Was just reading a thread on how crap some deep drop calliper brakes can be, and earlier I was reading an article about road disc brakes and how they are the best thing since sliced bread. It got me thinking….

My road bike, which has cable discs, is off the road at the min because some prat drove into me and pringled the back wheel. So I dusted off the old 26″ Cannondale badboy with v-brakes…

Why didn’t road bikes go from callipers to v-brakes before taking the huge step to disc brakes? V-brakes are pretty good, even when set up poorly and not serviced/cleaned for 3 months (ahem..).. Just wondering why they never caught on with road bikes? Any thoughts? If road bikes needed better brakes, v-brakes would have been an easier adaptation than discs?

Dunno why people don’t just put a bit of roofing tar on their rims tbh. This certainly sharpens things up a bit.

Why didn’t road bikes go from callipers to v-brakes before taking the huge step to disc brakes?

I don’t have an issue with the caliper brakes on my road bikes, wouldn’t say v’s were better, just different.

Slowing down on a road bike is for the weak.

Was just reading a thread on how crap some deep drop calliper brakes can be

Most road bikes don’t have deep drop calipers.

V’s are heavier than calipers, would require different mounting points, different levers (different cable pull you see) and they’re not especially aero. Also modern calipers like Ultegra actually work really well in the dry…

Put it this way, discs may also require all of the above to be changed too, but the benefits are much greater. V’s are old tech in MTB’s, why would the roadies want to adopt it?

Some aero/ TT bikes have versions of V-brakes, but they’re specialist machines, and not really what most people use. Everyone else has bikes which conform to the same standard brake fittings, and no one would have gone to v-brakes as they’d need to create completely new frames/ forks to fit.
TBH I don’t really find road discs so amazingly better than good quality rim brakes – riding in the rain yesterday, with SRAM HRD discs they still take a while to start to bite and actually slow the bike down – particularly if you’ve been sitting steadily for 10 or 15 minutes without using the brakes so that they’re cold and very wet. Obviously when warmed up they’re fine.

Lots of touring bikes with v’s or mini v’s.

Even deep drop calipers don’t really have enough room for decently sized tyres and guards.

There are V specific drop bar levers, like the Tektro 520, which work well with cable discs too.