Maybe the disc brakes should come with a warning
“For competent cyclists only”

🙄

Yes, probably. But that’ll make them wildly inferior to the idiot proof rim brakes people seem keen to ‘upgrade’.

Whilst I can understand the brake boiling issue with hydraulic systems, surely a cable disk offers most of the advantages without this one (potentially fatal) downside.

Why aren’t manufacturers pushing this option?

Having said that I’ve never used a cable disk brake, so perhaps someone is about to come along and tell me how useless/heavy/unreliable they are.

Weight and the need to constantly adjust the static pad I imagine.

I’m still unsure of the neutral service and wheel swapping implications of disc brakes in the pro peleton. Totally unsure how they’ll sort that successfully.

I guess they’ll be close enough to work, or team mechanics will get good at undoing caliper bolts on the fly 😯

I still think there’s one point being missed here

When I complained about how bad rim brakes were compared to discs somebody on here gave me an earful and told me road bike brakes weren’t to stop you but to lose a bit of speed!Mind you my ultegras didn’t even do that.

I’ve never felt that they weren’t powerful enough, to the extent I ‘upgraded’ to the planet-x forged calipers, which weigh naff all, but are less powerful. I’ve not missed the power. And I’m a 210lb fatty!

I can see a point in the wet, or mud, but as 95% of nice road bikes only ever see a sunny sunday morning that’s a fairly spurious argument. A commuter or cross bike would benefit given their use in the mud and rain, but the current setup of road bike brakes just works.

matthew_h – Member

I’m still unsure of the neutral service and wheel swapping implications of disc brakes in the pro peleton. Totally unsure how they’ll sort that successfully.

Just the same as they do now with different gear options, SRAM Shimano Compagnolo Carbon rims Alloy rims etc.

njee20 – Member

I guess they’ll be close enough to work, or team mechanics will get good at undoing caliper bolts on the fly

Indeed.

Engineers on here, how hard would it be to agree and stay accurate to a really tight “standard” for both the thickness (when new/unworn) and the distance of the brake rotor from the NDS locknut? If you could get hub and rotor manufacturers to be accurate to within say 0.1mm, would that make wheel changes on neutral support cars workable?

Engineers on here, how hard would it be to agree and stay accurate to a really tight “standard” for both the thickness (when new/unworn) and the distance of the brake rotor from the NDS locknut?

well, my take on this, how many headset standards are there? how many bottom bracket standards? even disc brake mounts?

I really doubt anyone is going to agree on one standard.

Aside from performance, one thing that sells hydraulic discs to me is the almost complete lack of maintenance needed. Change the pads once a year or two, and if you’re unlucky you might have to bleed them at some point.

Not so much an issue for the fair weather riders, but if you’re out regularly in typical UK conditions you’re forever adjusting and tweaking. Picking bits of metal out of your pads. Afraid to use them when those bits of metal start grinding. Cleaning. More adjusting and tweaking. New cables. New pads. And so on.

Out of the entire bicycle. Rim brakes are the biggest pain in the arse. There’s not a week goes by when they don’t need attention.

Set up correctly disc brakes are very precise as to where the rotor/frame/caliper are. I can quite happily swap wheels on two of my bikes.

Out of the entire bicycle. Rim brakes are the biggest pain in the arse. There’s not a week goes by when they don’t need attention.

er?????

I am doing 6000+miles per year in all conditions on the road bike and 1000 on the mtb.

Guess which brakes need more work?

The discs on the mtb by a country mile. The calipers on the road bike just work, no gaffing, no fiddling.

Set up correctly disc brakes are very precise as to where the rotor/frame/caliper are. I can quite happily swap wheels on two of my bikes.

Can be, but take two frame manufacturers two wheel manufacturers now get them to agree what goes where to the point where all wheels fit all frames with no shims?

I rode just under 6,000 miles last year. Most of them on my caliper rim braking road bike. Half of those miles I rode on a pair of 1998 Campagnolo Neutron wheels which I changed midyear because I got sideswiped by a car driver rather too keen to turn off without looking properly – but it was ok because she punted me into a bus stop which had just been resurfaced with that especially grippy coloured tarmac so I stopped very quickly with my elbows and knees in time for her to continue her turn and drive off with a large dent in the side of the car as though nothing had happened.
I’m currently using some wheels built for me by Monty Young in 1997. The brake blocks were put on the bike in 2006 when I replaced the original groupset with shiny new carbon Centaur.
My main road bike was until last year still running just fine on 2005 Record – I think I might have replaced the brake blocks on that in 2007 – since that time I’d ridden 5 Dragon Rides, 4 weeks in the high Pyrenees, a week in the Alps before ridng la Marmotte, a week in the Dolomites before riding Maratone dles Dolomites, I’d also ridden 3x Tour of Flanders, ridden 5,000 + miles since 2007 a year on Sunday club runs and other riding. Oh, and most of all that riding was on a set of 2006 Eurus which I’ve retired to my cyclo cross bike now.
I don’t get this sudden rash of bikes with brakes that don’t work, blocks that wear out when it rains, wheel rims that wear out in 6 months…. please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

aP – Member

please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

You sound like a rider who doesnt use his brakes, a pure menace on the roads charging around at break neck speeds putting all the other road users at risk and depriving component manufacturers of a good living. 😉

I do find pads wear fairly quickly in winter, about it though. My PowerTap wheel lasted 3 years before I rebuilt it, perfectly happy with that!

Engineers on here, how hard would it be to agree and stay accurate to a really tight “standard” for both the thickness (when new/unworn) and the distance of the brake rotor from the NDS locknut?

Dead easy, especially at a pro level where the kit’s going to get replaced fairly regularly before it’s worn out. The main wearign component is going to be the forks dropout. Most adjustment is there to account for manufacturing inaccuracies in the fork, the hub and caliper are milled so probably accurate to +/- 0.1mm at least (the milling bit will wear through a run so it’s not going to be exact even if the machine is set up correct for the first part).

How often are the neutral service called upon anyway? I assumed it was primarily just an advertising gig for Mavic as most of the teams have several cars following with wheels the bikes are already set up for rather than chucking some mavic wheels in, then having to adjust the brakes, then the gears being out, etc.