What Brakes does Kevin Evans Use?

[splat]

From Brandon Stewart's Twitter:

Dear Sram please can you do something about your XX brakes..... Would be nice!!! about 18 hours ago via ÜberSocial

 

Kevin agrees:

Sincerely, collarbone. RT @bsbrandon5: Dear Sram please can you do something about your XX brakes..... Would be nice!!! about 13 hours ago via ÜberSocial

[gummibear]

From Brandon Stewart's Twitter:

Dear Sram please can you do something about your XX brakes..... Would be nice!!! about 18 hours ago via ÜberSocial

 

Kevin agrees:

Sincerely, collarbone. RT @bsbrandon5: Dear Sram please can you do something about your XX brakes..... Would be nice!!! about 13 hours ago via ÜberSocial

 

I saw that this morning and i was wondering if they have had more troubles with XX brakes.

[SwissVan]

So following this thread with some interest...

It appears as if KE was using SRAM XX brakes and had an aluminum disk.

 

1. Do Avid/ SRAM make an aluminum disk?

 

2. WTHell was he thinking IF he had alu disks. for evans sakes his old ballie designed the course surely he would have said "Son dont use alu disks on that stage".

 

BTW for those wondering about the new XTR disks, i used and rode all the downhills (that we were allowed to) using XTR 2011 brakes wif stainlees / Alu combo disks and they performed flawlessly.

[banna]

My suggestion would be to simply put a more robust brake system on your bike for the Epic. The terrain in the Epic these days is really challenging and you're taking a big fat chance using these feather weight parts. Just put something like XT brakes on, and you will go for 700km's without a squeel.

[covie]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

[mike xtreme]

not the right brake pad rotor combination i whould say or rotor size

[Caerus]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

 

or he just wiped out or the mechanics just got things wrong, same like F1.

Edited April 19, 2011 by Caerus

[Bos]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

 

I wish this was entirely true.. Im the biggest KE fan of them all. I boaght my first bike from His dads shop back in Knysna. But this is what he said...

 

"To clear up any confusion around the crash, here it is from me:

It was simply a problem with the disc pads that we changed the night before the stage. On the steep descends, the aluminium rotors were overheating and causing the brakes to ‘fade’ and loose power. On the steepest descend on the stage, 25km into the race, I had too much speed to slow down and knew I was heading for a crash. All things considering, I think I was fairly lucky, as I crashed in a very hectic corner. Helmet completely smashed and I could have been so much worse!

 

The part in bold has me scratching my head.. Unless the pads were the same as what he had been running, and they had some defect. Beause I to would wonder about changing to complete new untested pads the night B4

[Shebeen]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

YES, and NO.

 

For a start these guys are paid by the manufacturers of the products they ride. They tread a fine path between being honest about failures and losing revenue. While I do think it is wrong of us to second guess what happened here without knowing too much, we know enough to speculate without going too wildly off the path.

 

Did anyone notice how punctures didn't seem to be much of a problem this year compared to past events? Did tyres all of a sudden improve over the past year? We know for sure that Burry's bike was about 1kg heavier than normal, that's all for reliability and look where he ended up. Sometimes it isn't just plain bad luck, Kevin had plenty of 'bad luck' with Alban Lakata last year.

[Bos]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

 

I wish this was entirely true.. Im the biggest KE fan of them all. I boaght my first bike from His dads shop back in Knysna. But this is what he said...

 

"To clear up any confusion around the crash, here it is from me:

It was simply a problem with the disc pads that we changed the night before the stage. On the steep descends, the aluminium rotors were overheating and causing the brakes to ‘fade’ and loose power. On the steepest descend on the stage, 25km into the race, I had too much speed to slow down and knew I was heading for a crash. All things considering, I think I was fairly lucky, as I crashed in a very hectic corner. Helmet completely smashed and I could have been so much worse!

 

The part in bold has me scratching my head.. Unless the pads were the same as what he had been running, and they had some defect. Beause I to would wonder about changing to complete new untested pads the night B4

[covie]

Steve i can agree with some of what you said, but keep in my no manufacturer will let him go out with a faulty / poorly designed peace of equipment as that will make more negative publicty than good publicity.

 

If you can beleive all the sources from the hub it simply looks like he had a pair of dodgy pads. (or a dodgy bike mech) , it happens. He has probably gone through 50 pairs of the same pads, this one just happened to go bust.

 

If he had any concerns about the setup he would simply have spoken to his sponsors about running a more relaible product made by the same company.

Edited April 19, 2011 by covie

[SwissVan]

I kind of like this thread and all the advice everyone is dishing out, just a couple of things we need to assume before making these valueable little tid bits.

 

Kevin Evans Has most likely trained in environments very similar to what he would have been through on the epic. putting in thousands of km's using the same gear he used during the epic. And I am pretty sure some of his training rides would have been worse than anything the epic could throw at him. He would have used the same brake setup for months before the Epic and would not have used them if he was not confident in the ability of his equipment.

 

Lets face it, XT brakes fail, XTR brakes fail, XX fail, Avid Fail, they are mechanical components and they are subject to wear/tear and manufacturing flaws. Not to mention human error from bike mech's.

 

This is simply a case of bad luck.

 

Bad luck as in rider mistake yes, however failure of either the mechanic or mechanical kind should not be acceptable or expected.

 

Yes any part can “fail“ even when used within the limits it was designed for, and similarly human factors could also be to blame.

 

Put the issue into perspective, a sponsored rider crashed out of potentially the most important race of the year for him, his team mate and sponsor.

Allegedly due to brake “failure” as broadcasted via Twitter / blogspot to anyone who cared to listen / follow. As mentioned earlier a lot of training, practise and expense would have gone into preparation for the Epic with the specific purpose of ensuring that everything was 100% ready and RELIABLE.

 

This brake failure should not have happened, imo I wonder if it was really a brake failure?

[covie]

Bad luck as in rider mistake yes, however failure of either the mechanic or mechanical kind should not be acceptable or expected.

 

Yes any part can “fail“ even when used within the limits it was designed for, and similarly human factors could also be to blame.

 

Put the issue into perspective, a sponsored rider crashed out of potentially the most important race of the year for him, his team mate and sponsor.

Allegedly due to brake “failure” as broadcasted via Twitter / blogspot to anyone who cared to listen / follow. As mentioned earlier a lot of training, practise and expense would have gone into preparation for the Epic with the specific purpose of ensuring that everything was 100% ready and RELIABLE.

 

This brake failure should not have happened, imo I wonder if it was really a brake failure?

 

LOL Swiss in a perfect world.

 

If that was the case there would be no need to carry spares while MTB'ing or have a technical crew on standby. I agree these things should be 100% reliable but that will never be the case. Componenets fail, thats just the sad truth about 30% of epic riders dont finish due to mechanical failures.

 

If he just wiped or if the brakes really failed well thats open to speculation.

[SwissVan]

LOL Swiss in a perfect world.

 

If that was the case there would be no need to carry spares while MTB'ing or have a technical crew on standby. I agree these things should be 100% reliable but that will never be the case. Componenets fail, thats just the sad truth about 30% of epic riders dont finish due to mechanical failures.

 

If he just wiped or if the brakes really failed well thats open to speculation.

 

Your generalising while I’m referring specifically to brake systems.

 

Brake systems are not that unreliable that they can be included amongst the normal mtb technical problems like punctures, broken chains, bent derailer / hangers etc…

 

Out of 1200 that started the epic I wonder how many actually suffered a brake component failure that was due to a component flaw?

Edited April 20, 2011 by SwissVan

[Climate]

I interpretted KE's commment ("To clear up any confusion around the crash, here it is from me: It was simply a problem with the disc pads that we changed the night before the stage. On the steep descends, the aluminium rotors were overheating and causing the brakes to ‘fade’ and loose power.") as follows ... they experienced over-heating problems in previous stages and attempted to address the issue, as they knew the terrain that lay ahead. However, whatever the pads were that they used, did not resolve the problem. The brakes simply over-heated again and unfortunately, KE suffered the consequences.

 

Plausible?

Edited April 20, 2011 by Climate

[AndreZA]

Out of 1200 that started the epic I wonder how many actually suffered a brake component failure that was due to a component flaw?

 

And out of those that did have failure, how many used the same components as Evans.