Will the disc brake debacle influence what bike you buy next?

i would reverse the subject; if rim brakes had never existed in the first place, would you "invent" rim brakes just for the "safety" of pro "drag queens" racers ?

rim brakes are not brakes, they just slow you down, exactly what pro racers need; the problem is it is such a tiny tiny market, and they even don't buy their bikes. So a non existent market. Pros just have to ride the bikes they are handled and stop whining ... My two cents.

Speaking for myself, of course, for safety reasons, i plan to buy a disc bike soon.

The pros could ride shopping trolleys for all the relevance it has to the rest of us.

Having disc brakes on my current tourer, it did not take me long to appreciate the real (and to some extent unexpected) advantages over rim brakes, especially since I often use gritty towpaths/cycle trails and such like. They far outweigh any disadvantages.

This reminds me so much of the helmet debate. Full of the fury and certainty of the recently-converted. And the trumpeting of those who rushed in and now see the need to furiously defend their position. Since when has stopping been the main issue with cycling?

Frankly I'm more interested in things that make my bike faster. I'm 60 next year and need every bit of help I can get in that respect!

TheDoctor wrote:

Won't be getting discs on a road bike, as has been mentioned already they are just the latest fashion accessory for mtbers and riders who don't know how to ride a road bike properly! 

"Andy Garden: No it never influenced me as discs on a road bike are a fashion accessory only."

Gosh I never realised better and therefore safer brakes on a bike was a fashion choice. 
As for the troll's bike handling comment, one of the reasons Petar Sagan was able to make up so much time on a descent in last year's tour was because of his bike handling skills which he developed as a mountain biker.
I ride both on and off road and basic bike handling ability needs to be far higher for off road riding, the sloppy technique so many roadies have is shocking.

The only time I felt I have needed them in a 'road' situation was when behind a guy who panicked on a wet sportive going downhill and grabbed a load of dry disc as everyone behind, including me, struggled to avoid him on wet rims. This is of course handy if commuting in among motor vehicles and pedestrians, but a hazard in among cycles.

he didn't need to slow down that hard, or so suddenly, I see this as the reason why they shouldn't be used in competitive road packs rather than the cutting issue, although the notched discs should be banned for that reason, I know chai rings and sprockets are sharp too, but they only rotate when pedalled......

I don't have a lot of experience with discs myself, but have found, in the dry, that V brakes have better modulation and power.

they came in on mtb's simply to get the braking surface out the mud and dirt.

I'm puzzled by all the talk about 'replacing expensive rims'.

I use cheap campag Khasmins in winter (£100 a pair). Current pair has done 10,000 miles - still plenty of wear left. The brake pads I need to replace every year or so. 

My summer bike now has hand built wheels because they can be mended and the rims replaced much more easily than factory wheels that are using ever more complicated spoke fixings and tensions. The hubs are Royce so they make up most of the cost. I would imagine new rims would be £150-£200. I expect to get 4-5 years from the rims. 

Disks are being sold on the mtb premise that you will be up to your rims in grit and mud every time you go out. It's nonsense and I'm not riding around with soup plates on my wheels just because manufacturers consider it essential that I buy their products. 

As for the mechanics of braking. I don't fancy applying a front disk brake on a carbon fork on a downhill bend at 40 mph. Disk brakes are tried and tested for mtb. I suspect the limits of disk brake torque and carbon forks are yet to be tested to breaking point in real life situations. I'm happy to leave that testing to others...

I may one day use disks in the winter bike but I'll wait for the smaller carbon fibre disks with ceramic pads. Oh? Not heard of them? You must have them. Much better than the metal disks... 

Would not go back to rim brakes, have decent Shimano rim brakes on best bike and arent far off discs in the dry, but all 3 types of discs on my bikes (Spyre and Shimano mechanical and Shimano hydraulic) are better in adverse conditions. With MTBs and motorcycles using discs, I can't see why Sportive organisers would ban discs.

I find all of this fascinating.  I have no strong feeling either way, used to MTB with cantis then V brakes, now have caliper rim brakes on a road bike.  I don't see discs as apocalyptic or revolutionary.

What I don't get is the passion that people have for discs.  Yes they are better- but how much braking are people doing on an average ride?  If I think back over the rides I've done this year/late last year I can' think of a time when my brakes were of any concern to me.  That includes the middle of the Scottish winter.  Maybe I should be going faster?

Looking further back, coming off Hardknott pass, and coming down the Col de Joux Verte are the only times I can think of having any braking concerns- aching hands in the Lakeland descent and a sense of unease about rim temperatures and stuff in the alps as I was having to keep my speed down in traffic.  

What am I missing?  Is this about riding in town with lots of stop/starts, I don't do much of that, maybe then I'd see the need?

I totally agree with all that has been said in favour of disk brakes. Caliper brakes have never and will never be able to stop a road bike. The pros clearly don't know what they're talking about - too busy being paid to ride bikes at high speed & close quarters and not enough to think I reckon! In fact, despite being one of the most skilled riders around, I would never dream of touching a road bike until the bike industry finally woke up and started fitting functioning brakes to them and ditched those clearly dangerous archaic rim brakes. They were technology from the last century (or was it the one before!! ha ha!). Disks also look so much better - just like a motorbike, brum brum!

Now I can grab a handleful of brake and drag them all the way down every hill I see knowing full well the bike industry has got my best interests at heart. So what if they change standards every so often? I'm only too happy to spend my bonus on a new frame, wheels and brakes every other year while getting zero resale value on my existing kit. A small price to pay for brakes that actually stop you I say. Just like I was only too happy to ditch my 26" wheel mtb, then my 29er then my 650ber in favour of the only sensible mountain bike wheel size: 26+.

Lastly, I can't help feeling 700c wheels are getting pretty outdated now. If anyone from the bike industry is reading, isn't it time you moved to the new 770c wheel standard? 28x700, while a good start in that it doesn't fit in many existing frames doesn't go far enough! 770c is self evidently 10% better. Even the pros can do that arithmetic!

I heard last night from a dude doing La Marmotte that is also will be banning discs?  La Fuga contacted him with the news...  wow!

Looking at all comments I can happly say that discs are edging their way into road bike sector pretty rapidly in less than 2 years. 

Some comment that they are fine with just V brake and some of my colleague doesn't even need them but it doesn't mean I don't need them and the majority doesn't need them. 

It is a far suprior braking system than the two especially for the untrained or those who doesn't wish to use their legs to stop. 

I dreaded the caliper brake since I started road cycling 5 years ago. I couldn't wait for disc. 

Everytime I am on the road when I am close to the back of the car I fear for my life (I don't do it often unless I have to). Everytime it is raining or really wet, I dreaded on braking because it wouldn't stop on short notice and if neede have to pull the handle very hard. 

I immediately went to Shimano r785 with Rose and it was one of the best thing.  Braking was a joy and making riding to work a joy.  Everytime I ride now and every ride when I brake I smile because it reminds me how the nightmare of caliper is behind me, my hands no longer get fatigured after a day of riding in the city.  

Easy to maintain by far.  I have not yet ever needed to adjust anything (hydraulic) unlike my colleagues cable operated disc (he desperately want to upgrade to hydraulic).  

So to me there is absoluthing nothing great about caliper and I am happy to see so many disc road bikes out there now.  

I don't really care about the nay sayers either because of the lack of vision I feel sorry for them but mostly I know that in a few years they will no longer have a voice because they will only be able to buy disc versions and keep it quite because they will find out just how amazing they are compared to caliper. 

For those who use their legs as braking well I don't think they will ever be converted until they get too old to do so. 

I don't see why people are getting their panties in a twist.

Pros ride they want, you ride what you want, I ride what I want.

So what if pros want to ride on rim brakes? Do you need them to validate your choice of bikes? No!

One or two sportives ban disc brakes. So what! Do some other sportives.

People are bunch of sheeps. Just get on your bike and get on with your lives. FS

I had a thread on this a couple of years ago and my views haven't changed. I've been a bike mechanic, a cycle courier and I've ridden and raced MTB and road bikes on and off for nearly 25 years. And with all kinds of brakes, including U-brakes, cam brakes and even Scott Self-Energising brakes.

There is no doubt that on balance and in purely engineering terms discs are better brakes than rim brakes or any of the above, but in the end it really depends in what circumstances they're being used. For commuting and mountain biking there doesn't seem to be much of a contest. Discs are far more effective than calipers every time. And in busy commuter traffic in the rain this has to be a serious safety advantage.

On road bikes though I think the debate's more subtle and there's more to it than simply straight mechanical performance. Twenty years ago people had lightweight road racing bikes to road race. Almost no-one used their precious lightweights to ride to work on or crash around muddy lanes on at the weekend with the kids. Anyone else who had a 'racing bike' usually rode around on a lump of old steel that happened to have drop bars. The massive growth of road bike sales in the last ten years has changed everything and means that 'the market' has started demanding things that pure race bikes don't really need. One of these is disc brakes.

In my experience of racing (not sportives), stopping was something you only did when the race was over. In most races part of the skill was not wasting valuable energy accelerating again after you had used your brakes unnecessarily. Not using your brakes excessively and thus not risking anyone piling into the back of you was part of the expectation of being a licensed racer. Obviously, skilful use of your brakes when you need them is also important, but in racing, brakes are not used to stop, they are used to control and moderate speed, that's all. It's easy to get almost any brake to lock a wheel (ultimately stopping power is only as good as the grip between tyre and road). Brake technology has always gone into control and feel and on that count, good quality, well set up calipers are close to or as good as discs and weigh a lot less too. On top of that, changing a wheel with rim brakes is far quicker. Standing at the side of the road trying to get a rear rotor into that little slot while the last of the race disappears up the road would be a trying experience.

What I fear is that because most people now don't race their 'road racing' bikes and lack the skill to do so, those that do will be lumbered with disc brakes whether they like them or not as the growth-hungry industry foists them on everyone. 

I'm very happy with my mountain bike's discs and I can completely understand why they are brilliant for general road use and commuting too, but racing, pro or not? Give me a break.

I for one will be using my black school plimsoles to drag along the ground/wedge against my 20" rims as and when necessary, or the wall at the end of the 'Big Hill' at my mam's old house (circa 1980ish) to stop me. Pah who needs brakes....life is too long anyway....however, I might just get that oval chainring....

Somewhere on a specialist cutlery forum, a heated debate is going on right now between niche interest groups debating a recent high profile soup spillage related incident and what ramifications it has for the future of spoons and indeed whether spoons could be outlawed altogether.

The people are really divided on spoons - spoon fans insist that they are absolutely the best way to consume soup and couldn't go back but the anti-spoon brigade vehemently insist that they've been eating soup with forks for years and why should they change?  If people can't eat soup with a fork maybe they should just give up and use a bloody straw, pathetic noobs.

Elsewhere the rest of the world, in blissful ignorance of this crisis, continues to prefer their soup delivered with a spoon.

Too late, already a total convert even after many many years of not crashing to death using rim brakes. If it's a choice between disc brakes or taking part in UCI governed events where disc brakes are not allowed... Well I spend more time riding around doing my own thing and to be honest I'm now a little past my prime to consider turning pro.

If it really comes down to it, who awarded the UCI and their sub organisations a total monopoly on organised cycle events?

Currently I only have non-disc bicycles, but that's all going to change with the next purchase which will be a disc-equipped tourer. I have absolutely no faith in the UCI to be any sort of rational, educated source of information about bicycle technology. These are, after all, the same people that mandated bicycle helmets against the wishes of most of the peloton.

Ignoramuses making decisions based on emotive incidents.

As per others, it won't influence me as all my future bikes will have disc brakes. The only sportive I ride regularly has no ruling on this, so I won't need to sacrifice that, either.

I don't think this ruling will last long, for what it's worth. I still don't really understand why the subject generates so much frothing - they're only brakes...

Only thing this puts me off is events run by traditionalist organisations with their heads in the sand and their knees jerking wildly!

As I commute 2 hours a day in all weathers, it's a no brainer to go for discs in my mind. Am going through rims on a regular basis.

For sportives I have a Canyon with rim brakes, so that does me just fine. 

I won't influence my choice of bike as I won't ever buy another bike without discs.

But it will influence how many sportives I will register for. I won't register for any until this mess is sorted out.

I ride my bike maybe 300 days a year, but only do three to six sportives. I know where my priorities are.

Disc brakes on the MTB for over 10 years now. I didn't want to compromise braking performance by riding a road bike with caliper brakes. So my road bike has disc brakes too. It's an absolute no brainer for me.

My first bike is a Dahon folding bike with 20-inch (406 mm) wheels and V-brakes. Those were powerful in the dry but pathetic in the wet. Modulating the braking power is also rather unwieldy; you have to be gentle with them. Be clumsy with the levers and you could seriously find yourself flying over the handlebars or having the rear overtake the front sideways -- such is the consequence of the small wheels and how far away they are from your saddle and handlebars.

My Giant TCX has TRP Spyre disc brakes. Just as powerful, but modulation is much easier and much more confidence-inspiring. And they don't abandon you when conditions get wet.

I'm never getting another road bike without disc brakes ever again.