KIT ESSENTIALS
4-POT BRAKES
Benji and the team test out brakes to stop you in your tracks.
WORDS BENJI & THE TEAM
Brakes are the most important thing on your mountain bike. Yes, even more so than tyres. Well, I think so anyway. Truth be told, they’re probably equally important, but for the purposes of this guide let’s really big-up braking benefits.
Why should you go for 4-pot brakes? I’d ‘answer’ that by flipping the question on its head. Why wouldn’t you go for 4-pot brakes? The only supposed negative to 4-pot brakes is that they weigh more. Which is hardly a negative at all in my book. Performance trumps all. And the thing that you will find when using powerful brakes is that you very quickly recoup that handful of extra grams by sheer virtue of using less of your body’s energy.
Once you ride with really strong brakes for a bit and then go back to a mediocre set, you instantly realise just how much energy you expend in both the physical act of braking and the attendant all-over body tensing that goes with weedy brakes. With powerful brakes, you use them less, your whole body detensions (forearms most immediately, but the knock-on effect reaches every part of you). You relax. You breathe better. Your bike rides better. You ride better. You get better at riding. You have more fun. It’s a totally virtuous circle.
To chuck that out of the window to save 75g (if that)? Bananas.
There is no such thing as a brake that is too powerful, so long as it has control. But, without wishing to cloud the waters any further, there is an argument that once brakes meet a certain level of power, it is control/feel/modulation that is the real quality best worth chasing.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMANDA
What to look for in a 4-pot disc brake?
Don’t avoid big rotors. It’s tempting to think something along the lines of ‘well, with 4-pot caliper brakes I can probably get away with a 180/160 rotor combo’. Nope. No you can’t. Big rotors are great. Ignore any naysayers who complain that they are OTT or too grabby. They aren’t. Not if you readjust your fingers. Stop operating 4-pot brakes with 203mm rotors as if they are 2-pot brakes with 180mm rotors. The beauty of big pots and big discs is the lightness of touch they require. And yeah, maybe even go 203/203 to help even up the feel. The whole bigger rotor on the front theory is just that. A theory. And I don’t really hold with it, personally.
Don’t skimp on pads. You know how you hear people say that they’d rather ride a cheap bike with expensive tyres than vice versa? It’s the same for disc brakes. Put a ropey set of eBay pads in a megabucks disc brake and it will be rubbish. Invest in decent pads. Or don’t bother getting good brakes at all. Budget pads in budget brakes I can kinda agree with. Rolls Royce brakes with Reliant Robin pads? Waste of time.