I’ve collected data on hundreds of riders to this point. Tons of beginners, heaps of amateurs, YouTube ex-pro trials riders, and EWS racer/Singlespeed World Champ. The data and lessons have been mind boggling and have shaped the BrakeAce app.
I recently joined up with my friend, World Cup Downhiller Bryn Dickerson to help analyze his braking with BrakeAce. We have been talking about doing this since the very first prototype, but between his racing schedule and my schedule we just didn’t make it happen–until now!
Stunning day in winter to do some testing. But don’t let that sun fool you–the trails were SLICK
Bryn is FAST. I found this out firsthand when I moved to NZ and started riding with the Wellington fast guys. He’d be gone in 2 turns. A friend took a photo of the group of us riding once at a spot you could see several hundred meters of trail–Bryn was a full 4 or 5 turns ahead of all of us. And we were going fast, too!
Bryn fully believes in BrakeAce and that it will help him ride faster and coach better, so it was great to finally see his habits. We were both surprised!
We changed the tires to 2.6 Nobby Nics, and some better pedals, but otherwise this was the bike!
We did 6 total runs and he used my Trance Test Rig. I have recorded video of his final 2 runs on a trail called Chewbacca at my local hill. It was awesome to see how a world cupper brakes and especially how they learn a trail and change accordingly. You can see his lines change and his braking change on this absolutely slickest clay you can imagine (I know, it doesn’t look slippery in his videos!). Scroll to the bottom to see his 3rd and 4th runs (analysis on BrakeAce app coming!), but here are a few takeaways that we discussed:
Bryn is heavy on the rear most of the time due to the wet clay, but is able to get a massive amount of grip with the front wheel and stab the front brake when he really wants to slow down
His braking and his lines change from run 3 to 4 as he learns the trail. He said this 4th run was nearly his full potential.
Bryn brakes harder as get gets closer to the apex, but is then completely off the brakes until the next turn. I am the opposite and brake pretty evenly to an apex. You can even see a few times Bryn grabs front brake pretty much in the apex.
What do you think? Pretty fast, huh?! And this is on a BORROWED bike.
You can already guess what we’ve set up for next time: testing on his DH rig. It’s going to be awesome!!
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