Road bikes with disc brakes

willhouse":1egrahwv said:

I've replied on this to multiple threads, but disc brakes on daily used bikes makes alot of sense.

No rim wear
Less rotational mass
Consistent braking performance wet or dry
Easier to maintain and set
Longer life to pads
Don't knock it till you've tried it...

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How can adding an steel disc to the wheel, plus its big heavy mounting lugs on the hub equal less mass?
I'm also not convinced about easy maintenance - all the pads seem different and I'm always riding MTBs with people who have scuffing / singing discs as they are slightly out of true.

Don't get me wrong, for mud or commuters they probably are simpler better, but I remain to be convinced on a lightweight road bike.

I like having disc brake on a road bike from a maintenance point of view but despite all my efforts to keep the weight down the bike is still slow compared to my rim braked rides.

Lenard Zinn over at Velonews wrote an interesting piece on the future (or not) of disc brakes in a road bike environment a couple of months ago. The issue is far from as clear cut as some would like to present it.

Jonny69":3qyj170t said:

I don't like them but I know plenty of people who moan about the braking performance of their carbon wheels, particularly in the wet. I think discs solve most of their problems. Another thing is there's a minimum weight limit on UCI bikes, which is heavier than a lot of top-end bikes actually add up to. The pro teams load the bikes up with toys to make them up to the minimum weight, so I doubt a few extra grammes from the brakes will matter.

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Hydraulic disc brakes for road bikes come with their own performance problems, namely the effect of the brake fluid heating up when the brakes are in prolonged use on long and/or technical descents. Cable-actuated ones might well be on less shaky ground.

David

Discs are the way forward I say. And yes you are a curmudgeon.

HTH

Although rim brakes wear away your rims they are very efficient and simple especially in dual pivot form and weigh considerably less than disc rotors/calipers.
Caliper Rim brakes are easy peasy to set up, discs are not considerably better than that.
Conventional wheels have way less rotational and static mass than disc wheels so dont get that plus at all.
Discs also put tremendous strain on forks at the point furthest from the attachment point to the frame ie the headset which would snap a skinny road fork and thus need beefed up which adds further weight.
Discs make sense for MTB/Hybrid/CX/Tourers etc but zero sense for a lightweight roadbike which is primarily what you retro roadies are about surely ?

The thing is, many of these super lightweight-spangly-aero-electronic-road-racing-dream-machines are bought by tubby, unfit middle managers, who LIKE to have the latest toy, whether it is of benefit for what the bike is designed to do or not. Plenty of 10 grand carbon race machines get bought for riding half a dozen sportives a year, and little more. And then they all complain about bad backs, sore ar5es and gears which are far too tall.

We mustn't underestimate the global buying power of the tubby IT middle manager, its far far greater than any of the pro teams.

I can see us ending up with the pros riding the second or third bike down the line up, as they don't need discs/electronics/a foot long headtube or whatever. (i believe a few do this already)

Maybe the Schlecks will need discs. Cancellara won't.

I built a road bike with disk brakes earlier this week. Well it ended up as a road bike with disk brakes anyway
A friend had bought her son an old Boardman Comp hybrid which came with flat bars & mtb shifters, he now wants to start road riding and perhaps join a club but has limited funds. I had a scrounge through my spares and ended up adding drop bars with road shifters using his Avid BB cable disk brakes and a road cassette. It came out really nice in the end, I didn't take photos as we did it in an evening and it was late once finished but I will when I next go over. I had a quick spin on it before they took it away and it rode really nice, brakes although a bit squishy feeling compared to dual pivots were controlled and powerful. He called me the next day to say thanks and that he was very happy after riding it.

I can see pluses and minus to running disks on a road bike, perhaps they're a good idea if you ride lots of big downhills or in all weathers but dual pivots are more than powerful enough for me personally. Had his bike had the option to take duals I certainly would have used them instead.

Mattr - Love it. You've hit the nail on the head in some respects. We get a plethera of mamils out around us bobbing around, sweating like rapists with there posh plastic bikes.

One of the problems with carbon rims is there relative lack of stopping power which is one of the reasons for disc development. I understand that Reynolds wheels have come up with a solution to this which will be coming out shortly if you have deep pockets.

BTW Spartacus runs non electronic shifters.

Different markets

Long term roaddies wont change to discs .

Mtbers who need road bike to improve training and fitness will buy road bike with discs .