Road Brakes – will calipers become obsolete

I don’t have discs yet.

I don’t have brakes at all.  That is the point, we don’t all need the same.  I haven’t had brakes for years and the area I ride in (flat, no pedestrians, no roundabouts, no traffic lights, very few junctions etc,.) and the type of riding I do (mostly off road) mean that I haven’t needed brakes at any time.  I can slow down and/or lock rear wheel to stop effectively so don’t need the weight or hassle of any brakes.

I can stop as well as I need to and if I had rim brakes I could stop more quickly and if I had discs then a bit more quickly again.  It is where you draw the line based on your needs.

The only reason they’ll stick about is Luddites and legacy hardware.

That’ll be one of the less thinly veiled instances I was referring to 😉

I can stop as well as I need to and if I had rim brakes I could stop more quickly and if I had discs then a bit more quickly again

Ever heard of this thing called an unexpected emergency stop?

on a related subject, has anyone recently built up a modern TT bike?

I’m nearly finished building Mrs Stoner’s new race bike, a Planet X EXO3.

Holy mother of god is it a ball ache. internal cable routing is a given, but internal brake calipers?

Weird v-brake calipers, specific for certain TT frames by TRP. The v-noodle has to be inside the BB shell!

Sheesh, there’s more room between Cyri Smith’s thighs than there is in this frame for the brake pads. I admit Mrs S’s race wheels  are a little chubby (carbon U profiles) but Ive had to sand half of the material from the carbon brake blocks to get them fit, not to mention putting on the slimmest washers I have. Still, it does look bloody fast even stood still.

can see them becoming more popular in races like Roubaix and Flanders where the ability to run a 30c tyre and to be able to carry on riding with damage to rim might become popular, but it will take time for die hard racers.

I explained before why this is unlikley to happen soon, it’s because racers need to easily change wheels quickly at the front of the race with no team car available.

See these people in the pic below with wheels, that is to enable quick changes without a team car near.

I don’t have brakes at all. That is the point, we don’t all need the same.

The law says otherwise on this point.

See these people in the pic below with wheels, that is to enable quick changes without a team car near.

You do know that’s not a bunch of neutral support people don’t you? You’ll find that those teams with thru-axles and disc brakes actually have their guys stnading with the right wheels. It’s why Roompot had their entire team on disc brakes rather than just a couple of test riders last year. Neutral support already take into account 3 different pedal systems on the spare bikes at the tour so adding in two different wheel standards isn’t beyond the realms of reality now that the industry seems to have settled on 12mm TA and flat-mount discs.

but Ive had to sand half of the material from the carbon brake blocks to get them fit

Yeah, that’s pretty standard :-/

Ever heard of this thing called an unexpected emergency stop?

Yes, like a horse or deer running across in front of you.  I can stop for that, I could stop a bit quicker with rim brakes and quicker still with disc brakes.  What is your point exactly?

I don’t even know what the argument is about now.

I don’t even know what the argument is about now.

I’m not sure anyone does, someone asked a relatively innocent question and inadvertently kicked a hornet’s nest of presumption and counter-twattery… New forum, same old users.

I don’t even know what the argument is about now.

Someone asked if rim brakes would become obsolete, lots of people discussed the matter and various semi-related aspects, then somebody else said he doesn’t use any brakes at all so, erm, maybe?….yeah, as you were –>

New forum, same old users.

By the time you have read through to this post, disk brakes will be obselete too 🙂

I don’t even know what the argument is about now.

It is about whether everyone really needs disc brakes on a road bike and whether they will have any choice not too as all road bikes will be sold with disc brakes in the future.  If we look at what happened to MTB you cannot buy a bike without discs unless you get one that is a budget model where it is cheaper to use up old rim brakes.

Not everyone needs or wants them (my obscure point proves that) yet they won’t really have any choice.   How much that matters varies by person.

This is going to make it to five pages. What a time to be alive.

By the time you have read through to this post, disk brakes will be obselete too

Actually, they were obsolete decades ago, people just didn’t realize that it was possible to make brakes that worked properly regardless of the weather.

Not everyone needs or wants them (my obscure point proves that) yet they won’t really have any choice.   How much that matters varies by person.

Not really, you used your experience riding “mostly offroad” in an area that’s “flat, no pedestrians, no roundabouts, no traffic lights, very few junctions etc” as an example, but generally brakeless hipsters are just a live experiment in Darwinism and riding in an area completely devoid of normal road hazards sort of makes your anecdote kind of irrelevant…

But do get a front brake buddy, a rim caliper would be good enough 😉

</counter-twattery>

ugarizza

By the time you have read through to this post, disk brakes will be obselete too

I’m ahead of the trend.

Drum brakes… 🙂

+1 point for drum brakes

+1 point for fat front (only)

+1 point for alt-bars

+1 point for no derailleurs

-Eleventymillion points for a frame bag that doesn’t fit properly! 😉

Those uneven gaps and clashing of triangles really upsets me….I’m going to go ride my bike to calm down.

You either have to a racer, someone on a serious budget, or maybe someone who does steady rides in Norfolk to buy a (new) rim brake bike these days.

I ride in hills, don’t race, and had a pretty good budget, but I still went rim for a new carbon road bike last year. Same money bought me better frame and better wheels than would have done with discs. Living in Oz I don’t expect to ride it in the rain much, I admit, but even then my commuter with 105 rim brakes has never failed me in the rain, even towing 40 kgs of toddlers and trailer.

Apologies if this has been done, but it seems to me the engineering penalty for calliper compatibility on a road bike is far less, ie just a hole through the bridge and fork crown rather than posts, no suspension to worry about etc. I feel like road bikes tend to have a longer service life than mtbs too, plus they’re a more conservative bunch! I’d go discs if I was buying a new one, but I’m not worried about the support of my calliper braked 2011 road bike like I am my 2010 26” wheeled, straight head tube Mtb!

Not really,

Yes really.  Not everybody needs or wants disc brakes, yet if the only bikes available have disc brakes then they have no choice.

… yet if…

So, not really then…

Bikes without disc brakes are quite widely available…

cookeaa wrote:

Bikes without disc brakes are quite widely available…

Bikes with 26″ wheels were quite widely available a few years ago, so yes really.