On Feb 23, 7:20 am, Fred Flintstein <
bob.schwa...@sbcremoveglobal.net>
wrote:
> On 2/23/2012 8:23 AM, A. Dumas wrote:
>
> > On 23/02/2012 15:07, Brad Anders wrote:
> >> equipment of the '70's and '80's [...] weak brakes
>
> >
http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/02/14/road-bike-disc-brakes-are-coming-...
>
> Good lord!!
>
> If you subtract out utility bikes, road bikes are rapidly
> becoming a niche market consisting of older riders. How
> many sets of disc brakes would you have to sell to fatty
> masters (who are generally looking for *lighter* stuff,
> not heavier) to justify the lawsuit risk?
The gateway for "road" discs is cyclocross and commuting (maybe
touring). The CX crowd wants them because they ride through mud and
wreck their rims and brakes, and discs are a clear advantage for them
in many situations.
In the commuter market, it doesn't matter in a lot of places, but in
Vancouver I'd say that discs are almost a default choice for serious
commuter bikes (I don't have one on my bike, but I'm considering the
retrofit). Again, same deal: better wet-weather braking, less rain
fouling, no rim wear.
As for the weight, UCI legal road bikes now have weight to burn. The
6.8 kg minimum is relatively easy for high-end bikes to hit (and I
mean high-end as in stuff that sits on the showroom floor of
mainstream road bike shops, not "optimized" nonsense from boutique
companies). That's not really a good reason for road racing bikes to
use discs, but it means that barring aero issues, they can be used
without an effective weight penalty.
The poor sucker in the bikerumor article was the subject of an
implementation that even my arts-major brain can see was really
stupid: road bikes have the potential to put far higher stress on
their braking systems than wussy MTBers, since speed=energy, and
brakes are for dissipating energy. For some reason, his bike had the
airiest lowest-area (Ashima) disc I have ever seen on a bike. As he
suspects, maybe a plausible CX design, but I'm going to claim post hoc
that had I seen such a rotor on a purported road bike, I would have
immediately identified it as a grave design flaw.
Non-ridiculous disc brake systems can be made to work on the road. The
most obvious advantage I see is not wearing out rims through brake
usage, which means you can run fancy rims on wet days without thinking
about the cost (maybe of some use to semi-cheapskate roadies, of
massive use to semi-cheapskate CXers and rainforest-dwelling commuters
such as myself, where rim wear is a notable operating cost).
I don't know if plausible implementations of a road bike disc system
(weight-competitive, doesn't brake, doesn't have micro-discs that try
to kill the rider on descents) will offer performance advantages over
rim brakes. The potential to run closer tolerances than you can get
away with on rim systems suggests you can get the same kinds of
leverage and modulation advantages that drove MTBers to discs, but
road bike rim braking is not an obvious limitation on road bike
performance right now. Like I say, it might be nice to have a bit
better braking (if that happens), and the rim wear advantages are
compelling at some level, but I'm not rushing out to buy a disc system
for my race bike. (OTOH, I have not yet upgraded from 9-speed on my
race bike, so I'm already a retrogrouch of sorts).
Regarding the fatty master market for road bikes, as long as you don't
make imbecilic rotors like that Ashima (drillium kills, kids), or
commit the other basic errors that are pretty much identified by the
manufeacturer reps the reporter interviewed, fatty masters will not be
endangered or entorted (that's a word, right lawyers?) by discs.
That's not to say they'll buy them.