Cycle Disc Brakes

[Pauluk]

Anybody know when disc brakes were first introduced on bicycles.

I was taking to a guy today who's around retirement age who says he was given a bike when he was 14 (about 50+ years ago) that had a front disc brake.

Is this probable?

 

[sidevalve]

Yep. Not sure of the type or model though, or what they were used on, or if they were any good. Disc brakes are nothing new but the technology has improved a tad. You're only going back to the 60s / 70s, not the dark ages.

 

[machew]

There was a bike in the 70's with a disc bake it was the “Tankagnolo” range of Mountain Bikes

 

[Ian Cooper]

Most things 'bike' were invented in the late 1800s before they were forgotten and then re-invented more recently, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if disc brakes also turned out to be one of these.

Wikipedia says:
"Disc-style brakes development and use began in England in the 1890s. The first caliper-type automobile disc brake was patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham, UK factory in 1902 and used successfully on Lanchester cars."

This suggests that the first disc brakes were made in the 1890s, but were not used on cars before 1902 - could these first disc brakes have been made for bicycles?

 

[Globalti]

I found this picture in a magazine in December 1991. I suspect it could be a prototype Hope brake.