While most of my testing for the magazines is simply done by day out day in comparative riding in all weathers its great to get a bit of science involved sometimes.
Thats why we were up in Wrexham with brake pad specialists Fibrax, who offered us the use of their rolling road brake dyno for a couple of days. It's the best brake dyno we've used in terms of on trail realism too. It recreates actual braking forces at the wheel point of contact, it's fully programmable to run different protocols and it even lets you spray water onto the set up to simulate wet conditions running.
As a result we got some really useful data which we'll be working through for a while and will form a key part of this years disc brake grouptests in MBUK and What MTB magazines.
Massive thanks to Mark, Sarah and the Fibrax folk for looking after us so well, and if you want UK brake pads developed for UK conditions then we definitely know where to go now. Also a big thumbs up to the Stableyard B&B and the Buck Inn at Bangor on Dee, not least for the amazing teapot display hanging from the rafters in the bar!
Have a great weekend
G