interesting article on discs in the pro peloton

For me, who races and trains
For me, who races and trains on road bikes and does occasional mountain biking and can see how great discs can be in the right circumstances, I just don’t need them.
In years of riding training and racing I don’t think I have ever crashed as a result of not having disc brakes, my rims last just fine and modern carbon rims now have hard coatings.
I also just don’t need to have to shell out a load of dosh on a new bike right now when there is not the need.

As someone that does race,
As someone that does race, and has found himself at the bottom of a number of big pile ups, my only real concern with the use of discs is the chance of injury argument.

There is a difference between your average fall at a 3/4 cat crit and pro racing. In the latter you are in much tighter, larger groups, and often the circuit is barriered in… which means that you all end up in a big pile on the floor.

So whilst I think the threat is low, I think the chance of a burn or a slice is real and should be investigated before we move forward.

Other than that, the only other thing is the faff… I love to polish a bike… cleaning the MTB is a constant case of contamination avoidance because of the disc pads.

If you race, you have the UCI
If you race, you have the UCI rules to abide by, end of discussion.
If you don’t race, you’re mad not to buy disc brakes where you have choice on the cost of trashing your rims alone

With discs, bike companies
With discs, bike companies have discovered a great new way of selling us a new bike to replace our “old outdated” bikes.
What the pro riders use is irrelevant – look to F1 motorsport, you drive what the rule makers say you can – be it V6, V10, petrol, hybrid etc and the rule makers are driven by the wishes of the major sponsors.
The real reason against discs has to be the noise or more precisely the risk of noise…..a trip to any trail centre usually includes the sounds of tortured pad on metal. Now how would that go down on the Sunday club run??

glynr36 wrote:Exactly this,

glynr36 wrote:

Exactly this, if you race in any BC race (or any other cycling federation for that matter) you’re subject to the UCI rules, which at the moment are no discs for road racing. It affects more than the 1% of riders who are pro’s.

Chances are most people race/train/ride on the same bike, or have commonality across them all for spares etc. They won’t be going discs in a hurry for what will essentially be 2 complete new bikes.

Glynr36 – fair point (although I suspect the number of pros is less than 1%). Maybe the two will “decouple” – you can’t ride tyres wider than a 33 in a UCI cross race (and they occasionally wander around with a little plastic block to measure tread width) but BC events allow all sorts of bikes, with all sorts of tyre widths, to be ridden.

abudhabiChris – on other hand, I am not so swayed by different ability levels argument. Braking is only one of a number of ability issues to deal with, and even then not a very important one. In my limited experience of road racing in BC events, handling (including sitting in a bunch), cornering and sprinting in a straight line are higher up the list of skills likely to cause crashes by virtue of different ability levels than braking.

So if the point of the article is to show that it may be inadvisable to buy a disc equipped road bike if you only have one bike and you want to use that bike to compete in BC sanctioned events, it has some merit. Otherwise I think the article itself is irrelevant.

surly_by_name wrote:Less

surly_by_name wrote:

Less facetiously. This debate has been had in mountain bikes already and disc brakes won a crushing victory for the very simple reason that they are better. If pros can’t use them, so what……

I know internet forums are about sharing your views, …But I really would encourage anyone who feels like expressing a view about disc brakes and who hasn’t ridden a bike equipped with hydros (doesn’t have to be a road bike, mountain bike perfectly good for test purposes) to do so before saying anything.

You seem to have slightly missed the point. You like discs, that’s great. The original article was just about people from pro teams who also liked the technology but where unsure about its application at the moment in the pro peloton.

It is not is much that pros can’t use discs, but that some do not want to when road racing.

disc brakes don’t increase
disc brakes don’t increase cornering speed.

if you leave your braking point too late for a corner and subsequently crash into the person in front, it’s your fault.

if you commute in all
if you commute in all weathers discs make some sense, saves the rims wearing out, but you do have to be VERY careful about spraying the GT85 about it will destroy your brake pads by contamination.

As for discs v cantis, Magura’s are more powerful, have a think about why many trials bikes still use them, but all rim brakes suffer in wet weather. Off road with mud, discs make more sense because rims get covered in crap and wear out. Personally I got through a set of 217s in 8 months.

There have been a few cases of ice-tech discs melting, which isn’t really a good sign, pros might not use brakes and might not have a habit of dragging them, thus keeping the temperatures down, but “normal” riders aren’t pros, either the brakes cope with being dragged or they don’t, the rider isn’t going to change.

On a race bike meh, it makes f’all difference. I would suggest in a few years everyone will be on discs because that is what will be available. Any other excuse is just that.

Ask why the industry has pretty much decided to scrap 26″ mtbs in one year. Nothing like planned obsolesce.

Final point, go on any MTB forum and you will find the “my brakes don’t work question” followed by bleed them comments. cable caliper brakes just work, disc brakes are more faff, they do need more care. And if the brakes say SRAM run away they will be s***.