VERSUS
People are getting themselves into pretty heavy situations on today’s modern trail and all-mountain bikes, which are now every bit as capable as 8-inch-travel downhill rigs were just a decade ago. Whether we’re riding the newest crop of steep-and-deep trails, or squeezing more speed out of rides we’ve done a thousand times, these new whips are giving us the confidence to push limits and go faster than ever before. It makes sense, then, that throwing a set of full-fledged downhill brakes on our trail bikes no longer feels outlandish.
It doesn’t hurt that both SRAM and Shimano’s downhill brakes are slimmer than ever before. Saints and Codes used to be big, beefy things that looked out of place on anything but a
