Can I call on the UCI to ban chainrings for me please?

I don’t see why mfrs don’t just make frames & forks with mounts for discs and rim brakes. People can then shut up and run what they like and change as they “need”; pros can keep rim braking for races and others can have discs to keep them “safer” in traffic etc.

tout le monde heureux, as they say chez flashheart

As said up there somewhere, I’d like to know how that rider burnt his arm – can only imagine a pile up at the bottom of a long descent unless rotors cool a lot slower than I thought

(I can picture the new hot swappable dura-ace hydraulic rim brake already – a brave new standard for the bike (marketing) industry)

I think our MX cousins solved the burns issue.

Yeah, they did. Mainly with clothing.

It’s lycra thats the problem here, not disc brakes…..
😀

twisty – Member

I’m guessing that the road pro’s see disks as something being introduced on their race day bikes for marketing purposes rather than something they need

Seems reasonable. In which case, they need to remember that they are human billboards, the entire reason pro cycling exists as a sport is to sell bikes to fat accountants, and to promote innovation in technology and pharmaceuticals.

The big question here is why exactly is CFH so bothered about whether the pros are using discs? Why is anybody so bothered? Apart of course from the pros themselves, but apparently we should just dismiss their views as scaremongering.

This. I don’t race, along with 99% of other road riders, so what the pros use or don’t use is of little relevance to me.

Id like to ask WHY? MTB’ers dont suffer the same fate? is it because bike and rider are separated differently? is it those cleats that are different?

I’d like to ask WHY it matters to you. It doesn’t. Road bikes with discs for the general public are here en masse. Pretty much any road bike you like you can now get with discs. Some you can only get with discs. Much like you can buy road bikes that are under the UCI weight limit. Or time trial bikes that don’t conform to the UCI rules on dimensions or tube profile. You can even buy riding socks that are longer than the UCI sock length limit if you like 🙂

Only time you need to concerned about it is if you want to compete under UCI rules, in which case this is just one of a whole raft of equipment rules you’d need to adhere to. Much like any sport has rules over equipment that can be used in competition.

The big question here is why exactly is CFH so bothered about whether the pros are using discs? Why is anybody so bothered? Apart of course from the pros themselves, but apparently we should just dismiss their views as scaremongering.
This. I don’t race, along with 99% of other road riders, so what the pros use or don’t use is of little relevance to me.

Surely this is a real problem. Surely people who buy high end cutting edge road bikes and people who enter road races are strongly overlapping groups, think worldwide here. For the first time since ever a large proportion of medium/high end road bikes being are illegal for entry in open entry road race events and there is no clarity on whether this will remain the case or not. It is a bloody mess.

Seems reasonable. In which case, they need to remember that they are human billboards, the entire reason pro cycling exists as a sport is to sell bikes to fat accountants, and to promote innovation in technology and pharmaceuticals.

Maybe one day there will be a TdFTurbo, where teams GSK, AZ, etc can fight out to prove who is the dopest. Maybe throw in some e-bike tech just for good measure.

cutting edge road bikes

😉

Surely this is a real problem. Surely people who buy high end cutting edge road bikes and people who enter road races are strongly overlapping groups, think worldwide here.

It’s not.

For the first time since ever a large proportion of medium/high end road bikes being are illegal for entry in open entry road race events and there is no clarity on whether this will remain the case or not. It is a bloody mess.

Not really. You can get pretty much all of them in disc or rim brake options. And there’s loads of high end road bikes out there that are illegal for entry in road race events for one reason or another.

Mr Blobby, of course it matters to me, what a stupid thing to say. I ride Both MTB and road, I’ve ridden many thousands of miles on both and although I’ve never ridden in a pro peleton ive ridden in many One day races, Sportives and MTB events, last year I rode the Red Bull Foxhunt and the Mega Avalanche which I’ve done 4 times. I regularly ride across the Golden Gate Bridge when I’m out there with work, any one who’s ridden that in rush hour has the patience of a saint and the bike handling skills of a Jedi, the pro peleton has nothing on that. “Joke”

I’ve never seen any one impaled on a disk MTBing, I don’t suppose I’ve been around enough road bikes with disks fitted to make that assumption yet adhering to the UCI rules or not? I just wondered why there was such a growing number of injuries on disk brakes, that’s all. I’m not bound the UCI and neither are you.

The number of people who actually road race is tiny compared to the number of people who buy road racing bikes, and is unlikely to be a big influence on this debate.

Pros ride what they are paid to ride. Manufacturers want to sell road bikes with disks to a big market of leisure riders who want to buy road bikes with discs, so I suspect we’ll see discs on pro bikes fairly soon.

xyeti, none of that explains why it matters to you!

Are you seriously asking why some people are concerned about disc brakes on road bikes and whether you need to be concerned?

If you really are asking that, then are you frequently involved in something like this…?

If the answer is no, then you have no reason to be concerned 🙂

If the answer is yes, then you are probably rightly already concerned about anything that might potentially make such a scenario any more dangerous than it already is.

Manufacturers want to sell are selling road bikes with discs in huge numbers to a big market of leisure riders who want to buy road bikes with discs

FTFY. I don’t think the UCI rules make anything but the tiniest impact to those sales.

Beaucoup de mots français.

DES mots

And I thought you spoke French Flashy.

No, I’m not concerned about any one else and have given no thought to the dangers of a disk on skinny tyred bike, I’m curious how I’ve managed to ride a MTB pretty much all over the world and never seen anything even resembling a disk injury either out on the trail or posted on soscial media*

Yet they make their way onto Road bikes and become a health hazard?

I looked at the picture and first thought, which part of the anatomy is that whilst trying to make it look like a leg, then when I realised it was under some ones arm I just tried to imagine scene? And couldn’t.

It matters to me because I ride bikes, I’ve just bought a new road bike with rim brakes and carbon rims which are probably the best brakes I’ve had on a road bike, no doubt I’ll think differently in the wet but they don’t do a propel in disk form. I’m not racing under the UCI banner so don’t need to adhere to sock length or tube profile i just like to know what’s going on with bikes and riders, it helps me make descisions.

Presumably the riders in your pic have just descended whilst dragging their brakes? Because we all know that’s how Pro’s ride, slow in big groups with maximum effort put into braking to generate maximum heat build up in the disks so that when they fall off they get. Burnt

For the first time since ever a large proportion of medium/high end road bikes being are illegal for entry in open entry road race events and there is no clarity on whether this will remain the case or not. It is a bloody mess.

Why does it matter? In the unlikely event I decided to take up road racing I could use my other road bike, which has caliper brakes. How many people out of the tiny fraction who race do you think only have one road bike?

i do think there has been some overreaction by the UCI, ban disc brakes overnight after one accident, which when viewed later showed no one with brake discs on their bike was actually near the fallen rider at Roubaix, yet leave a team like Astana able to race with more chemicals on board than a Boots lorry?

The Telegraph Cycling podcast interviewed Chris Froome, and he said that we would of liked to have used a disc braked bike on a number of the TdF stages after they were banned, i think that they offer better modulation and would mean like any other two wheeled racing sport, that the rider can brake later into a corner and with more control.

But instead of looking at solutions, such as rotor covers and the like, they simply ban them?

i seem to remember an alpine descent this year where one of the Cannondale riders (i think), had his tub come off the wheel as he cornered as the rim had got so hot, the tub glue had come unstuck, so that’s not a risk?

Looking at the image above and what is most certainly a horrific crash, but does the chance of fingers through spokes or a knee on a chainring bear any lesser risk?

Yet they make their way onto Road bikes and become a health hazard?

This is just trolling now 🙄 There can’t be anyone who takes an interest in this stuff who by now doesn’t understand the arguments, what the concerns are, and who is concerned.

It matters to me because I ride bikes

Sounds like it’s of interest to you, but it doesn’t actually matter to you.

Looking at the image above and what is most certainly a horrific crash, but does the chance of fingers through spokes or a knee on a chainring bear any lesser risk?

This is ridiculous whataboutery.

Equipment rules are what they are. Eliminating current risk is a different issue to introducing new risk.

Let’s just do that strawman which CFH is also so fond of. Maybe those things aren’t any lesser risk, but they’re also irrelevant. Why introduce something else which is a risk of causing injury just because there are already some things which do that?

I’ve never seen any one impaled on a disk MTBing,

I burnt myself on one once. Although in fairness, it was clearly quite hot, and i touched it in a moment of great unclarity just to see how hot.

Very.

I am a t**t though, my family regularly remind me.

aracer – Member
scud » Looking at the image above and what is most certainly a horrific crash, but does the chance of fingers through spokes or a knee on a chainring bear any lesser risk?
Let’s just do that strawman which CFH is also so fond of. Maybe those things aren’t any lesser risk, but they’re also irrelevant. Why introduce something else which is a risk of causing injury just because there are already some things which do that?

I appreciate that the last thing you want to do is add greater risk, what i was trying to state was, they use bladed spokes, chain rings have been known to take a gouge out of a shin, yet they are used without compromise, no one has told them to use round spokes or blunt their chain rings, yet here you have companies offering solutions to the problem of the hot/sharp brake rotor, but instead of working with them, they simply enforce a blanket ban? Why ban one thing for being a risk where solutions are out there, but then say other things that pose a risk don’t need changing?

…..they haven’t banned press motorbikes around they peloton and they have killed riders (i know the Police bikes are needed for rider safety and road closures)

they simply enforce a blanket ban?

They’ve not. It was a trial. The trial has been suspended pending a review. Trial will likely restart in 2017.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/exclusive-uci-restart-disc-brake-trial-2017-281657

…..they haven’t banned press motorbikes around they peloton and they have killed riders (i know the Police bikes are needed for rider safety and road closures)

Whataboutery of a rather crass variety.

Whataboutery, but I guess that comes down to the sport being all about the publicity, so they simply can’t ban those.

The thing with discs is that there isn’t a huge perceived advantage to them – I’ll admit to having no desire at all to get a road bike with disc brakes (if I won the lottery I might just get a nicer bike with rim brakes), because I very rarely encounter a situation where my rim brakes make me slower or limit what I do in any way – and I was an early adopter of disc brakes on MTBs so totally aware of the benefits. Hence the bar required in terms of safety is rather higher than that for an essential like a chainring (in reality I doubt the pros are bothered about chainrings anyway, because in a typical crash situation the chainring already has a protector around it preventing the sharp bits cutting into anything).

The thing with discs is that there isn’t a huge perceived advantage to them – I’ll admit to having no desire at all to get a road bike with disc brakes (if I won the lottery I might just get a nicer bike with rim brakes), because I very rarely encounter a situation where my rim brakes make me slower or limit what I do in any way – and I was an early adopter of disc brakes on MTBs so totally aware of the benefits. Hence the bar required in terms of safety is rather higher than that for an essential like a chainring (in reality I doubt the pros are bothered about chainrings anyway, because in a typical crash situation the chain ring already has a protector around it preventing the sharp bits cutting into anything).

Whilst i don’t race to any real level, i do ride a disc braked road bike, having ridden a number of “normal” road bikes before and still riding a singlespeed with caliper brakes to work, the disc brakes (Shimano RS685) are much better than the Ultegra brakes on my previous bike, greater modulation and overall greater outright power.

The example i always go back to is from riding the Tour de Yorkshire last year, where it was absolutely p*ssing it down, so the road was an inch deep in water coming down a 15% hill, i managed to brake and make the left turn at the bottom and the much lighter guy next to me did not and went straight over the junction and through windscreen of a van. So whilst it is an extreme example, they do give you a greater confidence and control in the worst of weathers.

Plus on the commute to work, it again has really helped that i can bring myself to a stop from 18-20mph within a yard when that taxi/BMW/school mum (delete as appropriate) pulls out in front of me.

There is a really interesting article by Caley Fretz of Velonews on it all where he interviewed a number of the pro’s and team bosses from the World Tour for Telegrapsh cycling podcast, strangely enough it was as dividing amongst them as it is the posts above.

Surely this is a real problem. Surely people who buy high end cutting edge road bikes and people who enter road races are strongly overlapping groups, think worldwide here.

It’s not.

For the first time since ever a large proportion of medium/high end road bikes being are illegal for entry in open entry road race events and there is no clarity on whether this will remain the case or not. It is a bloody mess.

Not really. You can get pretty much all of them in disc or rim brake options. And there’s loads of high end road bikes out there that are illegal for entry in road race events for one reason or another.

[/quote]

Currently my N=1xMTB and 1xTriathlon bike.
I want to N plus 1 so I have something more sensible to generally road ride on and enable me to do the race series here which needs UCI compliant bike.
I’d like disk brakes, but obviously not if it forbade me from the races.
If I buy a disk brake bike and I can’t race on it next year then that’d be very annoying.
If I buy a rim brake bike and then disk brakes are permitted in races next year or year after then that’d also be annoying.
So I am myself affected, I didn’t realise I was in such a unique category of people.

So I am myself affected, I didn’t realise I was in such a unique category of people.

You are probably the only category that is. A rider who is buying one road bike for general riding and wants to dabble in racing.

Rules won’t change next year. Looks like there’ll be a review of the trial towards the end of next year. So it’d be 2018 season at the earliest assuming trial is positive.

Sounds like you need N+2 😉

So whilst it is an extreme example, they do give you a greater confidence and control in the worst of weathers.

It’s not really that great an example. Rider misjudges braking for a corner and crashes. Regardless of your braking technology, if you misjudge its capabilities you’re going to crash.

Also the example has little relevance to the nature of the safety concerns raised by pro riders.

+1 – I was thinking about the best way to reply and you’ve done better than I could have. I’ll grant that in some conditions you have to brake a bit earlier, but as I said before it’s very rare, and I’ve certainly never crashed due to inadequate braking. We’ve done all this before, but the ultimate power and the modulation of rim brakes is also fine in normal conditions (I’m sure I’ll get the usual scathing comments, but I can still endo my road bike with my rim brakes, hence using sufficient braking to not quite lift the rear wheel is as hard as I can brake whatever braking technology I’m using).

Given we’re discussing the pros, I’m also really struggling to think of a situation where one of them crashed due to inadequate braking (rather than misjudging it – which is the case for pretty much any failure to take a corner I can think of, where disc brakes wouldn’t have helped at all).

So whilst it is an extreme example, they do give you a greater confidence and control in the worst of weathers.
It’s not really that great an example. Rider misjudges barking for a corner and crashes. Regardless of your braking technology, if you misjudge its capabilities you’re going to crash.

But if rim brakes are so confidence inspiring in all weathers, why do the reviews for so many top end carbon rimmed road wheels state time and time again that they are often poor in the rain, why have Mavic and others sought to add basalt and other things into the rim braking surface to try and improve what is often acknowledged as poor braking performance in the wet?

What about World Tour riders where they come down a long Alpine descent and the heat build up in the rim causes the tub to fall off as it did this year in the Tour? Taking the heat build up to the rotor instead of a few mm from the tub glue in the rim, must have some advantages?

Link to podcast of Caley Fretz of Velonews discussing with a number of pro’s and team bosses (EPISODE 38)

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/telegraph-cycling-podcast/id665713706?mt=2

and some disadvantages given it’s a smaller bit of metal with much less surface area. I’ve had disc brakes fade and it’s not a pleasant experience. Given this thread opened with asking the differences between MTB and road, generally on MTB you’re not dumping as much energy into the brakes as quickly as you can on the road.

mrblobby – Member

You are probably the only category that is. A rider who is buying one road bike for general riding and wants to dabble in racing.

Thing is, that’s probably one of the most important categories when it comes to getting riders into racing. But then again there’s still race/race-like events that you can do with discs aren’t there?

and some disadvantages given it’s a smaller bit of metal with much less surface area. I’ve had disc brakes fade and it’s not a pleasant experience. Given this thread opened with asking the differences between MTB and road, generally on MTB you’re not dumping as much energy into the brakes as quickly as you can on the road.

Not sure i wholeheartedly agree, i think you brake more frequently and with greater force riding a mountain bike down an Alpine black run, than you do riding a road bike down an alpine road? There is a reason that a downhill bike runs 180-200mm discs but a road bike can easily run 140mm?

I you think about a motorbike racer coming into a corner being similar to a road bike coming down a long hill where 0.5 of a second can easily cover the first five places in a race, doesn’t the racer who can brake last and with more control in to a corner have the speed advantage?

On a typical mountain bike run you have the terrain also slowing you down and actually you’re going slower, so not converting potential to kinetic energy as fast. Certainly the two times I’ve had brake fade, one was on tarmac, the other on a very high speed non technical off-road descent of ~1000m vertical.

Not sure what your second point is – as I mentioned before, in most conditions the braking is just as powerful with rim brakes, and generally in the wet they’re not having outbraking into corners competitions.

On a mtb you often have more grip to play with so late and hard braking is no problem.. therefore your brakes only get smouldering hot on very long fast descents with plenty of dragging..

On a road bike you have less grip to play with so you have to brake further in advance (more dragging) and hence the brakes would get hotter? Couple this with the fact that rotors are generally smaller on a road bike than on a mtb and the potential highwer speeds it’s no wonder the rotors get hotter..

Not sure what your second point is – as I mentioned before, in most conditions the braking is just as powerful with rim brakes, and generally in the wet they’re not having outbraking into corners competitions.

BUT… why in the wet are they not having “outbraking into corner competitions”? because in my mind, they know that the rim brakes can’t perform the same as they would in the dry? In this day of so called marginal gains and having seen lots of grand tour stages where a brilliant climber then slightly minces on the descent because the conditions were bad has lost numerous places? Watching the TdF this summer, there were stages where someone like Patano out a lot of time into others being fearless on the descent.

Personally, i think that both have there place, if brake rotors were made safe, why can’t Froome and others choose on the day depending on the conditions whether they want to use rim brakes or disc, in the same way they want to use 25 or 28mm tyres, or 38 or 50mm deep section wheels depending on the conditions?

It’s a pain in the arse for me. I find using discs for commuting better than using rim brakes. More consistent, no rim wear..just better. However I also do a bit of road racing meaning at the moment I can’t use the same bike for commuting/general riding and for racing. I like using the same bike as a) it reduces costs by having one less bike to maintain and b) I get used to the position and my training benefits (not having to move powermeters about and so on). However I’m in the minority – a lot of people don’t race, those that do probably switch happily between bikes or only race and train and aren’t bothered by commuting.

I’ve ridden in a few road races in groups (I normally can only get into Crits) and in all honestly I can’t see how discs are any worse than chain rings, QR levers sticking out and so on apart from the heat issue. But then I’m not a pro roadie and if I fall off and hurt myself, I ring up work on Monday and tell them I won’t be in, or I work from home – that isn’t going to work for someone who’s livelihood is dependent on being able to make the next race

I can’t see how discs are any worse than chain rings,

Well, there’s obviously the cutting action of a rotor still turning, but I think one of the main issues, especially with hot rotors if that in the peleton you could be buried under a pile of other riders for some time with a very hot rotor on you (potentially).

The outer chainring on a pros bike is almost always covered by the chain so it’s quite well protected actually.

On a mtb you often have more grip to play with so late and hard braking is no problem.. therefore your brakes only get smouldering hot on very long fast descents with plenty of dragging..

On a road bike you have less grip to play with so you have to brake further in advance (more dragging) and hence the brakes would get hotter? Couple this with the fact that rotors are generally smaller on a road bike than on a mtb and the potential highwer speeds it’s no wonder the rotors get hotter..

I’m assuming there is supposed to be some sarcasm in here or something.
Obviously tarmac grips much better than dirt.

Tarmac may grip better than dirt but a Mtb tyre also grips much better road tyre.

Off road you can grab as much brake as you like without much (unwanted) drama.. on the road you can’t just slam on the anchors late so you are braking for longer to loose equivalent speed which allows more heat to build up..

I’m not buying the rider through the windscreen analogy at all as that would imply everyone on the event ran disks except him? There’s a bit more to it than that, experience, bike suitability, roadwortyness even down to riders eyesight or vision, I mean with an inch of standing water, I rode that event too by the way and the weather was shocking, but I managed it on rim brakes without collecting a Van.

Tarmac may grip better than dirt but a Mtb tyre also grips much better road tyre.

Off road you can grab as much brake as you like without much (unwanted) drama.. on the road you can’t just slam on the anchors late so you are braking for longer to loose equivalent speed which allows more heat to build up..

If this was a physics test you’d have scored minus infinity out of 10.

Thanks, if this was a beauty pageant I’d score fairly poorly too.

Right or wrong IMO factors which ‘may’ contribute to the perceived issue = smaller rotors than mtb so heat up much quicker, generally higher speeds, more brake dragging.

I put some new rotors on my road bike today.

Unfortunately I’m now having to type this with my nose.