Discs on the road… The Insider has his say

ppf What a bunch of wally's a lot of you are!!! What type of brakes are fitted to motrcycles and cars???? EXACTLY!!
Once they are fitted as std on some tourers,audax,winter,commuter road bikes,the development of lighter,sleek looking assemblies will naturally follow! Being a car driver and motorcyclist having ridden drum brake versions (some cars were very scary,with slow you down eventually type brakes)then progressd to disc versions, I would never consider goin back. Disc brakes have a lot of advantages on cycles,I ride mtbs,and ride a disc brake mtb on the road with slicks. I personally cant wait for the fitment on a road bike. All the worries about,disc sizes,weights,looks,etc will evolve in a short time,TRUST THE TECHNOLOGY. Test it before you pass a comment!

ppf ref.JUAN Carbon discs have been used in motor sport for many years now.probably don't think it will be required on cycles though.

Hi there, We've been using disc brakes for years, thats what wheel rims are! But the use of disc at the hub part of the set up is more recent 1960's.So in fact nothing is new, only the improved materials & engineering systems have made them more practical. I'm currently in the process of having a new trike built with rear disc brakes. The entire braking system stays on the frame when the wheels are removed.Less messy than hub brakes on the rear. The weight of the new components make it quite practical, but I don't want the same arrangement on the front, as that would require stronger forks. TTFN MM

I came from MTBs onto road bikes, and have never felt anything like as confident with rim brakes as with my Hope disks.
Greater stopping power, more predictable in the wet or mud, less adjustment needed with wear, less wear on your rim, easy to change wheels (who said it would be slower? disk wheels are easier to swap in my book), no cable stretch, I could go on. Disks win for me, any day.
And the weight penalty? Yes, a disk wheel will be slightly heavier, but can be lighter at the rim, heavier in the middle. Shouldn't bother anyone unless they only ever ride up hill, and then catch the train back down!

More progressive, consistent & predictable braking to be welcomed (on my commuter/utility bike for instance). If my weekend road bike can remove it's braking surface from the rim then manufacturers can also make wheels with rims both stronger and with much less rotating mass than currently possible (leaving just my fat arse to drag up the hills).
BUT are we talking about existing disc hubs (135mm) or a whole new line of 130mm "Road Disc Hubs"?
I usually groan cynically when I see new advances in technology but this one makes a lot of sense. Lets see what SRAM's 2012 groupsets bring. I need a Do-Everything-bike this year...

The biggest mechanical problems are going to be assymetric loading on forks (but that's not insoluble, esp with carbon - I have cut up a lot of carbon forks over the years that have had decidedly assymetric blade flex rates) and on the rear, the whole 130 / 135 mm OLN conumdrum.

The biggest difficulty with rear end dimensions, as I see it, will come in the pro / serious amateur peloton - it's bad enough now with 10 and 11s systems to cater for if we are running neutral service (worse than when we had the 9 / 10s divide, roll on DA 11s), but if we have two different rear end dimensions, then we might have a real headache on our hands.

Back in the day, when we made the shift from 120 to 126mm rear triangles it wasn't too bad as steel frames could be "persuaded" with the QR or sprung, and in any case adoption of the new 126 width was very quick - I only recall it taking about two seasons to pass right the way through from pro to 3rd cat. amateur ... and 126 - 130 was also still in the steel era and to a great extent the same thing applied. Gear systems were less picky, there was more slop in the system and we managed it all OK.

Now 130 / 135 is going to give us a headache with rear end spacings beacuse you can't play quite so fast and loose with carbon or alloy frame spacings ... shifting an alloy rear triangle 5mm is a job for strong fore-arms and a carbon frame - well, it's just a no-no.

Gear systems are also a bit more picky about alignment these days and forcing rear triangles can cause all sorts of function problems.

Add to that the problem of rotor-to-seatstay and rotor-to-chainstay clearance when you put a disc wheel (with a 130 hub) into some road frames and you're going to see a lot of very harassed-looking mechanics trying to do a wheel changes in the heat of competition.

Last, if we keep 130 rear ends and move the rotor inboard a tad, then the hub flange spacing starts to look a bit iffy - it's bad enough on some rear wheels now - especially when you start to look at the torque-transfer requirements of disc brakes.

I'd stress that none of the above is insoluble ... but it'll take a very brave innovator to start the ball rolling in the race market.

What would make more sense would be for that "manufacturer beginning with S & looking for innovation" to apply development to the drop-bar commuter market, a far larger and much less conservative / image driven market than road racing / cross will ever be, thrash out the headaches there, use the numbers to drive volume and force a ground-up acceptance. That's what I'd do ... but then I don't have Goldman Sachs behind me

I just picked up a new bike and I purposely stayed away from disc not because they aren't a higher quality. But because the standard brakes are much easier to work on and find parts for. I got this bike here http://www.2wheelbikes.com/rs888-racing-bike.html

I like the name "idiot tabs" - I cycled home from work one and wondered what the rattling sound was. I then hit a bump and promptly broke three ribs. Still got back on and rode home though!

I cant believe discs have been so long coming. For all us regulars the weight penalty is insignificant and the braking benefit is huge. Whats more I dont want to have to replace my new Mavics too soon.
And lets face it - rim brakes were last seen on horse drawn carts.

The Canyon article is quite interesting and exposes some of the potential pitfalls (high fork stress, asymetric braking force affecting handling, heat transfer damaging the carbon structure). Also interesting they considered a cross FOUR wheel necessary. From an engineering point of view its pretty clear that the design of the fork needs to be considered extremely carefully. I wonder if the component supplier "S" is expecting this design to be handled by the frame/fork manufacturer. It is likely that many smaller companies don't have anything like Canyons engineering expertise. Also, higher braking efficiency will come with a downside - consider how fragile 700c tires are - the tiny contact patch means locking up has a high likelyhood of blowout.
American liability lawyers are probably rubbing their hands with glee.

For those of us whose best option to reduce our bike weight by 5 kg is to stop putting cream in our coffee (rather than spending $2000 to reduce component weight by 500 gr) adding disk brakes would add a great deal of safety while adding only the miniscule speed penalty.

The first daredevil who pulls a minute out on a long (maybe wet) descent on the TDF - and the jig is up - they'll all be in then ...

Use discs on MTB and CX commuter and they are great. Wheel weight is currently an issue so road bike is calliper braked. When I jump back on the road bike I am always a bit horrified how crap callipers are compared to discs, but I love the zing of the lighter wheels and soon adjust to longer stopping distances.

Discs are BRILLIANT for panic stops on the road in commuter land. When it's wet I always take the disc CX bike, if only cause in the wet drivers seem to drive 5x worse (worse visibility I guess).

However there is a point no one has mentioned: The reason track racing is actually pretty safe is because NO ONE has brakes. In a road pack everyone's brakes are about the same so again everyone is braking poorly at relatively the same rate. If you put a couple of people in the peloton with discs and most with callipers the extreme difference in stopping ability is going to mean carnage for a year or two until everyone catches up. I suspect that's when the teams and UCI get to work

Once you have ridden a disc equipped bike down an unknown mountain pass in the rain you get it. They're not yet for road racing and ultimate go-fast club, but they will be more useful for most riders. No rim wear... very light carbon rims... hydraulic action... mmmm....

So, innovation, yes please. Have you ridden a race bike from the 70s or 80s recently? I have a lovely steel road bike, but it's a 00s Salsa with a carbon fork, knocks the spots off anything else I rode in the 80s including Gios', Team Raleighs etc etc. I suspect I will be saying the same about road brakes in 10 years...

Bring it on I say! No more switching pads between my alu crit wheelset and full carbon road race wheelset. Cuts down on repair time as well if you're caught with a tire mechanical on the race course. Just loosen skewer, pull and go. Allows for the use of wider tires when course conditions dictate as such without penalty for running current itty-bitty side-pull calipers. I'm lucky if I can fit a 24c tire in my current caliper without loosening the tension bolt first.

I had a custom ti CX frame built for discs built 6 years ago because they simply didn't exist at that time. The arguments about increased maintenance and poor reliability are spurious IME - BB7s are very easy to set-up and maintain and far less fiddly than many road brakes - if you can turn and Allen key you can install and service them! Whilst they are great for general trail riding, I still run cantis on my CX race bikes because the main issue for me is grip, not stopping.
On the road I see bigger benefits for discs - particularly using carbon wheels in the wet and better modulation and control on high speed descents. However, the possible downside is that riders will take bigger risks and we may see more incidence of high speed crashes on descents because riders will compensate for better brakes by riding faster / braking later - I'm afraid incidents like Casartelli or Weylandt may be more common.

See the last paragraph of the Garmin-Barracuda story. They're coming!

http://road.cc/content/news/50151-garmin-cervelo-changes-name-garmin-bar...

Ok I haven't read al of it so sorry if I am repeating some comment.
Being a MTBer (I don't even own a "proper road bike") I have a lot to say about disks. To start with:
putting a wheel with a disk in is as easy if actually not easier than a rimmed brake wheel.
Weight is actually going to be the same if not lighter. Brake cables are made of good old heavy iron/steel, so having fluid inside is going to save you quite a lot. I terms of calliper/master cylinders, back in the days, the formula B4 was already lighter than a set of XTR V-brakes. As for the weight of the wheel, get the difference of the 717 disc and the 717 non disc and compare it to the difference of disk and non disk hope XC hubs.
Maintenance basically there is no such things as maintenance on a disk brake system. It's fit and forget on a mtb so I can't see road riding been nastier for brakes. Changing the pads is actually a lot easier than setting up some foucking rim brakes. And bleeding is actually easier and faster than changing a cable or even greasing it.
As for the fork managing it, carbon forks for MTB already exits, and they seems to cope just fine. Actually I can see the benefit of having the equivalent of the QR15 front and the 142 rear standard for road bike specially in terms of rigidity.

would you ride/race a road bike with a quill stem? Gear with no indexations? Both thec come for the mud side, and back in the days were considered to be the work of evil ;).

P.S. I know for advance this post is going to be full of mistakes, I'll correct them later tonight once I have access to an english spellchecker

Been riding discs for over a year now on a Kinesis Tripster and i've found them to be great, especially on the rainy commutes. The BB7's definitely seem to be more maintenance than MTB brakes though, and i've noticed the DC19 fork twisting a fair bit under braking - enough that the mudguard rubs the tyre.

JohnS I agree, though think the weight disadvantage (if there is one) is irrelevant.

After the Midlands 'cross championships at Sundorne in December I asked Hope team rider Dave Collins, who took 3rd place, about his disc brakes. Interestingly, he said that riding carbon rims that he felt disc brakes provided even greater benefit in the dry, with predictable braking every time, regardless of the state of the rim.

Personally, I'm looking forward to disc brakes being available on road bikes.

Advantages for me, leisure, touring and commuting rider:
They work consistently in all weathers.
They don't wear out your rims.

Disadvantages:
They might be a bit heavier than calipers.

For the folk saying this will be too heavy:

http://www.canyon.com/_en/technology/project68.html

6.8 kilos, done years ago.

I personally will be looking forward to a time when disc brakes for the road will be widely available for the masses. Definitely something I'd like to try out. The only slight problem I have is an aesthetic one, but I can also remember feeling the same when disc brakes hit the MTB market. Did see a couple of bikes at the CC nationals in Ipswich running discs at the weekend and they looked pretty good. No horrible brake squealing either.

Why do they make everything constantly more intricate, unmaintainable, fragile and more expensive?

We are not all pros with mechanics and free kit!

9 speed was enough for me. They make me keep "up"grading my kit. Drive train, brakes, pedals every couple of years.

It's all a huge rip off. Why not just ride bikes?

i could have done with discs on my tricross this morning, might have meant less time in the toilet patching up my nose and bending my glasses back into shape