben.
  • 3 0
 Circle of Friction was what clicked for me as well. Your contact patch can only do one thing very well in the X and Y, but when that same contact is asked to do braking and turn in at the same time- the coefficient of friction/grip is diminished.
  • 4 0
 @fahrwerk: I like the saying “ your tires are good at two things, braking and turning, just not at the same time”
  • 26 2
 Step one: throw away your guides
  • 14 1
 Guides will have you going plenty fast, you only stop because you crashed.
  • 1 0
 Critical step.
  • 3 1
 Or Juicys, or Elixirs, or whatever brakes Avid made
  • 2 0
 @Mac1987: Elixirs on my DH rig were pretty good... good at pumping my fingers Big Grin
  • 2 0
 @valrock: they're very good for training purposes. Both for training your finger strength and for training brake maintenance.
  • 3 0
 @Mac1987: true, I become bike mechanic cuz I wanted to understand how to make them work. I had to read 3 books and know I know everything about bikes but still cannot fix those Elixir's
  • 3 11
flag HeatedRotor FL (Dec 3, 2022 at 15:09) (Below Threshold)
 well bled Guides are fine.

but lets keep your theory going,

step 2 buy shimano because off/on feeling giving you a sense of more power

Step 3, realise they are cool for 10 year olds doing a massive skid.

step 4, put proper enduro/dh brakes on with actual modulation.

Step 5, Realise the non shimano brakes actually slow you down way quicker.

Step 6, Think about how much of an idiot you are for listening to fanboys who can only handle simple things and have a lack of bike skill.
  • 1 0
 @HeatedRotor: None of the people I know that prefer to run Shimano believe they are more powerful. You can modulate the on/off bite point with very little finger movement, and yes without locking a wheel. If your interpretation of Shimano brakes was true you wouldn't be able to ride anything steep and technical with them, you can easily lock a wheel and skid with any brake, and from what I've seen of my local trails the past couple years, many people these days are on the lock and slide train.
  • 1 0
 @rpdale: i disagree, the high majority of Shimano users(based on PB and FB comments) believe they are more powerful and they like that "hit" - Ive ran most brake sets and still own the lot and did alot of personal testing, Everytime i ran shimano with big rotors every time you needed "power" they would lock, slight release and you have no power. I've got probably 6 sets of shimano between slx/xt/xtr/saints All have similar traits, Saints have a better feel but still similar.

maybe they just dont suit me at 95kg or something lol. - i've Tried many setups - Tried magura's but couldnt keep them from blowing up at the lever.
  • 1 0
 @HeatedRotor: maybe not in maximum achievable power, but likely in requiring less effort in the finger to achieve good enough braking power. Avid/SRAM require noticeably more power input for the same power output. And those are the brakes most people compare them with, not with unknown but superior brakes like Direttissima, Formula Cura 4 or Hayes Dominion A4.
  • 21 1
 Front brake on the right hand??? I'm calling the cops...
  • 1 1
 The most important brake should be on the dominate hand... just like steering a car.... Being different for the sake of being different isnt cool or practical.
  • 15 0
 "Howling brakes means they are contaminated with oil".

Generally true... but there needs to be a huge asterix saying something like this.

*Unless they're wet, then its totally normal for them to honk/howl for a bit until they evaporate the water off.
  • 1 0
 The most ungodly howl i ever heard from a brake was with pads contaminated with DOT. The screech was ear-shattering and i'm sure it scared the bejeezus out of all wildlife for miles.
  • 2 1
 Step 1: check if anywhere on the brake it says 'Avid'. If so, you've found the cause of the howling or turkey gobble. Solution: sell them and make them someone else's problem.
Step 2: check if anywhere on the brake it says 'Shimano' and you've not used the brakes for a while. If so, you've found the cause. Solution: sand and clean the pads,and bake them in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius. They're ready when they start smelling nice Wink .
Step 3: check whether you or someone else contaminated them by touching them with greasy fingers (some of my friends used to hold the discs with their greasy fingers...), not covering them when oiling the chain, or having road spray hitting them when hanging off the back of the car. Solution: clean the rotor and clean and sand the pads. Educate your friends. Cover the pads and rotor or remove them when oiling the chain or hanging the bike off the back of your car.
Step 4: check and adjust pad and rotor alignment. Sometimes you have to replace the pads when they haven't worn down evenly because of bad alignment.
  • 18 4
 Your brakes are not even at the right place my poor Ben Wink
I worked 4 months in Chamonix renting bikes for Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and such... and everytime I was gentle enough to reverse their brakes before they die. I think I'm kind of a good dude Smile
  • 2 0
 I bought a YT in 2016 and the brakes came the Euro orientation. Until I figured out how to switch them over I had a few near-death experiences.
  • 2 2
 @tom666: Amazing how we as a world still seem to be unable to coordinate simple things like this. It should be very easy to decide the pros and cons and then decide on 1 standard worldwide, just like a brake pedal and throttle in a car are always in the same place. I really don't care which method is decided upon. You get used to it within a couple of months.
  • 3 0
 @Mac1987: It is definitely of benefit to all to create standards and implement them widely. The fact the UK has the steering wheel on the other side of the car to the entire rest of Europe is quite crazy, so is the reversed brakes on a bike and the fact British people know their height in feet and inches but not in centimeters. Most British people can tell you how much we weigh in stone but not in kilos.

In the UK we also buy fuel in litres from the fuel station but we measure the fuel efficiency of our journey in miles per gallon. A gallon is 4.546 litres. If you drove 60 miles, the fuel cost £1.59 per litre and you did 47 miles-per-gallon try doing that maths in your head to work out how much your journey cost lol
  • 4 0
 @tom666: This is true, although I'd say "our" way for brakes makes the most sense to adopt bearing in mind the orientation for brakes on motorbikes. Always struck me it just be weird for riders with RH rear brake on their bikes to go to RH front brake on a motorbike.
  • 5 1
 Right handed. Front brake is dominant brake for controlling speed. So dominant brake should be controlled by dominant hand making it easier and more intuitive to modulate braking. So surely we Brits have got it right on this one very rare occasion? We don't get much right...give us this one!
  • 2 0
 @tom666: thank God for computers doing the calculations for us...
Also, still love you guys for all your weird habits, units of measurements and best humor in the world.
  • 3 0
 @CamRivers: fine by me. Start driving on the right (get it: right) side of the road and start properly using metric units, and we'll swap out brake hoses. Everyone wins!
  • 3 0
 @Mac1987: Very nice of you to say Salute I respect the Dutch for creating a nice lifestyle for their citizens, very sensible politics, Amstel, stroopwaffels, sprinkles and tasty cheese with holes in it.
  • 1 0
 @Mac1987: Driving on the left is the correct way. Scientists have proved that for the majority of humans the natural/instinctive option is to move to the left in a head to head collision. You end up in the ditch and not in the other lane. Trust me on this.
  • 1 0
 @FruitoftheForest: Hum... probably... but quote your sources please.
  • 1 0
 @danstonQ: theory is similar for Dominate hands, most people are right handed so the right hand should be used for the most serious applications, such as front brake, steering wheel etc.
  • 2 0
 @HeatedRotor: there is nothing scientific in what you're saying, and at no moment you mention the brain / its cerebral hemispheres' importance about conscious and unconscious acts.
Statistically and proportionaly, are there for exemple more car accidents in countries where people drive right with a left steerer?
I know Brits in France who rode their brakes english way and who now ride them the other way and they have nothing to say about that, they just got used. Brain elasticity is awesome you know Wink
  • 1 0
 @FruitoftheForest: if this is truly the concensus amongst scientists, both behavioral as well as traffic safety, then also get this over with and start driving on the left everywhere.
  • 12 0
 How do you play skidendo if you don't have any friends? Asking for a friend.
  • 9 0
 should make an app. Skidendonely
  • 7 0
 Ben's Skid Coin doesn't see that far off from reality considering:
"In April 2022, Outside announced plans to launch an NFT marketplace called the Outerverse. According to Schneider, Thurston reportedly paused that program yesterday, claiming it hadn’t gone as planned. Schneider speculated on Twitter that its underperformance “may be one of the reasons Outside fell short of its projections,” although sources at Outside assured him it was not the primary reason for the layoffs."
  • 5 0
 Bleaueeeaaaaaargh!
->Hit Pause
->Wind back video to start
->Get headphones out
->Unmute
->Press play

Three new, unnecessary steps to watch a vid I want to see almost makes me throw something!!
Oh and yes, I did tick the box to disable autoplay in my profile. Sigh.
  • 3 1
 Funny, my first mountainbike couldn't fit a disc brake in the rear so even though I got a hydraulic disc brake in the front soon enough, I stuck with the V-brake in the rear for years. I just started to ignore it and rely on the front brake exclusively. The pads would just grind away by the mud that clogs to the rim braking surface so I couldn't rely on them anyway. I was more over the front than others on the descends indeed as I never felt comfortable leaning back (as it made me lose front tire grip, which is more scary that just the rear wheel getting off the ground every now and then). I got a new frame after five years or so and soon after also got a rear disc brake. It's nice, but I still use the front brake most of the time.
  • 2 0
 Great video as always. Getting off the brakes where traction is the worst was one of the least intuitive things for me... but once I beat my lizard brain into partial submission, I started keeping up with people that were previously faster than me, and I stopped going down as much.
  • 5 0
 Get xt brakes and push them last second that's it to go fast boys
  • 2 0
 @ben-cathro what app are you using to get the side by side video on your phone?
  • 1 0
 I would be interested to know why Ben is using the Krypto in front in loose sloppy conditions in the video instead of the Argo?
  • 2 0
 Another good one from Cathro
  • 2 0
 Gotta keep this under wraps for Friday Fails!
  • 1 0
 Skidendo on a hill challenge could increase the pool of Friday fails to enjoy.
  • 3 1
 Best videos on the internet. Including the NSFW ones.
  • 3 0
 Bosses don’t brake
  • 1 0
 What about an episode about fitness, warmups, eating right maybe?
  • 1 0
 AH !!!!
  • 1 0
 Big Grin aka correct way hah!
  • 1 0
 thanks ben!
  • 1 0
 Ben is a Saint.







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