THAT'S WHY BREMBO'S BRAKES ARE NO LONGER A MATTER FOR MEN ONLY

10/18/2018

A practical guide (from a woman's point of view) - on everything there is to know about car brakes

Times change, the old landmarks have disappeared and topics like the components for cars and bikes, including the brakes, that were previously taboo for the female world are no longer such.

By winning the World Supersport 300 Championship against 37 male opponents, Ana Carrasco has shown how the old barriers no longer have any reason to exist. The twenty-one year old Spanish woman was riding a Kawasaki Ninja 400 that the DS Junior Team custom built for her, it used among other things, Brembo's discs and pads.

She has, in fact, become the first women world champion in a motorcycle competition that is open to both sexes. Mrs. Carrasco joins other women who have changed the history of motor sport, proving to be superior to gender discrimination: during the 1981-82 two-year period Michelle Mouton won 4 races of the World Rally Championship, in 2001 Jutta Kleinschmidt won the Paris-Dakar and ten years ago, Danica Patrick won an IndyCar Series race.

Obviously many women have indeed an excellent understanding of engines (and of brakes), at times even more than men, both on the track as well as on the roads. However often the “braking system” topic isn't exactly among the priorities of the women's world when it comes to choosing and running a vehicle.

A fact that only apparently contrasts with all the market researches that have pointed out how, when women have to choose which car to buy, they focus their attention on safety, comfort and reliability. This is the reason why, as we are specialists in braking systems, we have decided to offer a small practical guide for the female public.

It focuses on why the brakes are most important for safety, comfort and even for the car's aesthetics. It does not matter if you drive a motorcycle or a car, when you're choosing a new vehicle or when you want to keep in perfect shape the one you already have: Here's what there is to be known about brakes.

SAFETY

Let's start from safety. The brakes are the main active safety element and when it comes to safety Brembo is second to none: the successes in competitions (from Formula 1 to MotoGP, from rallies to Endurance), the exceptional performance and the care for design always step back when it comes to improving everyday's safety of the car drivers and motorcyclists when they run on the roads throughout the world Brembo's engineers and technicians know this very well: any performance, although exceptional, has no value without the backing of safety.

For this reason Brembo's braking systems are designed and manufactured to offer an exceptional stability while braking and to reduce even more the "stopping distance", thus helping to provide evermore safety when driving. In emergency conditions, just a few meters can make all the difference, and prevent an impact with very serious consequences, not only for the car.

Whether you are buying a new car or bike or just simply choosing spare parts, Brembo is the best solution in terms of safety.

YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT COMFORT?

Many studies report that the female world is more sensitive with respect to a car or motorcycle's driving comfort features.

Brembo also takes care of the comfort, thanks to specific studies that aim at identifying any squealing and vibrations that may occur while driving in order to try to prevent them. In fact, when designing the braking system, a special focus is paid to the combination of the various elements, including the suspensions.

A braking system, in order to be perfect, must pass the most severe tests, carried out in all the conditions it can be used, even the most extreme. These are tests designed to define the products' quality, performance and efficiency.

They are carried out in perfectly equipped laboratories, but also on the road and on the track. In fact every year Brembo spends approximately 350,000 man-hours for bench testing and approximately 200,000 man-hours for road testing.

DESIGN

Of course, when the time has come to buy a new car ( but the same goes for a bike) the aesthetics of the model that has been chosen plays a decisive role.

As a research has established in 2017, the color affects the purchase for 45 percent of the men, but this percentage grows up to 52 percent for women.

All of us at Brembo have long understood this and for this reason, already from the first half of the Eighties, we have been producing colored car calipers. Brembo's calipers have a refined design and are available in over 100 colors and have become our trademark, as well as being a synonym of sportiness, performance and distinctiveness.

This practice later spread also to bikes and helps to give them a look that is always very appealing.

MAINTENANCE

Safety, braking performance and comfort depend on the proper maintenance of the brakes.

So here is “Dr. Brembo's” advice in order to recognize and prevent the symptoms of wear, while keeping the braking system at ideal safety levels.

The usual brake check-up is supposed to be carried out every 15,000/20,000 kilometers, but when special conditions (vibrations, cracks, indicator light turning on ...) arise a check-up should be done as soon as possible. Who is as fit as a fiddle doesn't usually have an excessively frail look.

Likewise, the care of the discs and pads depends on a careful monitoring of their... thickness. The Minimum Thickness (Min TH) is the minimum value that the braking surface can reach while still preserving the brake disc's safety features and performance as required by the manufacturer.

Also the pads have to be replaced if they don't meet a minimum thickness that can be easily checked by a mechanic or by using a (electrical or acoustic) wear indicator. A prescription to bear in mind: the pads must always be changed when the discs are replaced, as they wear twice as fast as the discs.

Making sure your car has a braking system with a clean bill of health is our daily mission.

In order to reduce the risk of unexpected behaviors, beside the seasonal advice, we offer you a set of solutions that slow the wear processes down and increase reliability: Brembo's brake discs that painted with the UV technology, for example, have a great resistance to corrosion, to humidity, to high temperatures and to chemical agents.

The new B-QUIET lubricant, that should be applied on the contact surfaces between the caliper and the pad, has been devised to significantly improve the braking comfort and to assure the part's greatest protection against corrosion.

And upon this, Brembo's brake fluids provide a boiling point which is higher than the required standards, thus ensuring a superior resistance to Vapour Lock as well as an efficient braking in any condition.

Probably none of our female readers will ever win a Motorcycling World Championship, but at least they now know what to do if they want the utmost in terms of safety, design and braking comfort for their car or motorcycle.