A road.cc reader has filmed the moment he says the disc brake rotor of a fellow cyclist he was riding with caused a deep cut in his leg, which a week and a half later is still an open wound.
Peter Curtis-Brown sent us the above footage of the incident, which happened on Sunday 23 April when he was on a café ride with friends passing through Cholmondeley near Nantwich in Cheshire.
“It was a small social group ride and the group had split up at a junction,” he told us. “They were in the process of coming back together.
“As I slowed up the two riders behind me did not react in time and crashed into me. It was at very slow speed. I didn’t even fall off. The video shows the disc brake-equipped bike coming up my right-hand side.”
The 43-year-old, who works as a broker consultant for an insurance company and lives in Nantwich, was treated at Leighton Hospital in Crewe, and took this picture the following day.
“The wound was cleaned and the skin unpicked out (very painful), with the whole process taking about three hours,” he said, adding that no other rider was hurt in the incident.
The bike that ran into Peter’s leg was a 2017 Specialized Roubaix.
The California-based firm has been at the centre of the controversy over the trial of disc brakes in professional cycling, with Lotto-Soudal rider Adam Hansen saying in January that the brand was trying to force the technology on the peloton before concerns over safety had been fully resolved.
> Lotto-Soudal pro Adam Hansen says Specialized is trying to force disc brakes on peloton
But last month, the company’s founder and CEO, Mike Sinyard, said he believed that disc brakes were “adding to safety, not danger, and if anything, the chainring on the front is a bit more dangerous.”
He predicted that all professional riders would be racing on bikes within disc brakes within two years, and that in future all road bikes would have them.
> Specialized boss Mike Sinyard says in future, all road bikes will have disc brakes
Peter sent the company photos of the disc brake rotor, on which blood can be seen, with the company asking him if he could provide a link to the video, but said he was “disappointed” with its response.
Referring to the picture below, he told us: “This blade looks like it is designed to cut and if you look at the blood line I feel it influenced the severity of my cut.
“More work needs to be done to make these safer bearing in mind this is on a 2017 model bike being sold today!”
Peter said that his experience had led him to change his opinion of disc brakes.
“Prior to this incident I did not hold a strong option on the use of disc brakes,” he said. “I now feel that in their current state they are only suitable when riding by yourself.
“If they can do that much damage in such a low speed crash then they should not be on bikes that are going to be used in group rides whether that be amateur of professional.
“On a side note the injury has impacted me more that I first thought it would,” he continued.
“I can’t exercise at the moment as the wound is still open,” said Peter, who sent us this picture of how it looks 10 days on.
“I have had to withdraw from a triathlon I was due to compete in,” he added.
“I am going away this weekend and it was due to involve some open water swimming. I can’t do that now. I have not been able to go swimming at the gym so probably a month’s membership will go down the drain.”
We have contacted Specialized UK for a comment.
91 thoughts on “Video: road.cc reader films moment he says his leg was cut by disc brake rotor”
*grabs popcorn*
*grabs popcorn*
Scoob_84 wrote:
Is that spinning popcorn in lab conditions or out on the road?
Didn’t appear to aid stopping
Didn’t appear to aid stopping either.
chicks dig scars!
chicks dig scars!
At least the wound looks
At least the wound looks happy…
Kudos, not so much as a
Kudos, not so much as a muttered expletive. I’d be crying like a little girl.
I can’t see ( in the video)
I can’t see ( in the video) where the rotor touches anyone???
They should be more worried
They should be more worried about their group riding skills.
That’s pretty nasty.
That’s pretty nasty. Regardless of my own anti-disc prejudices (I accept they’re not going away any time soon.. ) why can’t manufacturers round off the edges at least? Id be pretty pissed that new equipment these manufacturers are pushing could have injured me in that way due to the design.
Crashes are almost inevitable in group riding so should they perhaps revisit the design?
..and yes, the group riding
..and yes, the group riding skills are appalling here. But you can’t legislate for that and the manufacturers should have for seen such a situation.
Does look suspiciously like
Does look suspiciously like the rotor could be the item causing the injury. I’m very pro disk but this looks fairly convincing.
OT I know. What the hell was making that noise? Has he got spokey dokes?
No sign on the audio that there was a verbal warning of a slowing/stop. The group I ride in shout out car up/down, junction stop etc.
Still believe there are far more pros to disk brakes than negatives.
Okay, so:
Okay, so:
Assuming that the leg pictures are all of the correct orientation, how come he got a cut on his left leg from a right-side impact?
I’d say given the impact speed of the first bike it’s the more likely culprit, but that still doesn’t explain a cut on the front of his leg!
Or is it just me?
STiG911 wrote:
The picture is of the back of his right calf.
This is the first time I’ve seen anything that suggests a disc can cut, but I still don’t believe they’re a serious safety hazard. Potholes are more dangerous and there are hundreds of thousands of those about.
STiG911 wrote:
Think it’s just you. Photo of injury clearly looks to be lateral (outer) aspect of right calf slightly posterior to midline. Disk is on left side of front wheel. Mechanism of injury seems pretty straightforward.
Edited to add – SuperG – while there are no doubt exceptions, as a general rule, cross and MTB races tend to have fewer instances of riders sticking in large groups, and certainly less likelihood pf multi-rider crashes.
Right, that does it. As soon
Right, that does it. As soon as I get home I’m going to remove the brake rotors from my bike. It’ll make it much safer that way!
So rounding off won’t do much
So rounding off won’t do much an external projection like that would require a larger radius than the thickness of the disc to be of any use. I think from memory on a car external projections need to be minimum 3.2 radius to be legal and that is only really affective at low speeds. I don’t think the actual rotating disc is much of an issue either the issue is the minimum 60+ kg rider and bike hiting someone with a thin piece of metal at speed.
Either way discs aren’t going anywhere but I can understand why racers are a little bit underwhelmed for them it yet another risk they have to deal with and the marginal gain (for them) doesn’t seem to be worth it.
I’ll take my engineers hat of now and go and look at some sexy bikes.
I really don’t know how I’ve
I really don’t know how I’ve survived mtb and cyclocross for all these years without a disc injury!
I must say the group were dis
I must say the group were dis-organised and not paying attention to have this coming together.
Unlucky injury, it could of been or not the disc rotor, there are so many sharp pointy bits on a cycle which can open skin like a stanley knife.
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Really? What, like rim brakes?
CXR94Di2 wrote:
The problem is, other sharp spikey bits (such as the chainrings) are essential to the functioning of the bicycle, therefore the risk is implied. Disc breaks aren’t essential to the functioning of the bike as rim breaks can be used effectively instead, and so this is an added risk when cycling.
Ultimately, it comes down to a balance of how much extra risk you’re willing to take for the performance gain it goves you. For me, it’s just not worth it.
Rotating cutting tool…
Rotating cutting tool… albeit with a blunt rounded cutting edge. This is the sort of incident that I could see doing exactly the damage it did.
In higher energy impacts I’d struggle to see how the disc would remain in contact with the leg for so long, but in a slow incident like this, you can see how it happens.
I was going to buy a new
I was going to buy a new angle grinder this month but clearly disc brakes are better.
watched it about 10 times now
watched it about 10 times now – it’s mesmerising – I love the way the knees out guy just about reaches his brake lever at the moment of impact
beezus fufoon wrote:
I think I normally have fingers on levers, when on someone’s wheel.. This guy looks like he has his hands on the tops and has to move to the drops before braking.
wycombewheeler wrote:
watched it about 10 times now – it’s mesmerising – I love the way the knees out guy just about reaches his brake lever at the moment of impact
— wycombewheeler I think I normally have fingers on levers, when on someone’s wheel.. This guy looks like he has his hands on the tops and has to move to the drops before braking.— beezus fufoon
yeah – I lent an mtb-er friend a road bike for a trip out once – the last road bike he’d been on was an old raleigh athena with the extra brake lever extentions for the tops – he ended up riding into a hedge at about 3 kph!
I guess disk brakes are only
I guess disk brakes are only as effective as the ‘cyclist’ using them.
Using a mate’s calf as the retarder is probably not the best idea.
Yes that ‘group’ riding was fairly shambolic, no comms at all.
The BMW driver was probably pissing himself laughing at mamils on their toys….
Not only is the group riding
Not only is the group riding appaling, both of the riders who hit poor Peter need to learn some basic bike handling skills.
If you look closely at the video, the first rider who hits him, the guy in hi viz with the white bike, is riding on the hoods but when he finally realises Peter is slowing, instead of braking with his hands on the hoods, before attempting to brake, drops his right hand only into the drop, then goes to grab the brake but has his index finger between the brake lever and the handle bar, so even if he had managed to apply some brake before coming together, which it doesn’t look like he did, he wouldn’t have been able to get full power. His left hand is still on the hood but his fingers are nowhere near the brake lever.
As for the guy on the Red Roubaix, he isn’t even looking ahead and ploughs into both of them, after veering left and again it doesn’t look like his fingers are on the brake levers as he collided with them.
If it wasn’t so bad it would be hilarious. I am only glad I don’t ride with that group!!!
Where’s the footage from the
Where’s the footage from the helmet cam of the guy on the red bike?
Lesson learned, I’m sure they
Lesson learned, I’m sure they’ll be a bit tighter with the skillz after this.
WIll be interesting to see Specialized’s response, if any.
Nasty gash there. Hope you’re
Nasty gash there. Hope you’re back on your bike soon.
Bit of an freak accident, as the Roubaix Rider got distracted by the hikers and never actually, you know, braked, (you can see his right hand lever completely free on impact). IMHO if you’re not paying attention until you’re about to hit someone; apply rule #5 and OTB it.
As far as the bigger debate goes: people have died strangled by seatbelts. Yep, this is a clear-cut rotor injury. There will be more. And alltough rounding off the rotors seems like an easy enough thing to do, IMHO disk brakes remain safer than rim brakes. And much safer than using calipers on carbon wheels. YMMV.
Very poor anticipation,
Very poor anticipation, concentration, alertness and awareness by the following rider. If he is going to be late braking perhaps he should consider disc brakes, they are the future. For me they are the here and now.
cbrndc wrote:
I suggest you watch the video again. It was the following rider on the specialised who has the disk brakes yet failed to slow adequately and injured the front rider.
Just to clear a few things up
Just to clear a few things up.
Specialized have just given me a call from their head office in California and we had a good chat. Very happy with them and I remain a big fan of the brand.
My initial e-mail to UK got what I felt was a dismissive response so that is why I sent the story in, bit of a knee jerk reaction in all honesty.
Stop the hating on the riding quality. Nobody starts as experts. It was a mixed ability ride and mistakes were made and I include myself in that. I hold no animosity towards anyone and hope to go on many rides with these guys over the summer. We will be sitting by a cafe laughing about it in a few weeks (I may just ride at the back though!)
On reflection, yes this really is a freak incident but Specialized are grateful for the footage. To date they have never had coverage of an incident involving disc brakes so I am sure this will be useful to them and can benefit rider safety in the future.
Stay safe everyone…
petecb wrote:
Yes but did you get any free stuff?
petecb wrote:
Great video Peter, emoticon wound not withstanding. You and your buddies have proved the dangers of discs as they exist now in a group, one of road cycling’ great debates of late. Kudos for doing what even the pros couldn’t…
Dont feel too bad for the kicking your mates’ riding is getting here. But don’t go easy on them either. To get hit by 2 bikes with that much time for them to brake/at that speed looks terrible. Ironically it’s more natural to concentrate at chain gang pace and distances. You’ll do well to remind them that as groups slow down attention wanders, and all sorts of mupettry can ensue. Hope you heal well mate and soon rock some free Spesh shizz, their branding was blatant in your video 😉
The real travesty here is the
The real travesty here is the red bike had those plastic presta valve caps.
State of the riding behind…
State of the riding behind…
Clearly the accident was a
Clearly the accident was a combination of bad luck and INCOMPETENCE of the rider (s).
If rotors (or chainrings…) are too dangerous to someone, I suggest taking up golf instead (in full face helmet.of course).
Sorry guys couldn’t resist
Sorry guys couldn’t resist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdSLP-qz_fw
The standard of the riding
The standard of the riding suggests when they find the bottom ring on the front, you are likely to be maimed by a 53 or 50 front chain ring in the future…
A guy I’ve been riding with
A guy I’ve been riding with for 20 years hit me in a similar way a few weeks ago. It happens no harm though because he had rim brakes.
I’ll give me own disc brake
I’ll give me own disc brake injury story. Pulling the air hose off my disc brake equipped cyclo-cross bike my hand jerked into the disc brake. Two massive cuts on my hand.
Get disc brakes if you want. I doubt it’s anymore dangerous than riding without a helmet, but I don’t think they are safe for the peloton, and I don’t think that they improve safety on a road bike – the braking on well maintained wheels is likely to be no better on disc brakes than rim brakes. So why make the pros use them?
Colin Peyresourde wrote:
You could have suffered the same injury, but probably much messier and more likely to be infected, removing the airhose from the drive side ofg your rear wheel and putting your hand into the cogset. Solution: remove airhose from non-disc side of bike 🙂
Sorry Colin mate, gotta 100%, provably, utterly demolish this myth right here. There is simply no contest – discs outperform rims in almost all circumstances, and are provably safe in others.
On long descents, there’s no way a disc will cause a rim-heat-induced blowout – a relatively common occurrence in hilly areas.
Even the best rim brakes (Red22 + Swisstop pads on new, high-end rims) suffer in the wet. A freezing, soaked 1hr descent of the Furkapass is still etched in my clawed, arthritic mitts. Had I had discs I’d have been down in half the time with a fraction the finger-hand effort.
In the dry, on short descents, sure – use rim brakes – I have several bikes for that. For poor weather, off-road or loaded, it’s discs all the way.
KiwiMike wrote:
I’m pretty sure it was the non-disc side. Anyway I didn’t anticipate it would shred my skin….
My disc brakes suffer under prolonged wet conditions. It’s only if it’s not raining that they are better than rim brakes on a wet road as they don’t get splashed.
well maintained rim brake wheels perform so well that you can accidentally skid your bike – not a function that I need replicating. There is a bit of a benefit to discs on a road bike, but having to replace the brake pads so often is not one of them.
Just my opinion, owning both sorts of brake system.
Colin Peyresourde wrote:
Your brakes need looking at then 🙂
Locking up a wheel is a sign of a brake system that has rubbish modulation – that is a classic wet rim-brake problem. Nothing works until they dry off, then bam! they work too well, on a wet surface. That’s a problem discs don’t have as they start working from the outset – they have a much smaller area to clear of water, and the pressures / temperatures are far higher than a rim system, aiding sweeping/evaporation. Even if sopping wet, the time for a disc to start to bite meaningfully is way, way shorter than a rim brake, and you have much more control once it does start.
Plus, there’s much less diesel film, rubber and mud to clear off first, unlike a rim surface.
Finally, I get about 3,000 shitty, wet UK miles between £10 stock Shimano pad changes. Far better value than rim brakes, mile for mile, and I don’t eat new rims ever few years. Or ever need cables replacing. It’s all win 🙂
get him a chainguard and a
get him a chainguard and a hanky for his eyes
Hilarious riding. Jeez.
Hilarious riding. Jeez.
did they check the red Spez
did they check the red Spez for a hidden motor too ? thats really weird how the bike seems to be crashing but still trying to go faster than the bike its crashing into.
To me the injury caould have
To me the injury caould have been cause by the impact of a metal projection. Imagaine if the MAMIL had earlier hada puncture and didn’t point the QR the right way, that could have punctured the calf much easier.
I suffered a brake related injury on my thigh, a brake lever punctured my skin just enough to make it bleed. A little deeper and it would have been into the muscle.
Man up, it’s a flesh wound.
Man up, it’s a flesh wound. Though round disc be better but so is cycle training.
I’d be less worried about the
I’d be less worried about the disc and more worried about riding with such a bunch of muppets.
Wrong side of the white lines, not paying attention and riding in full One Pro kit.
He needs new friends
Amazing the level of
Amazing the level of pomposity of rsponses laying into the people riding, I’m sure you all were fantastically skilled no mistake riders that never had an off/caused an incident from the moment you got on an adult bike.
there’s even one or two (including the author of this piece going by the lead line) that aren’t wanting to believe this was caused by a disc…same old.
If you are adding something you as a company are saying is a safety benefit (it isn’t ultimately) but injuries albeit rare can be caused and pretty bad ones as shown and the previous method could not then that is a basic failure to appreciate health and safety and go with fad/marketing/profit over H&S.
disc brakes like so many other ‘aids’ and ‘safety’ devices lure the users into taking more risk (this is demonstrably proven in all walks of life) in the case of discs it brings in the belief one can go faster at certain points or maintain speed longer/brake later or indeed ride closer because they think they can brake better/faster (more accurately within a shorter distance), all the while failing to understand that human reactions are the limiting factor added on to which tyre limits are also exceeded in their ability to grip, particularly in the wet where discs do have a mechanical advantage over rim brakes.
This results in as many incidents if not more, just like our polystyrene foamed lucky rabbitsfoot.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Just like seatbelts in cars.
surly_by_name wrote:
Just like seatbelts in cars.— BehindTheBikesheds
Correct, the correlation between increased risk taking and more incidents is well known and statistically validated in the data pre and post seat-belt laws firstly in the US and later in the UK. It was even discussed in the house of Lords and the point made (it’s available online) and yet again instead of modifying behaviour or restrictions enforced on both driver and machines yet another ‘safety’ aid was added, increasing incidents and KSIs of the vulnerable. Cycling SI have risen dramatically despite similar distances travelled. Medical science/ability to treat at scene keeps up to with respect to death toll but has not dropped similar to other modes in the last 10 years.
Discs won’t change that (neither has increased helmet wearing in UK), discs in competition road riding won’t reduce incident numbers or injury levels but has the potential to cause an injury that could not occur previous with rim brakes, all for a few seconds on approach to a bend on a high speed descent in the wet…yay, go discs!
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
That’s a psychological probem, not a technical one. Discs brakes are safer, what a user does with that increased margin is up to them
nadsta wrote:
In the case of seat-belts that isn’t true, because the effects affect people other than the user of the seat-belt. So the risk is increased for those outside the vehicle with no benefit to them from the seat-belt.
In the case of disk-brakes it seems to me you are correct. People will increase risk-taking at most to a level that the brakes reduce risk, so total risk won’t increase but people will have the option of behaving less cautiously without a downside – so where’s the harm?
I’m bemused that disk brakes are such a controversial topic. I get vehicular cycling vs infrastructure, helmets yea-or-nay, high-viz, motorist-behaviour, Willo-vs-everyone-else-about-everything, arguments about sports, even off-topic arguments about Brexit or racism. But I don’t quite get why anyone cares particularly about bicycle braking mechanisms.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
…
— FluffyKittenofTindalos I’m bemused that disk brakes are such a controversial topic… But I don’t quite get why anyone cares particularly about bicycle braking mechanisms.— nadsta
It’s the same as an argument between Catholics and Protestants in the 15th century. No proof of either belief system (which in any event are indisinguishable from an outsider’s perspective), it’s about faith and doctrine. Or in practical terms, “I care because if you are correct then my value system – which defines the clique that I belong to – is undermined”. Luckily there’s no way of proving whether you are correct or not, so I can just shout a lot (or burn you and your co-religionists at the stake/on a flaming disc rotor) to “prove” that I am correct.
I suggest an embargo on this debate for 5 years and then see where the market takes us. To that end, I am going to refrain from expressing any further views on the merits or otherwise of disc brakes from this point forward.
nadsta wrote:
technically it/they cause more harm in an off than a rim brake has ever done directly in over 50 years unless you have proof of an old stirrup brake puncturing a lung. discs are a failure on many fronts, not just in how they change how people think about braking, how much speed they can carry.
I don’t think any company
I don’t think any company issuing disc brake equipped bikes has any responsibility to riders, other than them working properly. Chainring manufacturers don’t have any responsbility to ensure people don’t get gouged by them or wheel manufacturers have any responsibility to ensure fingers aren’t put in them.
If you fall off your bike there are a myriad of bits to injure you. I remember falling of my MTB and getting a bar in the groin area. Best solution was to not fall off. Pedals down shins, stems to the nuts, seat up the backside at speed. Don’t crash. It’s a bit like complaining your face got cut with glass after you put your car into a tree.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
But missing the point surely? This injury wouldn’t have happened with rim brakes.
Fabulous triumph of marketing and the bottom line over health and safety, this ‘innovation’.
And actually perhaps less Spesh’s fault than Shitmano’s / Sram’s whatever..
700c wrote:
I don’t think any company issuing disc brake equipped bikes has any responsibility to riders, other than them working properly. Chainring manufacturers don’t have any responsbility to ensure people don’t get gouged by them or wheel manufacturers have any responsibility to ensure fingers aren’t put in them.
If you fall off your bike there are a myriad of bits to injure you. I remember falling of my MTB and getting a bar in the groin area. Best solution was to not fall off. Pedals down shins, stems to the nuts, seat up the backside at speed. Don’t crash. It’s a bit like complaining your face got cut with glass after you put your car into a tree.
— 700c But missing the point surely? This injury wouldn’t have happened with rim brakes. Fabulous triumph of marketing and the bottom line over health and safety, this ‘innovation’. And actually perhaps less Spesh’s fault than Shitmano’s / Sram’s whatever..— Yorkshire wallet
The injury wouldn’t have happened if they had been riding track bikes, either. Or indeed if they had been on scooters. Or on foot. Or if they’d stayed home and “ridden” on Zwift.
surly_by_name wrote:
I like your straw man
surly_by_name wrote:
edit:
The injury wouldn’t have happened if they had all been on the fucking Golf Course where these muppets belong.
🙂
Maybe they will need to re
Maybe they will need to re-design road discs by increasing rotor diameter to create a fatter outer edge beyond the swept area so less able to cause lacerations in similar circumstances to this.
This sort of group riding carnage reminds me why I usually ride alone..
The MTB analogy is an interesting one but if we give it some thought do we ever ride consistently in close pack formation on our MTBs like these guys on the road?- I’m not sure we do.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Bar-end into groin – check
V12 with additional pins installed, down shin – check
Stem to nuts (also once into chest – don’t ask) – check
Saddle point into anus at speed – check – and that really f**king hurt!
I also went into a hawthorn bush head-first like a spear at speed once, I had to ride about 15 miles home, looking like Pinhead from Hellraiser with a trickle of blood from about two thousand tiny wounds!
I really don’t miss MTBing…
DaSy wrote:
Bar-end into groin – check
V12 with additional pins installed, down shin – check
Stem to nuts (also once into chest – don’t ask) – check
Saddle point into anus at speed – check – and that really f**king hurt!
I also went into a hawthorn bush head-first like a spear at speed once, I had to ride about 15 miles home, looking like Pinhead from Hellraiser with a trickle of blood from about two thousand tiny wounds!
I really don’t miss MTBing…— Yorkshire wallet
I laughed at this a lot! Apologies for laughing at your pain though…!!
The group riding skills could
The group riding skills could maybe do with improvement, but Mr. Curtis-Brown is clearly a much tougher individual than myself. If it had been me, suffering that injury, the last ten seconds of the video would have been accompanied by the kind of high pitched screaming that is stereotypically associated with little girls.
Yes, there are other sharp spinning objects on bicycles (chainset, cassette, maybe aero-spokes) and bigger dangers out on the roads (potholes, motorists) but that is no excuse for introducing a new source of danger.
If you want an equally
If you want an equally pointless “debate”, head over to Pinkbike for 29ers vs 27.5 – or for the zealots, #26aintdead. Or maybe “do we need another axle standard”, although most people are in agreement that we probably don’t need Boost now that we’ve decided that 27.5+ is actually a bit shit.
Disc brakes are better for more people more of the time.
The problem with safety tech
The problem with safety tech is that if it works, you don’t actually know if it works. You can’t usually say, that some party would have died if they weren’t wearing a seatbelt, or their car didn’t have an airbag. You can postulate, but that’s as far as it can go. Safety statistics on tech are mostly estimates:
https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv18/cd/files/18esv-000500.pdf
However when tech fails us, you can quite easily attribute that infjury to the tech itself. Which makes debate almost futile as people wishing to deny a technological achievement have a get-out-of-jail-free-card.
“Airbag Related Injuries and Deaths
During the past decade the motoring public has been shocked to learn that air bags, a life-saving device promoted by the automotive industry, can also induce severe and fatal injuries. Over the last 10 years in the United States, nearly 200 men, women and children have been fatally injured by deploying air bags. Thousands more have sustained serious nonfatal injuries, including cervical spine fractures, closed head injuries, and multiple fractures and amputations of digits and hands. Ironically, the vast majority of these serious and fatal injuries were incurred in low and moderate speed collisions in which little or no injury would have been otherwise expected.”
http://what-when-how.com/forensic-sciences/airbag-related-injuries-and-deaths/
If a car slams on the brakes
If a car slams on the brakes in front of me in the wet id be very happy to have the extra stopping power of discs.
Forzamark wrote:
Why is that then, do disc brakes give you an extra 30cm2 of rubber on the road?
The MTB comunity has been
The MTB comunity has been using disc brakes for years without this nonesense. In group rides you just need to watch where you are going. Clearly the rider not the equipment .
I like the guy in yellow, the
I like the guy in yellow, the first guy to almost get to his brakes. He’s wearing running shoes and has flat pedals?
Disc brakes are safer in non
Disc brakes are safer in non-competitive environments, but have the ability to be less safe once the red mist descends.
Its not the discs fault, but the riders.
Safer, better braking means later, harder braking, which means smaller margin for error. In a bunch that is already pushing the envelope around braking this will cause more accidents, not less.
However, anyone saying that discs are, in general use not safer, better braking are deluding themselves. Everytime I go MTBing, and commute back down the hill home, I am reminded at how much confidence and control disc brakes provide on the road. They are great.
That’s pretty conclusive.
That’s pretty conclusive. Disc equiped bike rides too close on the right side. Persons right calf has a semi-circle shaped gash and front disc is covered in blood. Go so far as DNA test the blood if you like – it’s the injured riders blood.
So how did the blood from the injured rider get onto the disc rotor? Out of the gash in the injured riders leg.
How did the gash occur? An invisible fairy jumped out of the hedgerow just as the disc rotor was about to slice the riders leg. The fairy made a brave attempt to parry the thin spinning metal disc with his sword but his sword glanced off the rotor and sliced the riders calf. The fairy skulked off to practice his swordmanship.
That’s the only thing I can think of that sounds more ridiculous than ‘It was _not_ caused by the disc rotor’
Diddums. What was someone
Diddums. What was someone with such hairy legs entering a triathlon for in the first place?
minnellium wrote:
Is there a rule about doing Triathlons with hairy legs? If you’ve enough time in the week to spend time shaving your legs, you’re not training hard enough!
Haha, nicely ‘staged’
Haha, nicely ‘staged’ accident… What a load of bollocks… Give it up ffs and write about something else… And no, not f’ing doping. Sick of all this shite
There’s no pride in wound
There’s no pride in wound repair these days! Poor skills….
I fell off my bike going over
I fell off my bike going over a bridge. Bridges are dangerous.
A local boy lost the sight in his eye caused by the handlebar. Handlebars are dangerous.
A cycling buddy smacked his nuts on the seat. Seats are dangerous.
i choked on a pea. Peas are dangerous.
Or….it was really wet. A dog ran out in front of me. I put on my disc brakes and stopped. Not dangerous.
end of.
martyn
What I really dont’
What I really dont’ understand is how chainrings are so much less dangerous, how there aren’t regular photos and videos of people’s injuries from chain rings and for calls for them to be banned. I think it’s really well established that spinning discs applied to skin are really unlikely to cut of their own nature (sharpness etc) and that it’s really a (not fully confirmed) issue of narrow metal object impacting against skin at (in this instance) moderate velocity.
As for those that figure that disc brake injuries haven’t figured in CX and MTB because they don’t feature multi rider stacks, they’re obviously watching a different CX than me, and it really only takes one disc to ostensibly do the damage, so simple one on one crashes it would seem to me are going to do it, unless of course discs aren’t really to blame; though I hasten to add in this praicular case it does seem likely. Multiple of anecdote does not = evidence though!
madcarew wrote:
Some hypotheses:
Aside: I don’t have an axe to grind either way. I’m thinking of upgrading to discs for training/commuting but I’d rather keep them out of races. Nervy amateurs on flat courses definitely don’t need more braking power.
gcj wrote:
I like the considered response 🙂
I dont’ have an axe to grind either way either (?!?) Performance wise I think discs are great, I think they probably improve rider safety overall particularly in wet conditions. I dont have them…. yet.
Just a couple of things:
Much is made about the heat of the discs. Hot discs won’t cut skin more easily than cold pieces of metal the shame shape and size. It’s a non-sequitir.
It may be in the middle of the bike, and in high speed crashes, yes covered by a chain, but in plenty of crashes we see riders going over the top of prone riders,(hence exposed chain ring in great position to, ooo, slice someone’s neck open?; and on some of these occasions said upper rider is going to be in little chain ring, and also frequently in these crashes chains come off, so leaving multipronged disc ready to puncture victim. In all the tens of thousands of these crashes a year, we very rarely hear of chainring injuries.
There are plenty of videos showing the difficulty of getting a spinning disc brake rotor to cut clothing, flesh, or shoes. Having looked carefully at this video it seems to me very likely that the injury was caused by the disc. As specialised have said it’s the first such evidence they have, I think that this belongs very much in the ‘fluke’ bag as opposed to being strong evidence of the carnage causing propensity of disc rotors.
I notice that in the video
I notice that in the video the sun is on the right and it is overcast. Also the road surface at the site of the incident is grey and rather broken up at the edge.
Then the picture of the disc with blood on it is in bright sunshine with shadow to the right i.e sun on the left with an unbroken road surface in the background which is also a different colour (possibly due to the lighting). If the bike had been moved any distance from the crash site then the rotor would have been cleaned.
If the bike is simply pointing back the way they came then the guy holding it is standing in the middle of the road with camera between the bike and the verge.
I’m questioning wether the bloodied disc brake image and video were taken at the same time at the same site. I’m also finding it strange that the injured rider does not so much as mutter an expression of pain and nobody says anything along the lines of “Dude, look at your leg!”
Go Go CSI conspiracy theorists.
Just noticed…at 25seconds
Just noticed…at 25seconds look at the guy on the Speshulized…he’s more interested at looking at the pedestrians than whats going on in front!
SingleSpeed wrote:
What a nice person you must be, give yourself a pat on the back.
SingleSpeed wrote:
Probably caught sight of his reflection in a puddle/shiny surface and bedazzled himself…
I V E L O S T T H E W I L L T O L I V E
N O M O R E M A S S D E B A T E S A B O U T D E B R A K E S
Aaaahhhh. Whether you like
Aaaahhhh. Whether you like disc brakes or not the argument that parts of the bike are already dangerous… SO, WHY NOT ADD SOMETHING TO THE BIKE THAT MAKES IT MORE DANGEROUS IS ABSURD! SINCE THE BIKE HAS A DANGEROUS CHAINRING, ADDING SOMETHING TO MAKE THE BIKE MORE DANGEROUS IS OKAY! I can’t believe bike insiders are saying this! Shouldn’t the line be… Since the bike is already dangerous we should do what we can to make the bike as safe as possible? What is wrong with people?
Skimos wrote:
I think you’re missing the point a little. I think the difficulty with disc brakes is not really that they’re dangerous, it’s that the risk:benefit ratio is too close to even.
Anything you add to a bike makes it more dangerous, as anything serves as another object to whack or poke in a crash. If you look at bottle cages they are potentially unnecessary, as jerseys have pockets and top tubes can have soft, non-pokey bags to hold drinks whereas cages have sharp bits that I definitely wouldn’t want in my eye. But I think most people would agree, the benefits of them outweigh the small risk of an adverse cage-related event should one crash.
On the other hand, disc brakes appear a bit more complicated. They improve some aspects of safety and enjoyment, to the detriment of others. For me, the ratio is weighted more toward benefit; I only ever rode sh1tty side-pull rim brakes on awful wheels that I could never set up properly before I got my first set of discs, that work damn well and are easy to set up. So, my perception is the benefits are great. Other people, who have used good rim brakes, will perceive it differently and end up with the ratio weighted toward disc brakes being risky.
Which is fine, as given the lack of any robust data to give us quantified risks and benefits, we have to rely on our opinion. And everyone is allowed one. And we can all enjoy trying to convince ourselves (and others) that it’s worth something
All that said, this is a pretty solid addition to the ‘risks’ side of the argument. Speedy recovery Peter, you are indeed a hard man to have not even sworn…
Skimos wrote:
A bike with disc brakes is perfectly safe. It’s the nut that holds the handlebars that causes all the accidents. I have had disc braked bikes of varying sorts since 2002 – never had any safety issues with them at all, never seen anyone else have safety issues either. The above is extremely rare and given the nature of the collision a similar injury would most probably have occured from the spokes in the absence of a disc brake.
May glasses or some group
Maybe glasses or some group riding lessons are required..