Tom Boonen says he can stop a disc brake rotor at 60kph with his hand - so Belgian newspaper puts the theory to the test

Road discs. Real brakes finally come to road bikes. Love mine. Go Tom. Check out team mechanic Tim Dejonghe in the vid and then state your case against. He's a badass

Can he also do a video of a spud falling on to the end of some bar ends/ upturned brake lever/ upturned forks.

They'll all show the maiming and disembowlment that will happen to riders in a crash.

How did he get the potato to land on the brick? Genius. 

Imagine  a disc equipped bike being crashed onto its right hand side, rear disc upper most. Imagine too a following rider cannot avoid the fallen rider(s) and falls to the right and that this rider's knee runs in the exposed disc at speed.  

Imagine someone in the bike industry tested this effect of this.  It would take a lot of effort to set up right? Wrong.  Cue video and watch without wincing if you can 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-WDJhZsAI

Hansen is wise.

"Campag are notoriously a little slower to change. "

Yeah, cos gears will never catch on, right? Nor quick release wheels.

Yes it's only another anecdote but I have descended Ventoux 4 times on my discs (2 of those descents in heat and two in high winds/rain) and did not experience any degradation in braking power at all. Every time I needed braking force, it was there.

Re my comment about discs getting very hot above, my concern is about the effect on the pads and fluid rather than burning another rider in a crash.

Personally I don't give a shit either way when it comes to disc brakes, I have two mtb's with discs and three road bikes with rim brakes.

Are disc brakes dangerous? I know somebody who lost the tips of two fingers from sticking them in the rotor with the bike upside down and spinning fast (he didn't do it on purpose as part of an experiment). I don't know anybody who has ever been injured from them while riding or crashing. I do know somebody who crashed the first time he rode a mtb with them fitted because the idiot in front (me) broke too hard and he overreacted in a v-brake style.

I think there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in terms of rider preferences, team suppliers etc. currently going on in the pro-peleton.

My only genuine concern re discs is the heating issue. On a relatively short downhill run with some hard braking areas your discs can get very hot. How do road discs handle a 10km+ descent of a mountain with a lot of switchbacks? 

Interestingly enough...... You could have gotten a fully suspended, disc brake equipped bike, with 'lovely' wide Westwood type rims & balloon tyres back in the late 1890's......

Choose wider tyres, choose a kind of suspension system, choose a more upright riding position, choose an 11-32 cassette, choose disc brakes, choose a mountain bike.

F**k it, lets just take all the brakes away and make them ride fixed. The move to a controlled environment with only left turns, maybe indoors so the weather doesn't have an impact, but can't have too many riders in the same area at a time so lets race say on opposite sides of the left turn. The winner is the first to cross their respective finish line or catch the other rider.

Oh, wait... 

This brake argument is putting me off road cycling just like the tyre size debate put me off moutain biking.

First rule of working on a bike stay away from anything spinning, adjust then spin then stop then adjust - not that you always take notice of that 

This is a spectacular eff up and what happens if you put you finger in between the rotor arms and the caliper.

If you do decide to copy and paster this in your browser you've been warned, but you'll never work on a brake whilst it's spinning again  :-@

cheekytrails.co.uk/forum/file.php/0/1745/finger.jpg

It's like Shark vs Chairs, I bet there are Hundreds of thousands of injuries caused by Spokes, Brake Levers, Saddles even and maybe a only couple of hundred from Brake Rotors but for some reason Pro Racers have got their bee in their bonnet about this one, bless 'em the little Snowflakes.

Held my fingers against my disc rotor whilst checking my brakes at the weekend and survived unharmed. But, somehow I stupidly put my hand inside the spinning wheel and got caught by the bladed spokes. Fcuk me that really did hurt.

This is innovation, no need for brakes!!! : P

https://www.bikerumor.com/2017/02/27/152600/

So when we've got a split of braking equipment , will we be collectively referring to the old school as 'rimmers'?

"1. ...rotors do not cut through flesh.

2. Disc rotors can cut through shoes"

....and most pro level shoes are made of what exactly?

Oh, yes polished and hardened Kangaroo Flesh

Nothing cuts superMario's salami.

I bet Sagan can stop it with his tongue...

and only Cipollini can better that!!!

People keep saying 'disc brakes don't cut flesh'. I can catagorical counter that by saying that they do. My bike wasn't doing any speed either. I was just pulling the air hose off my tyre valve and sliced up my hand.

Brave mechanic that one. But he only ever puts his hand adjacent to the plane of the disc. Like to see him catch the edge, which is when the rotor will cut. 

Cool vid with the mechanic's thumbs up.

Not sure what his thumb would have looked like if the bike was travelling at 50kmh rather than spinning at a standstill though