hot mess of a front end

[AngryScientist]

another day, another rental bicycle.

look at this hot mess of a front end. this is a mid range carbon fiber road bike. everything is internal, cables, converters, master cylinders, hydraulic hoses. the antennae that pop out of the master cylinder unit kill me.

is this normal for a 2019 road bike now a days? the home mechanic practically has no chance !

[charliedid]

Ugh

That would never work, I need to put my hands on the tops too often.

Me no like.

[zzy]

thank god hydraulic converters are dead

[cgolvin]

Forget the front end, look at that hot mess of hotel carpeting!

[Jaybee]

This special brand of dumpster fire is confined to Giant, thankfully. That stem clamp master cylinder is a creative workaround to just spec’ing TRP HyRd or cable brakes.

[parris]

Quick question.... When did they start using cod pieces as the front part of handlebar stems??? Or better yet a prop piece from "Young Frankenstein"!

[fmradio516]

i have no idea what im looking at

[yinzerniner]

another day, another rental bicycle.

look at this hot mess of a front end. this is a mid range carbon fiber road bike. everything is internal, cables, converters, master cylinders, hydraulic hoses. the antennae that pop out of the master cylinder unit kill me.

is this normal for a 2019 road bike now a days? the home mechanic practically has no chance !

So that looks like the Conduct system, which is a retrofit system for hybrid disc brakes. Kind of like how HY/RDs and Juin Tech uses cables to actuate the hydralic fluid to push the pistons, instead of having the hydraulics in the calipers it's in the stem mount so there's less actual cable to stretch/run and the hoses house all the hydralic fluid.

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/conduct-brake-system

Ironically servicing might actually be easier since you can disconnect the system from the stem and you don't have to fiddle with the shifters at all. But yes, it does look like some sort of catfish on the front of the bike.

[AngryScientist]

i have no idea what im looking at

exactly what i was thinking when i first looked at it!

[OtayBW]

Yeah - I ride with a guy who has more schlitz on his front end than a mock up of the controls on the Space Shuttle. We call him Captain Gadget (and not always in the most flattering way...:eek:).

[MagicHour]

That looks like it will brew a K-Cup :)

[Tickdoc]

So kinky.

[bicycletricycle]

Ridiculous

[dddd]

When I first heard of this approach, I thought it just might solve one big problem with hydraulic brakes on drop-bar gravel bikes, i.e. that there is no way to mount any kind of auxiliary brake levers on the bar tops.

But alas, this setup isn't going to allow that, since existing aux levers cause the cable housing to move inward toward the cable/hydro converter, and there is no loop of cable to take up that movement without resisting the lever's movement.

So, for sheer descending prowess on technical terrain, cable-operated brakes are still superior to hydraulics when using drop handlebars.

It seems that Giant, in all their cleverness, needs to design a new type of auxiliary lever.
Or someone needs to design a hydraulic aux lever.
Heck, they could just add an aux lever that works on the main brake lever pivot like in the old days, should be done already two years ago! But as of now we have nothing, riders are expected to descend with their arms outstretched, which is like adding inches to the bike's stem length. Not good for difficult terrain of the sort that today's gravel bikes are otherwise capable of handling easily.

The aux levers not only allow the rider to shift weight rearward while descending, but I've found that the higher and rearward hand position also allows safer emergency dismounts of the kind that can keep the rider from "going down with the ship" and rather land feet-first instead of head-first.

As it is, Giant's "converter" looks like the head of a squid, and looks quite heavy, but might be mostly obscured by one of today's phones(?)

[martl]

another day, another rental bicycle.

look at this hot mess of a front end. this is a mid range carbon fiber road bike. everything is internal, cables, converters, master cylinders, hydraulic hoses. the antennae that pop out of the master cylinder unit kill me.

is this normal for a 2019 road bike now a days? the home mechanic practically has no chance !

And once again, ugly is the new beautiful. The home mechanic doesn't need to worry as long as homedepot sells hacksaws.

[merckx]

Vision restored.

[jemdet]

https://forums.thepaceline.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1697977486&stc=1&d=1555026096

https://regmedia.co.uk/2013/03/04/invader.jpg?x=442&y=293&crop=1

[weisan]

I have got a few visitors to my garage and when they look at my 9 speed bikes with the cables hanging in front, they have no clue what it is and they thought it was "messy". The point is, to the unschooled and unfamiliar, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. To folks who are up to date with the latest, I am sure this all comes naturally and is familiar.

I felt the same way when I open up the hood of modern cars but I realize times changed and I can't expect the whole world to revolve around me.

Different standards of beauty :

https://img1.looper.com/img/gallery/characters-from-star-trek-beyond-with-more-meaning-than-you-realized/characters-from-star-trek-beyond-with-more-meaning-than-you-realized.jpg
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/borgcollective/images/5/5b/Borg-queen-wallpapers_16758_1152x864.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121129194738
https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2019/01/17/17-klingon.w700.h700.jpg

[oldpotatoe]

they have no clue what it is and they thought it was "messy". The point is, to the unschooled and unfamiliar

Hmm, I wouldn't call Angry 'unschooled and unfamiliar'..:eek:

[fignon's barber]

i have no idea what im looking at


HA! That was exactly what I was just going to type.

[Clean39T]

Vision restored.
[emoji481]

Perfection.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[benb]

I went in the Giant dealer down the street from me a couple weeks ago and did a "***!" when I saw these too, they are really hideous.

I think if you can get past the look they are a mechanically superior solution compared to the normal HyRd setup where there is a cable all the way to the caliper with an adapter and a tiny reservoir down on the caliper.

That said it's all or nothing for me. Full Hydro or stick with cable operated rim brakes. I do not understand why it's desirable for the industry to have any of these halfway solutions. MTBs never seemed to have nearly so many hacky solutions in the transition to disc brakes. And disc brakes on road bikes seem to start at a much higher price point than discs on MTBs started at.

For me I could care less about aux brake levers. There's nothing about putting your hands in that narrow top position that's compatible with anything technical for me. If I have to ride that scenario with a road bike I'm probably going to end up in the drops for max leverage + control of the brakes, and then have my butt slid off the back of the bike. Those narrow aux lever positions are the complete opposite of what everyone does on a MTB so I don't see why they are desirable. If you don't care about those than a full hydro setup is the best way to go IMO.

[Jaybee]

I went in the Giant dealer down the street from me a couple weeks ago and did a "***!" when I saw these too, they are really hideous.

I think if you can get past the look they are a mechanically superior solution compared to the normal HyRd setup where there is a cable all the way to the caliper with an adapter and a tiny reservoir down on the caliper.

That said it's all or nothing for me. Full Hydro or stick with cable operated rim brakes. I do not understand why it's desirable for the industry to have any of these halfway solutions. MTBs never seemed to have nearly so many hacky solutions in the transition to disc brakes. And disc brakes on road bikes seem to start at a much higher price point than discs on MTBs started at.

For me I could care less about aux brake levers. There's nothing about putting your hands in that narrow top position that's compatible with anything technical for me. If I have to ride that scenario with a road bike I'm probably going to end up in the drops for max leverage + control of the brakes, and then have my butt slid off the back of the bike. Those narrow aux lever positions are the complete opposite of what everyone does on a MTB so I don't see why they are desirable. If you don't care about those than a full hydro setup is the best way to go IMO.

Same. This allows the widest possible position with 1 finger braking on a hydro bike. Hoods lets you get more upright, but is even further out from the stem.

If you can't get off the back of the bike while in the drops then your bike is too big.

[PaMtbRider]

Local guy bought this exact bike. When he asked what I thought of it I tried to be kind. What an abortion.

[dddd]

And once again, ugly is the new beautiful. The home mechanic doesn't need to worry as long as homedepot sells hacksaws.

It appears as if the whole apparatus is just a face plate, i.e. not even married to the stem, which is good when you need to change stem length.

[bcroslin]

Looks about right for the retiree ride I did this morning. Smart phones, garmins, mirrors, and damn near anything else you can mount to the stem, bars and even top tube. I don't get it but I'm of the opinion that we're all outliers when it comes to this stuff.

[ScottW]

i have no idea what im looking at

The world's most over-engineered Garmin mount.

[Mark McM]

That said it's all or nothing for me. Full Hydro or stick with cable operated rim brakes. I do not understand why it's desirable for the industry to have any of these halfway solutions. MTBs never seemed to have nearly so many hacky solutions in the transition to disc brakes. And disc brakes on road bikes seem to start at a much higher price point than discs on MTBs started at.

These cable/hydraulic adapters originally came about when hydraulic disc manufacturers wanted to sell them for road bikes, but the big drivetrain manufacturers (Shimano, Campagnolo) made dual control levers only for cable operated brakes. Now that the drivetrain manufacturers are building dual control levers for hydraulic brakes, these adapters no longer have a purpose.

The transition between cable and hydraulic brakes on MTBs was far easier, because the shifting mechanism is separate from the brake levers (so you could replace just the brake levers).

[benb]

Yah I'm aware of how it came about it's just always been a hack.

I really feel like Road disc has been a heavily botched project.. too many mismatched setups that were not designed well as a whole... then they didn't always work well together and a lot of us riders became afraid of discs or skeptical of them.

Of course I got my first disc setup for my MTB after the transition had happened, so I never had any early disc brakes that were terrible, my first set was immediately great.

That still doesn't absolve the component companies for all the screwy road disc setups though as they should have learned the lessons from MTB.

[R3awak3n]

Vision restored.

well the silliest colnago TT terrible proportion cyclist drawing though.

[Jaybee]

Yah I'm aware of how it came about it's just always been a hack.

I really feel like Road disc has been a heavily botched project.. too many mismatched setups that were not designed well as a whole... then they didn't always work well together and a lot of us riders became afraid of discs or skeptical of them.

Of course I got my first disc setup for my MTB after the transition had happened, so I never had any early disc brakes that were terrible, my first set was immediately great.

That still doesn't absolve the component companies for all the screwy road disc setups though as they should have learned the lessons from MTB.

Chicken or egg question here: Was the fits and starts development of road hydro due to roadie recalcitrance and traditionalism, or did poor rollout lead to recalcitrance?

Genuinely interested in people's opinions here.

[ntb1001]

.

[ntb1001]

Different standards of beauty :

https://img1.looper.com/img/gallery/characters-from-star-trek-beyond-with-more-meaning-than-you-realized/characters-from-star-trek-beyond-with-more-meaning-than-you-realized.jpg
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/borgcollective/images/5/5b/Borg-queen-wallpapers_16758_1152x864.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121129194738
https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2019/01/17/17-klingon.w700.h700.jpg









Can’t forget about “seven of nine”!!

1697977515



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[benb]

Chicken or egg question here: Was the fits and starts development of road hydro due to roadie recalcitrance and traditionalism, or did poor rollout lead to recalcitrance?

Genuinely interested in people's opinions here.

Not sure but I would lean more towards bad rollout.

There are a few articles I remember where the bike journos did really stupid things that caused damage though.

I remember one where the journalist had cobbled together a weight weenie hydro system, all the parts mismatching, and had then gotten the system to melt down on a mountain descent... that was all his stupidity but that kind of stuff did not help.

If this had all started with Shimano issuing a top to bottom hydro group out of the blue with all matching parts all certified to work together and with appropriately sized rotors, good pads designed for those rotors, etc.. I bet things could have gone quite differently.

[Mark McM]

Chicken or egg question here: Was the fits and starts development of road hydro due to roadie recalcitrance and traditionalism, or did poor rollout lead to recalcitrance?

Genuinely interested in people's opinions here.

I'm not sure that MTB brakes rolled out that smoothly, either. There have been multiple brake mounting standards (ISO, post mount, flat mount), multiple axle standards (QR, 15mm, 20mm, BOOST, BOOST 148, etc.).

The difference, it appears, is that disc brake adoption and standardization in the MTB world happened over a period of time (and MTBs tend not to last as long as road bikes), whereas the switchover was attempted in road bikes in an accelerated time frame - so all the hiccups and whoopsies happened in rapid succession.

[Gummee]

Mtn bikes pretty much went from cable actuated to full hydro with no stops in the middle.

Road? Different story. The backwards bodges to make hydro brakes work with cable-actuated brakes is where you got semi-hydro systems and the OP's system.

Gunnar Shogren rides that brake system. ...with barcons! He's got some kind of hand issue that means he doesn't/can't ride STI/Ergo

M