QUOTE=Yan;22615701]This is exactly slinky braking you're describing right here. I'm sorry but if I had to ride like that I would go insane.[/QUOTE]
You are making too much out of what I’m calling “pulse braking”. I brake when needed. I’m not constantly braking braking on and off which is what you seem to think I’m describing.
You just don't get it. Pulse braking, you're braking hard some of the time and completely off the brakes at the other times.
Well you do seem to get it. But…
Drag braking, you're never off the brakes, but you're applying less force than in pulse braking so you're putting heat into the rims at a slower rate. End of the day you put the same total amount of energy into the rims. Therefore it makes no difference what technique you use. Same temperature.
Your analysis if flawed. It’s the same energy but not the same temperature. That’s because there is a significant amount of time where no heat is being put into the wheel during braking with pulse braking. I agree that the amount of energy put into the system is the same but there are long periods of no energy input. Constant braking doesn’t give the same effect. In general, people who overheat rims generally practice your constant force braking, aka dragging their brakes. You’ve stated that you have melted pads. I’ve never melted a pad nor even gotten close to overheating a rim.
Applying the brakes doesn't put a magical blanket on the rims that stops them from losing heat.
I have never said that. But I have said that constant input of heat from friction causes heat to build more than if there are large intervals of no input. Both rims will radiate heat but the constant braking scenario can’t shed heat faster than it is input. If you can’t shed heat faster than it is input, the heat builds up faster. The heat is additive. As you pointed out above, friction is equal to the coefficient of friction X the normal force. If there is no normal force (i.e. the brakes are off), there is no friction.
What you're saying is the same as saying, during the time you're sitting down to eat, you body is losing no calories. No mister, your body doesn't care if you happen to be eating at any given moment. It's burning the same 85 calories per hour all day long.
I don’t like your food analogies. A biological unit is different from a non-biological unit.
Your rims don't care if you're adding heat to them at any given moment. They're losing heat continuously the entire descent. When or how you add the fixed amount of energy into the rims doesn't matter. The only thing that matter is the total amount of energy you put in. Drag lightly the entire time vs brake hard pulsing, doesn't matter. Same total heat energy.
We don’t need an analogy because we have an excellent example right here. Your problem is that you are confusing “heat” with “temperature”. They aren’t necessarily the same thing. You can have the same amount of heat put into two systems but end up with two different temperatures based on the rate.