Disc Brakes on a road bike

carljohnson1983

Morning All,

Just wondering on peoples thoughts on Disc Brakes on a Road bike?
Looking at pruchasing a road bike but it looks like the main option is the standard rubber u brakes??

Just wondering if it was worth the extra cash?

Carl

juanerasmoe

They haven't finish inventing the road disk brakes...
In my opinion, you either buy a bike with rim brakes or wait a couple of year for a more stable version of road disk brakes standars and products.

markhewitt1978

There are some on the market, e.g. http://www.trekbikes.com/uk/en/bikes/ro ... _compact/# but even that's only been out a couple of months, it's all extremely new.

Fast forward 5 years they'll all have disc brakes. As for if it's worth while, depends on what you want the bike for? Commuting in all weathers? Then yes. Summer sportive rides in the dry, then no.

monkimark

I have a 2008 Focus Cross disc, granted it's a CX bike rather than a road bike but the differences between road & cx are really not that great. Discs for road is hardly new technology (for cable pulled brakes at least).
http://home.online.no/~sigurdhu/Focus-cyclocross.htm

I like them for wet weather performance, my previous bike had rim brakes and they were fine except in the rain where you have that second of 'ohshitoshitoshitI'mnotgoingtostop' while the water is cleared from the rim.

ugo.santalucia

juanerasmoe wrote:

They haven't finish inventing the road disk brakes...
In my opinion, you either buy a bike with rim brakes or wait a couple of year for a more stable version of road disk brakes standars and products.

Jeez, what a dinosaur... they said the same things 5 years ago. Disc brakes are very stable, I can assure you

kajjal

monkimark wrote:

I have a 2008 Focus Cross disc, granted it's a CX bike rather than a road bike but the differences between road & cx are really not that great. Discs for road is hardly new technology (for cable pulled brakes at least).
http://home.online.no/~sigurdhu/Focus-cyclocross.htm

I like them for wet weather performance, my previous bike had rim brakes and they were fine except in the rain where you have that second of 'ohshitoshitoshitI'mnotgoingtostop' while the water is cleared from the rim.

I had that experience and weighing about 100KG made it much worse

The disc brakes give more power and better control which not affected by the wet. They also help a lot if you are a heavier rider. In the dry the disc brakes on my MTB stop way faster than the 105 rim brakes on my road bike without locking up the wheels. If you are very light weight and don't ride in the wet you may not notice as much.

marcusjb

ugo.santalucia wrote:

juanerasmoe wrote:

They haven't finish inventing the road disk brakes...
In my opinion, you either buy a bike with rim brakes or wait a couple of year for a more stable version of road disk brakes standars and products.

Jeez, what a dinosaur... they said the same things 5 years ago. Disc brakes are very stable, I can assure you

Except for the bolt through/quick release thing.

I have disks on the tandem - the old one and the new one. Wouldn't change them for the world.

I'm beginning to think about a new long-distance frame at the moment - would I have disks? Probably not. The advantages aren't there to out-weigh the disadvantages (let alone having to think of selling 3 or 4 pairs of spare wheels etc.).

Initialised

Yes, they are great. I'm running a Parabox. Ideally you'd get a unit like this built into a stem and not have to worry about integrated shifters (there's a reason they aren't popular on MTBs). In my opinion road disc brakes can become independent of shifters once electronic shifting is standard, once that happens you'll have a diverse market for road hydraulics as lever designs wont have to be Campag/Shimano/SRAM specific.

juanerasmoe

ugo.santalucia wrote:

juanerasmoe wrote:

They haven't finish inventing the road disk brakes...
In my opinion, you either buy a bike with rim brakes or wait a couple of year for a more stable version of road disk brakes standars and products.

Jeez, what a dinosaur... they said the same things 5 years ago. Disc brakes are very stable, I can assure you

They might be using MTB style brakes in rode bikes for a while now, but road-specific are a long way ahead. That is why shimano is about to introduce a new road disc breaks standard this year (http://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/arti ... ard-41681/), and that is why sram did a recall of their hydraulic disc brakes recently. Add to that the bolt through/quick release and things get even worse.
If you buy a road bike with disc brakes now, there is a good chances it'll be obsolete technology in a matter of months (meaning less wheels option, difficulties to upgrade groupset, etc.). That risk, in my opinion, is to high at the moment.
But that is the price of the early adopter...

monkimark

The 'standards' will keep on changing for years, just like they are in mountain biking. That's how they makes their money.

markhewitt1978

Road disc brakes are far from stable. They are only starting to be fitted to proper road (not CX) bikes in the last couple of years.

ugo.santalucia

juanerasmoe wrote:

If you buy a road bike with disc brakes now, there is a good chances it'll be obsolete technology in a matter of months (meaning less wheels option, difficulties to upgrade groupset, etc.). That risk, in my opinion, is to high at the moment.
But that is the price of the early adopter...

I don't know... I bought my first disc bike 5 years ago and then transferred ALL the components to a new one I bought last year...
I suppose if you always need to have the latest toy, maybe you are right, but otherwise it's not the case... obviously if you are the former type, you will always find a reason to update/upgrade, even if the new is only a slightly different shade of grey to the old one... I think Ultegra groupsets played the shade of grey game for quite some time over the past decade.

IF you are restricting your options to hydraulic disc brakes, then I also would wait until something more reasonably priced comes available... but cable discs are great

mrkev83

My Fuji has avid disc brakes and I love it. Great in the wet.

simon_masterson

They'll probably become the standard eventually, coinciding with carbon rims replacing alloy, which is the main advantage I can see.

Calipers may not modulate as well or perform as well in the wet (not that they underperform in either respect), but they are simple, light and unobtrusive; on a completely superficial level, most road bikes have had calipers for decades.

The simple fact is that they work; the loudest voices I've heard in favour of road discs are MTB converts who don't know how to stop a road bike. The technology has come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years; if you've never tried to stop in torrential rain with Weinmann calipers on steel rims, you really have no idea what bad braking is.

kajjal

Simon Masterson wrote:

They'll probably become the standard eventually, coinciding with carbon rims replacing alloy, which is the main advantage I can see.

Calipers may not modulate as well or perform as well in the wet (not that they underperform in either respect), but they are simple, light and unobtrusive; on a completely superficial level, most road bikes have had calipers for decades.

The simple fact is that they work; the loudest voices I've heard in favour of road discs are MTB converts who don't know how to stop a road bike. The technology has come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years; if you've never tried to stop in torrential rain with Weinmann calipers on steel rims, you really have no idea what bad braking is.

The problem us hairy mountain bikers have is on a road bike it feels like someone has stolen your brakes, especially in the wet. Must be our large, heavy, muscular physiques that can only be stopped by disc brakes

Initialised

MrKev83 wrote:

My Fuji has avid disc brakes and I love it. Great in the wet.

That's what I thought about my BB5s at first. It's not so great when they seize up, mine lasted a year or around 8000 miles. Strip them down and lube up the inboard adjustment threads, it may stop this from happening.

simon_masterson

Kajjal wrote:

Must be our large, heavy, muscular physiques that can only be stopped by disc brakes

If that's what you call it.

kajjal

Simon Masterson wrote:

Kajjal wrote:

Must be our large, heavy, muscular physiques that can only be stopped by disc brakes

If that's what you call it.

Ber Nard

monkimark wrote:

The 'standards' will keep on changing for years, just like they are in mountain biking. That's how they makes their money.

Very true. If you waited for things to become "stable" you'd never buy anything. Look at how BBs and headsets have changed in recent years.

I'd like to see the death of single piston calipers (why I use TRP Spyres) and hydros become more affordable which isn't far off.

Rob

mrkev83

Initialised wrote:

MrKev83 wrote:

My Fuji has avid disc brakes and I love it. Great in the wet.

That's what I thought about my BB5s at first. It's not so great when they seize up, mine lasted a year or around 8000 miles. Strip them down and lube up the inboard adjustment threads, it may stop this from happening.

That gives me an excuse to buy shiny new stuff before it happens

Daz555

juanerasmoe wrote:

They haven't finish inventing the road disk brakes...
In my opinion, you either buy a bike with rim brakes or wait a couple of year for a more stable version of road disk brakes standars and products.

Standardisation will be needed for the pro peloton to ever adopt discs (they'll need it for neutral service vehicles etc) but for Joe Public it won't make much difference. It won't matter what your disc mount position is in comparison to your riding buddy, or what size disc you are running front and rear.

mercia_man

My concern about disc brakes on a road bike is whether the pads would rub on the rim when riding normally. One of the joys of a good road bike is how well the wheels spin on high quality bearings. Would this be lost with disc brakes?

In many years of riding and maintaining motorcycles (from 1970 until the early 90s), I liked the extra power that discs gave over drum brakes although wet weather braking on early discs was often very poor. Slotted and drilled discs and sintered pads were developed to reduce this problem. Incidentally, one complaint about hydraulic discs on motorcycles was that modulation and feel were worse than a good twin leading shoe drum. Yet modern proponents of discs on bicycles claim modulation is better than rim brakes. Modulation is a word much bandied about, I feel.

Avoiding pad rub on discs on motorcycles was a headache if you rode in all weathers. Single piston brakes with sliding calipers were the worst. Corrosion and dirt meant the calipers stopped sliding smoothly and the pads would rub noisily on the disc. I used to have to dismantle the brakes and clean and polish the pistons and pins. Double piston brakes with fixed calipers were better, but regular maintenance was still needed to prevent pad rub.

ugo.santalucia

Mercia Man wrote:

My concern about disc brakes on a road bike is whether the pads would rub on the rim when riding normally. One of the joys of a good road bike is how well the wheels spin on high quality bearings. Would this be lost with disc brakes?

It's a common concern and no, provided your rotor is not warped and the caliper correctly aligned, you will suffer no rub. However, if you ride off road in mud, rub will be inevitable as dirt gets inside the caliper, but the alternative would be a very fast rim wear with rubber pads on rims, so it's the lesser damage, really. You can wear a rim in two weeks of braking with grit on your pads... rims/wheels are expensive... rotors last forever and if you were to damage one, they cost 20-30 pounds.
Pads need to be periodically adjusted for wear in mechanical systems... if you are anal and ride 150 miles a week, that means every week at least. The operation takes about 2-5 minutes in total. The calipers will need a bit of TLC if you ride in the mud, but no more TLC than rim brake calipers... which means keeping them clean, essentially.
After 5 years on road disc brakes, I yet have to find a severe drawback. The only one I found, caused by lack of maintenance, is that if you allow your pads to wear to the limit, they will crumble and you will have no brakes all of a sudden, which is dangerous, of course, so you need to keep an eye to your pads and replace them when they get below 50% of the original thickness.

marcusjb

Pad rub has never been an issue on the three bikes with discs I have owned so far.

Big rotors like those seen on tandems (203mm) can give a slight zing noise on hard climbs - certainly on our old tandem with BB7s, but it never caused noticeable drag as it was only a fraction of a second as the bike or wheel were flexing slightly. We've yet to experience it on the new tandem with TRP Spyres (dual piston).

sagalout

I have discs on my Croix De Fer (used for commuting) and normal brakes on my 'best' bike. As someone said early in the thread, for commuting (or if you just ride a lot on busy stop start roads) in the wet discs have a real and noticeable advantage....mostly being the ability to actually stop if if a car pulls out or you hit a red light etc. For normal road riding on country roads, where use of brakes is rare and planned, it makes no difference.

Owning both, if I was replacing my 'best' bike tomorrow I would probably go for normal rim brakes, but for commuting I wouldn't be without discs now.

Initialised

marcusjb wrote:

Pad rub has never been an issue on the three bikes with discs I have owned so far.

Big rotors like those seen on tandems (203mm) can give a slight zing noise on hard climbs - certainly on our old tandem with BB7s, but it never caused noticeable drag as it was only a fraction of a second as the bike or wheel were flexing slightly. We've yet to experience it on the new tandem with TRP Spyres (dual piston).

I used to get this with BB5s on steep climbs or sprinting out of the saddle so loading up the front end, it's greatly reduced with the TRP Parabox brakes and should be eliminated by reduced flex at the axle on thru axle designs.

dennisn

"worth it"? People have been using rims brakes for many, many, years. Apparently they work very, very, well. Are disk brakes on road bikes "better"? Probably not. I can't imagine them stopping me any better than the rim brakes I currently have(DA9000). I other words I don't believe they will offer you any sort of performance upgrade(if that's what you're asking). Are they cooler looking than rim brakes? That's up to you. Will people go "wow" when they see them? A few may, most won't. For now, they seem to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Of course, it's a big problem for component manufacturers in that they want to sell new stuff and disc's on road bikes are new. And you're on the fence, so the ad people have accomplished their end of it.

kajjal

The thing with disc brakes is for no effort they have a lot more power, control and work the same wet or dry. In mountain biking with the constant rapid changes in speed and braking to bring the bike under control this is very, very useful. On a road bike where the speed is more constant with less need for rapid braking it is not so obvious. It is not about locking up wheels but powerful controlled braking to just before the point the wheels lockup.

t4tomo

dennisn wrote:

I can't imagine them stopping me any better than the rim brakes I currently have(DA9000). I other words I don't believe they will offer you any sort of performance upgrade(if that's what you're asking). :

Here speaks a man who has never tried (road) disc brakes.

They are streets ahead in the wet for a start

I have road bike with calipers, a mtb with hydrolics, a mtb with rim brakes, and a tandem with cable discs. I know which stops the best.

I'm waiting for road discs to filter down to some of the lower down the range models, which I reckon they will for 2015 before I upgrade the road bike.

ugo.santalucia

dennisn wrote:

"worth it"? People have been using rims brakes for many, many, years. Apparently they work very, very, well. Are disk brakes on road bikes "better"? Probably not. I can't imagine them stopping me any better than the rim brakes I currently have(DA9000). I other words I don't believe they will offer you any sort of performance upgrade(if that's what you're asking). Are they cooler looking than rim brakes? That's up to you. Will people go "wow" when they see them? A few may, most won't. For now, they seem to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Of course, it's a big problem for component manufacturers in that they want to sell new stuff and disc's on road bikes are new. And you're on the fence, so the ad people have accomplished their end of it.

The problem exists, maybe not in Ohio. Round here roads are narrow... the average UK country road is narrower than the pedestrian pavement in a street in New York and two european cars have to slow down or even stop when they meet. A single Hummer wouldn't probably fit many lanes. It rains a lot in autumn and winter and the roads are never dry. If you use rims all year round, you can expect them to last 5-6000 miles, which means one new pair every year if you ride regularly. DIsc brakes help cutting the accidents and cutting the bill

How Far is too Far

t4tomo wrote:

dennisn wrote:

I can't imagine them stopping me any better than the rim brakes I currently have(DA9000). I other words I don't believe they will offer you any sort of performance upgrade(if that's what you're asking). :

Try riding a lot in Cumbria, Peaks, North Yorkshire or Northern Scotland, you will soon find out the benefits of disc brakes.