Disc brakes on road bikes

[Dogtrousers]

Actually you dont need a whole new bike. Just buy a new front fork that is fitted for disc brakes. That puts you half way there, and since in heavy braking the front brake does the most braking, there you are.

A frankenbike. Gets me half way to a marginal gain.

Yeh right.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I guess that, as long as you don't crash/come off/involved in RTCs/buckle a rim/etc.........

If your wheels have cartridge-bearings (& a freehub)you have (more or less) a pair of wheels that will possibly never wear out?

Press-fit bearings/replaceable disc & freehub

 

[Ming the Merciless]

BUT are you really saying YOU couldn’t stop ‘ easily, safely and under control’ using rim 105, Ultegra, Rival, voloce , Athena etc etc ?

I did not go through so many different rim brake options. I did have Ultegra and it was mediocre at best. I could stop safely as I anticipate and am not a late braker. But there were a few occasions where the brakes were not scrubbing much speed on long downhills with a bend coming up…

 

[Mr Celine]

The only bike I regularly ride in the wet (because it has proper mudguards) is my commuter / bad weather bike.
It has vee brakes fitted with koolstop salmon pads. Useless in the wet for a heart-stopping 2.14m, ie one wheel revolution, following which they have to be used with care as they can grab and cause a skid.
Ultimate stopping power is no different, but my rim brakes always increase the stopping distance by 2.14m, which I wouldn't describe as marginal.

 

[chriswoody]

On-topic I guess (?). I used these on Motorcycles for years. But anyone using Floating rotors on any (Road ?) Bicycle successfully ? Anything to be aware of…….

View attachment 809296

I use Hope Floating rotors on my gravel bike and they're flipping brilliant. As you know, on long descents with normal rotors, the rotors heat up, warp and you can hear them rubbing and dragging against the pads. With the Hope rotors there's none of that, just this really cool pinging noise as they cool down after an epic descent. I used them in the Alps last year and I've put over 3400km on them with no major signs of wear, I'm going to always be using them going forward.

 

[Milzy]

Totally agree . Am a big fan of campag especially their brakes . My best bike is fitted with a full Athena group set + campag wheels ( so not even top end campag ) and I have never once thought’ I need more stopping power ‘. And that includes coming down Mont ventoux . My wife’s best bike is a lot newer than mine and is fitted full ultegra disc brakes and I cannot see any noticeable difference in proformance in real world conditions.
Look I am not a Luddite,I do understand the performance advantages discs have for a lot of forms of cycling, both in the sporting and leisure fields. But for high end road cycling, the real world advantages are not worth the added weight in my view, as there is no getting round ultimately stopping power is limited by the contact patch with the road.
Now I’ve got that off my chest, I will go back to that other dead technology. I will be listening to some CDs 😂😀 ( better quality recordings than 95% of downloaded music you know 😂😂)

If you lived in the big mountains like the Alpes and the Pyrenees then maybe go road disc. I heard stories of people melting their rim brakes at the Fred Whitton challenge speeding down the descents. Hard to believe I’ve done it twice with rim.

 

[sevenfourate]

I use Hope Floating rotors on my gravel bike and they're flipping brilliant. As you know, on long descents with normal rotors, the rotors heat up, warp and you can hear them rubbing and dragging against the pads. With the Hope rotors there's none of that, just this really cool pinging noise as they cool down after an epic descent. I used them in the Alps last year and I've put over 3400km on them with no major signs of wear, I'm going to always be using them going forward.

Awesome ! Thank you….

Hope would have been my choice too - for my new wheels with Hope Hubs.

However….i read the disc buttons can rub / catch on some calipers. And I just went out and looked - and mine looks tight. About the tightest of 3 bikes I have with Hydraulic calipers.

So I’ve just bought a lightweight cheaper pair for initial use / spares etc if not. And will then see if I can ‘borrow one’ (Hope floating) from my LBS to try on the bike before I commit. It is super tight though….the caliper has a ‘leg’ which looks like it runs super close as-is. Let alone with a wider button there……

If I’m honest I’m not super confident ☹️

 

[chriswoody]

Awesome ! Thank you….

Hope would have been my choice too - for my new wheels with Hope Hubs.

However….i read the disc buttons can rub / catch on some calipers. And I just went out and looked - and mine looks tight. About the tightest of 3 bikes I have with Hydraulic calipers.

So I’ve just bought a lightweight cheaper pair for initial use / spares etc if not. And will then see if I can ‘borrow one’ (Hope floating) from my LBS to try on the bike before I commit. It is super tight though….the caliper has a ‘leg’ which looks like it runs super close as-is. Let alone with a wider button there……

If I’m honest I’m not super confident ☹️

To be fair I should have mentioned that I'm actually using Hope RX4 calipers, so I was expecting them to not only fit the caliper profile, but the pad profile as well. It makes sense if you can borrow a rotor to see if it will fit your calipers and pads.

I know that when I was using my original SRAM rotors with the Hope calipers, the pad profile wasn't completely matching with the braking surface. It wasn't off by much, but it was off.

 

[matticus]

As a real world example there is a very long (c1 mile) descent on the Appleby Road (Lake District) not far south of Tebay that in wet, heavy rain conditions on rim brakes (TRP CX 8.4 Mini V's with Ashima 72mm Tri Blocks) that at best provide heart-in-mouth moments and at worst simply give up the ghost and stop working at all. Whereas my Shimano 105 discs just work under exactly the same conditions.

.. and yet, I've descended Hardknott and Le tourmalet in the rain without issue on 105 rim-brakes.

What is going on? Are you mis-judging the advantages? Making these stories up? Or just very bad at going downhill? I really don't know, but we seem to be going round in circles with our anecdata!

 

[Binky]

I have descended mountains big and small in wet and dry on my Ultegra rim brakes and I'm alive to tell the tale.
However, would I have been more confident on disc brakes and gone a bit quicker(not that is a consideration for me to be honest, I'm far more interested in going up a bit quicker than going down)? Yes I would. My recent experience in Mallorca definitely made me happy that my next bike purchase will have disc brakes. Ironically though given I'll be spending between £4500 and £6500 on it depending on which I choose I'll likely not ride it in the wet

 

[itboffin]

When I travel normally I take my Scott CR SL rim brake bike, have done for 10+ years, mostly because it weighs 6.5kg but also because the ultegra brakes are amazing, paired with tubeless wheels. The wet makes zero difference to stopping performance.

My best bike a Cervelo R5 is rim brake with carbon wheels, just as good as hydro discs when it’s dry.

My Canyon Ultimate is disc and tbh it’s the worst of all my bikes but then I believe that down to a shoddy build by Canyon.

I’ve just bought/built a new yes new Canyon Endurace rim brake bike with Di2 Ultegra on carbon wheels.

You can still buy rim brake framesets and carbon rim wheelsets, Elite and Hunt to name but two.

CAAD12 hydro discs lurking in the background, was very avg braking performance until I swapped out the stock SRAM pads, now it’s mega, it would be my travelling bike if the seat post wasn’t stuck 🤣

 

[Drago]

Im a heavy lump, a good test for any brake set up. Ive no downer on disc brakes on road bikes- I've one roadie of each flavour, and all my other bikes are hydro disc - but I do think the advantages are overstated. I've never worn through a rim, failed to stop in the wet, or found the stopping power to be lacking on my rim brake bikes.