Brake wear

Ride them hard for a winter, wear the pads down to nothing, then complain that "these brake suck."

On a slightly unrelated note, I notice on the cycling forums from time to time the topic of descending comes up. People think they want to descend faster, and they think there is some secret technique they are missing that would allow them to descend quickly and with confidence. Really, the only way to learn how to do this is by doing it. Like everything else in life.

The fastest descender I know is a woman I used to ride with in Berkeley. I remember the year she first got into cycling. She was a strong rider, and she enjoyed it; but that first year, she crashed a LOT. We were riding in the East Bay, so there were plenty of technical descents. She crashed on Tunnel Road a few times, Redwood Road, Pinehurst, Mount Diablo... People avoided following her downhill. We thought she was nuts.

But after that first year, she figured out where the limits were. Nobody could touch her on the descents any more -- we just didn't have the guts to keep up. If you never crash, you never know if you can go faster. She knew exactly where the line was.