On a long smooth descent, do brakes really heat less with intermittent hard braking compared to dragging? It is my impression (both from experience and from online opinions) that braking on a mountain bike is to be done in intermittent hard engagement of one or both brakes. The reasoning being that braking during bad traction (cornering, wet stones/roots, sand etc.) is detrimental to traction thus handling. I have several questions regarding said practice: * Is this advice true for long paved descents? Where the danger of overheating of say a loaded touring bike is significant? * If yes, how is that possible given that brakes convert potential energy into thermal? And the former depends only on elevation and mass. I tried writing the equations for a concentrated mass descending a ramp ... but fluid dynamics, applied to bicycles, is not something I can handle. If anything, an intuitive conclusion was that dragging the brakes slows the descent enough to radiate more heat.

In a world without atmosphere you would be correct.

However in the real world short and hard braking has several advantages:

* You spend more time at high speed before you brake, so you lose more energy to aerodynamic drag which increases with velocity cubed. (the power increases with velocity cubed, the force with velocity squared)
* The surface of the brake pads can be cooled by air while not in contact with the disc or rim.
* You can relax your hands between brake maneuvers.



Of course your first and foremost priority should be to ride at a safe and manageable speed. If you crash because you brake too late or too little it’s not better than crashing because of overheated brakes. With overheated brakes you at least have good chances that one of the two brakes still works well enough to come to a safe stop.