Disc Brakes and the Tour de France con.

Anyone else irritated by the continual shots of wheels with disc brakes during this year’s Tour?

Bearing in mind fewer than 50% of bikes in the peleton are actually using them, we have to wonder why so much attention is being paid to them and why consequently the Tour organisers are happy for their event to be used to promote a lie.

Its important to know that virtually every shot we see during the Tour has a commercial imperitive, so it’s almost certain that there is a commercial decision behind showing so many shots of disc brakes despite the reality.

For me one of the very few down sides of the rise in popularity of cycling is the parrallel growth of a voracious industry that in some ways has been as much cycling’s enemy as it has its friend. The determination by the cycle industry to force disc brakes on cyclists is an example of this.

The industry and more specifically the industry’s marketing people are no longer (if  they ever were) in the least bit interested in how different technologies will benefit people and cycling. The priority is always to promote innovations and technologies that will first benefit their profits. Any benefit to cyclists is entirely coincidental. This admittedly cynical view appears to be reaching its apotheosis with the now wholesale drive to disc brakes. And it’s probably no coincidence that the bike industry itself, after many years of spectacular growth is starting to level out. The debate as to whether rim brakes or disc brakes are superior has become irrelevant to an industry that has become obsessed with the prospect of millions of road-bike-riding consumers buying a new frame and rescuing them for another few years at least.

A similar thing happened a decade ago with bottom bracket standards, but that was disorganised and messy (cyclists are still paying the price for that one – literally). If the TDF shots are anything to go by, this new con is simpler and far better organised. Probably because it is benefitting all the relevant manufacturers roughly equally as they stare at falling sales.

So here we are. Watching the 2019 Tour de France punctuated by endless shots of bicycle wheels adorned with disc brakes, despite less than 50% of Tour bikes actually using them. All to develop the idea in people’s heads that they really do need to get rid of that dated road bike they’ve been riding for at least six months and get something a bit more up to date.