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Tom Boonen says he can stop a disc brake rotor at 60kph with his hand - so Belgian newspaper puts the theory to the test

"I can't understand the fuss," says Quick Step Floors rider who has championed the controversional technology...

When Tom Boonen, the most high-profile advocate of disc brakes in the peloton, said that he could stop a wheel spinning at 60 kilometres an hour by grabbing the rotor with his hand, Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad decided to put his theory to the test.

The controversial technology has been back in the news this past week after Team Sky’s Owain Doull claimed that his shoe had been sliced open by the disc brake rotor on the bike of Marcel Kittel when the pair crashed on the opening stage of the Abu Dhabi Tour last week, although it’s far from clear that is what damaged the shoe.

> Kittel ditches the disc brakes after Doull controversy

Speaking ahead of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, Boonen said: “I maintain that they are not dangerous. I’ve dared to stop a wheel at 60 kilometres an hour with my hand.

“It’s absurd,” he continued. “Disc brakes seem at the moment to be the biggest problem in the world.”

> Pro Bike: Tom Boonen's custom Specialized Venge ViAS Disc for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

Boonen added: “I can’t understand the fuss. A crash involving 30 riders with broken legs and arms isn’t news. But one abrasion, allegedly caused by a disc brake, is worldwide news.”

Het Nieuwsblad put Boonen’s theory to the test at the race it sponsors.

Prior to the start, a reporter visited the bus of Belgian UCI Professional Continental team Veranda’s Willems Crelan, also using disc brakes this weekend on its Felt bikes.

A video on the newspaper’s website shows the team’s mechanic, Tim Dejonghe, stopping the wheel at full speed with no injury to his hand.

Concerns remain about the safety of the technology and as we reported yesterday, Lotto-Soudal’s Adam Hansen has accused Specialized – the bike sponsor of Quick Step Floors – of trying to rush it into the peloton.

> Lotto-Soudal’s Hansen says Specialized is trying to force disc brakes on peloton

He also noted claimed that Boonen, who rides his final race at Paris-Roubaix in April,  had changed his tune over disc brakes.

Hansen said: “Tom Boonen was against disc brakes last year, now he’s retiring this year and loves them.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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47 comments

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RoadYeti | 7 years ago
0 likes

Road discs. Real brakes finally come to road bikes. Love mine. Go Tom. Check out team mechanic Tim Dejonghe in the vid and then state your case against. He's a badass

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Butty | 7 years ago
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Can he also do a video of a spud falling on to the end of some bar ends/ upturned brake lever/ upturned forks.

They'll all show the maiming and disembowlment that will happen to riders in a crash.

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Comrade | 7 years ago
0 likes

How did he get the potato to land on the brick? Genius. 

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gnarlyrider | 7 years ago
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Imagine  a disc equipped bike being crashed onto its right hand side, rear disc upper most. Imagine too a following rider cannot avoid the fallen rider(s) and falls to the right and that this rider's knee runs in the exposed disc at speed.  

Imagine someone in the bike industry tested this effect of this.  It would take a lot of effort to set up right? Wrong.  Cue video and watch without wincing if you can 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-WDJhZsAI

 

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Rich_cb replied to gnarlyrider | 7 years ago
0 likes
gnarlyrider wrote:

Imagine  a disc equipped bike being crashed onto its right hand side, rear disc upper most. Imagine too a following rider cannot avoid the fallen rider(s) and falls to the right and that this rider's knee runs in the exposed disc at speed.  

Imagine someone in the bike industry tested this effect of this.  It would take a lot of effort to set up right? Wrong.  Cue video and watch without wincing if you can 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-WDJhZsAI

 

To spare anyone else the bother, the video is just a guy dropping a potato out of a window

Last time I checked my knees were not made out of potatoes.

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japes replied to gnarlyrider | 7 years ago
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gnarlyrider wrote:

Cue video and watch without wincing if you can 

actualol there  4

 

would say this is getting ridiculous but I think we passed that stage long ago...

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J90 | 7 years ago
0 likes

Hansen is wise.

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Bigfoz | 7 years ago
1 like

"Campag are notoriously a little slower to change. "

Yeah, cos gears will never catch on, right? Nor quick release wheels.

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arfa | 7 years ago
0 likes

Yes it's only another anecdote but I have descended Ventoux 4 times on my discs (2 of those descents in heat and two in high winds/rain) and did not experience any degradation in braking power at all. Every time I needed braking force, it was there.

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PaulBox | 7 years ago
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Re my comment about discs getting very hot above, my concern is about the effect on the pads and fluid rather than burning another rider in a crash.

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PaulBox | 7 years ago
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Personally I don't give a shit either way when it comes to disc brakes, I have two mtb's with discs and three road bikes with rim brakes.

Are disc brakes dangerous? I know somebody who lost the tips of two fingers from sticking them in the rotor with the bike upside down and spinning fast (he didn't do it on purpose as part of an experiment). I don't know anybody who has ever been injured from them while riding or crashing. I do know somebody who crashed the first time he rode a mtb with them fitted because the idiot in front (me) broke too hard and he overreacted in a v-brake style.

I think there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in terms of rider preferences, team suppliers etc. currently going on in the pro-peleton.

My only genuine concern re discs is the heating issue. On a relatively short downhill run with some hard braking areas your discs can get very hot. How do road discs handle a 10km+ descent of a mountain with a lot of switchbacks? 

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crazy-legs replied to PaulBox | 7 years ago
1 like

PaulBox wrote:

My only genuine concern re discs is the heating issue. On a relatively short downhill run with some hard braking areas your discs can get very hot. How do road discs handle a 10km+ descent of a mountain with a lot of switchbacks? 

IME, very well. You brake far less since the dics are way more powerful so you only need occasional pulls unlike a rim brake where you need to drag them.

On Etape last year, I started the descent of Columbiere and suddenly there were punctures (and crashes) galore around me. Initially I thought someone might have scattered tacks but it was actually rim brakes overheating and then blowing the tyre. It was a baking hot day and I guess lots of people were running high pressures since the roads are nice and smooth.

Disc brakes - no problems at all.

Although I admit the above is not exactly a rigorous scientific test...

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700c replied to crazy-legs | 7 years ago
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crazy-legs wrote:

You brake far less since the dics are way more powerful so you only need occasional pulls unlike a rim brake where you need to drag them.

but that's not true is it, in terms of actual road bike stopping distances, in the dry.

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700c replied to 700c | 7 years ago
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700c wrote:
crazy-legs wrote:

You brake far less since the dics are way more powerful so you only need occasional pulls unlike a rim brake where you need to drag them.

but that's not true is it, in terms of actual road bike stopping distances, in the dry.

..or is it that there is less fade over long distances of braking? Which would then make them more 'powerful' (Which may be the case, but would be good to quantify).

Rims certainly heat up and brakes fade over long distances of braking. Are we saying discs don't? ! Someone test this on alpe d'huez please before I invest  3

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HowardR | 7 years ago
0 likes

Interestingly enough...... You could have gotten a fully suspended, disc brake equipped bike, with 'lovely' wide Westwood type rims & balloon tyres back in the late 1890's......

 

 

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dreamlx10 | 7 years ago
4 likes

Choose wider tyres, choose a kind of suspension system, choose a more upright riding position, choose an 11-32 cassette, choose disc brakes, choose a mountain bike.

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Carton replied to dreamlx10 | 7 years ago
0 likes

dreamlx10 wrote:

Choose wider tyres, choose a kind of suspension system, choose a more upright riding position, choose an 11-32 cassette, choose disc brakes, choose a mountain bike.

You'd be hard pressed to find a modern MTB with an 11-32 cassette, TBH. 

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MoutonDeMontagne | 7 years ago
3 likes

F**k it, lets just take all the brakes away and make them ride fixed. The move to a controlled environment with only left turns, maybe indoors so the weather doesn't have an impact, but can't have too many riders in the same area at a time so lets race say on opposite sides of the left turn. The winner is the first to cross their respective finish line or catch the other rider.

Oh, wait... 

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Danger Dicko | 7 years ago
0 likes

This brake argument is putting me off road cycling just like the tyre size debate put me off moutain biking.

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SingleSpeed | 7 years ago
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First rule of working on a bike stay away from anything spinning, adjust then spin then stop then adjust - not that you always take notice of that  1

 

This is a spectacular eff up and what happens if you put you finger in between the rotor arms and the caliper.

If you do decide to copy and paster this in your browser you've been warned, but you'll never work on a brake whilst it's spinning again  :-@

cheekytrails.co.uk/forum/file.php/0/1745/finger.jpg

It's like Shark vs Chairs, I bet there are Hundreds of thousands of injuries caused by Spokes, Brake Levers, Saddles even and maybe a only couple of hundred from Brake Rotors but for some reason Pro Racers have got their bee in their bonnet about this one, bless 'em the little Snowflakes.

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iso2000 | 7 years ago
2 likes

Held my fingers against my disc rotor whilst checking my brakes at the weekend and survived unharmed. But, somehow I stupidly put my hand inside the spinning wheel and got caught by the bladed spokes. Fcuk me that really did hurt.

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trohos | 7 years ago
0 likes

This is innovation, no need for brakes!!! : P

https://www.bikerumor.com/2017/02/27/152600/

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SingleSpeed replied to trohos | 7 years ago
2 likes

trohos wrote:

This is innovation, no need for brakes!!! : P

https://www.bikerumor.com/2017/02/27/152600/

 

Now if only someone will do something about protecting me from my 44 whirring bladed CX Rays of Death

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Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
7 likes

So when we've got a split of braking equipment , will we be collectively referring to the old school as 'rimmers'?

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SingleSpeed | 7 years ago
1 like

"1. ...rotors do not cut through flesh.

2. Disc rotors can cut through shoes"

 

 

....and most pro level shoes are made of what exactly?

Oh, yes polished and hardened Kangaroo Flesh

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davel | 7 years ago
3 likes

Nothing cuts superMario's salami.

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beezus fufoon | 7 years ago
2 likes

I bet Sagan can stop it with his tongue...

and only Cipollini can better that!!!

 

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Colin Peyresourde | 7 years ago
1 like

People keep saying 'disc brakes don't cut flesh'. I can catagorical counter that by saying that they do. My bike wasn't doing any speed either. I was just pulling the air hose off my tyre valve and sliced up my hand.

Brave mechanic that one. But he only ever puts his hand adjacent to the plane of the disc. Like to see him catch the edge, which is when the rotor will cut. 

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nadsta | 7 years ago
2 likes

Cool vid with the mechanic's thumbs up.

 

Not sure what his thumb would have looked like if the bike was travelling at 50kmh rather than spinning at a standstill though 

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mtm_01 replied to nadsta | 7 years ago
1 like

nadsta wrote:

Cool vid with the mechanic's thumbs up.

 

Not sure what his thumb would have looked like if the bike was travelling at 50kmh rather than spinning at a standstill though 

 

That makes no difference, the back wheel is spinning more like that that it would at 50kph due to the lack of resistance of the ground. 

What isn't there is the 60-90kg of rider pushing against the pedals when the rotor is already on a leg, which in theory still doesn't have the potential to make a rotor a sharp edge.

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