Another good reason to not adopt disc brakes on road bikes.

[ColinJ]

I just remembered posting HERE about my Hy/Rd bodge.

WARNING - If you are not confident in your bodgery, don't do it!

 

[mjr]

It isn't about the brakes ability to lock the wheel, it is about control. The more powerful brakes can be applied without much hand force, making it easier regulate your braking.

Anyone who has driven a car with drum brakes will remember that you can easily lock the wheels - the trouble being that the pedal required so much force that you often did so. I cannot remember the last time I made the tyres squeal with discs.

If your levers require loads of hand force to brake effectively, doesn't that mean you're using the wrong levers and should change to ones with a different pull ratio?

 

[Smokin Joe]

If your levers require loads of hand force to brake effectively, doesn't that mean you're using the wrong levers and should change to ones with a different pull ratio?

Caliper brakes require more effort than discs, with which you can apply full power with two fingers. The cable operated discs on my 18kg recumbent trike gave more controllable stopping power than the rim brakes on my current 9kg upright, which feel weedy in comparison.

 

[mjr]

Caliper brakes require more effort than discs, with which you can apply full power with two fingers. The cable operated discs on my 18kg recumbent trike gave more controllable stopping power than the rim brakes on my current 9kg upright, which feel weedy in comparison.

I still think it's a matter of levers or setup not brake type.

 

[si_c]

I still think it's a matter of levers or setup not brake type.

You can think that however experience tells me you are incorrect.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Oops, I thought this was a new thread. I had already made that point in this one last year!

Are you still braking down that hill?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The esteemed brucey in a certain other place, who knows a ton about bikes and mechanicak things reckons that the case for discs is no way as clear cut as some think. Of course in a dastardly plot to try to force us to discs the braking surface of many quality rims is being shaved away not by pads but by the manufacturers.

But then we know Brucey is against anything invented after the boer war.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

You know the story about swans breaking a man’s arm?

It’s utter nonsense. Have you ever met a man who has had his arm broken by a swan? Nope.

In the same vein:

I have run disc brakes for years and all my bikes have them now. Never has being fastidious about contamination of the pads come into it. What for? It only takes one wet, dusty or mucky ride to introduce foreign objects into the mix. And even then it makes no difference to performance. They are amazingly forgiving and easy to run.

Happy I bust that myth for you.

 

[CXRAndy]

I have road bikes that go through pads once a year, due to using them in Alps and Tenerife, where descents can take 30-45 mins at high speeds. I also have disc brake bikes that I have never changed pads in 8 years.

There is one other important cost saving with disc brakes. Its pothole impacts, where the dents to rims will render a rim braked wheel junk at least the rim(plus rebuild cost).

Disc
brake rims can be dented and mis shapened and will still work forever.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

There is one other important cost saving with disc brakes. Its pothole impacts, where the dents to rims will render a rim braked wheel junk at least the rim(plus rebuild cost). Disc brake rims can be dented and mis shapened and will still work forever.

I've got a pothole-impacted rim that is still in service and is OK to brake with. When it got damaged I removed the tyre, then clamped the rim in a vice and got it almost back to it's original profile with a bit of squeezing and judicious use of a hammer!. It is a 36H steel affair off an old Raleigh though, so nice and sturdy.

 

[ColinJ]

I have run disc brakes for years and all my bikes have them now. Never has being fastidious about contamination of the pads come into it. What for? It only takes one wet, dusty or mucky ride to introduce foreign objects into the mix. And even then it makes no difference to performance. They are amazingly forgiving and easy to run.

Er, actually...

My front disc brake wasn't working properly for the first couple of descents on a recent ride with @Blue Hills. (I couldn't get enough braking even when I pulled the lever as far as it would go.) It took 3 or 4 attempts to burn/scrape off whatever it was that had got onto the pads and/or disc. After that, the brake worked fine, even once it had started raining.

 

[mjr]

You can think that however experience tells me you are incorrect.

Well, that appeal to authority certainly convinced me(!)

 

[bladesman73]

10 pages of this and that. Lets cut the crap. If you use disc brakes on a road bike you're a big jessie. Glad to clear that up.

 

[Rocky]

10 pages of this and that. Lets cut the crap. If you use disc brakes on a road bike you're a big jessie. Glad to clear that up.

Moderators can you change my username to Big Jessie?

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

But then we know Brucey is against anything invented after the boer war.

I've often read postings by Brucey on another cycling forum, and I tend to agree with him 99% of the time. I'd say he comes from an engineering background and knows crap designs and ideas when he sees them. Of course all the weight weenies and cycling fashion victims will see him as a Luddite, but I regard it as not falling for modern marketing BS and sticking with tried & tested engineering.