After extensive testing, the air was heavy with the hot metallic smell of burnt brake pads and scorched rotors — and the results were in. Amazingly (and credit here to the design teams), all the brakes performed exceptionally well, remaining powerful and effective even after repeated high-speed braking abuse. The laboratory standout performers were the Shimano Saints and the Magura MT5, both able to decelerate the heavy flywheel from 30-15 km/h in only 1.2 seconds, twice as fast as some of the competition. But that is only half the story; we needed to see how the brakes would perform on the trail.