Fueling a relevant argument

[Bentley]

This is a piece I got via email from Above Category... more logs on the fire.

https://abovecategorycycling.com/blogs/journal/ac-tech-talks-disc-vs-rim?utm_campaign=20200527_disc%20rim%20tech%20talk %20%28XDhzZP%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Master%20List&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJiZW50bGV5ZmwyMDA2QGhvdG1haW wuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiQ1BHTEVVIn0%3D

Best

[Bentley]

Mods... in the wrong place... just noticed, sorry

[AngryScientist]

moved.

[StephenCL]

Yeah,

I’ll weigh in on this literally. I have been on the fence with this topic now for over a year. I ordered an brand new Firefly last year, and I went with Disc brakes for it.

Yes, they stop well, and they allowed me to cut some insane turns on the Cols in the French Alps, I went deeper into turns at speed then I ever have before. Folks that know me know how much I love descending and for that, discs are amazing. However, that’s where the goodness ends. Literally, there is not another single positive factor regarding disc brakes. Here are the negatives:

1) weight — I am running Bora One Tubulars with discs, so I have it about as light as I can. I figure between rotors, calipers etc, discs add a good 1-1.5 lbs to a bike fitted with equal level rim brakes and more compared to an EE set up. It’s real weight with a chunk of it being rotational weight.

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.

3) asthetics — hydraulic fluid requires a place to camp out. For most unfortunately, that is a bulbous edifice at the top of the brake hoods. While, I kind of dig the Cinelli Spinaci bar type extensions it creates on my hoods, it looks terrible.

4) end user serviceability — for this I will come back to my epic trip to France last summer. Many people in our group had rented top of the line Pinarello Dogma F10’s with Discs. Unfortunately, 4 of them had warped discs that made the entire week pretty miserable. For the average bike rider, discs are a real problem. They can’t really be serviced by the casual user. They require a bike shop. Maybe that is why the industry is pushing them so hard? I don’t know, but after almost 40 years tuning and building bikes, I can tell you there is NOTHING user friendly about owning and maintaining the current iteration of disc brakes. From the bleeding of the system to caring for the the pads during transport, to warped rotors, for the average consumer, disc brakes are a nightmare. Heaven forbid the owner actually touches the disc...

So, I will keep the firefly because it is gorgeous and it loves to go downhill. However, I won’t be investing in any more disc bikes until they can fix some inherent issues.

Just my .02.

Stephen

[thwart]

Yeah,

I’ll weigh in on this literally. I have been on the fence with this topic now for over a year. I ordered an brand new Firefly last year, and I went with Disc brakes for it.

Yes, they stop well, and they allowed me to cut some insane turns on the Cols in the French Alps, I went deeper into turns at speed then I ever have before. Folks that know me know how much I love descending and for that, discs are amazing. However, that’s where the goodness ends. Literally, there is not another single positive factor regarding disc brakes. Here are the negatives:

1) weight — I am running Bora One Tubulars with discs, so I have it about as light as I can. I figure between rotors, calipers etc, discs add a good 1-1.5 lbs to a bike fitted with equal level rim brakes and more compared to an EE set up. It’s real weight with a chunk of it being rotational weight.

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.

3) asthetics — hydraulic fluid requires a place to camp out. For most unfortunately, that is a bulbous edifice at the top of the brake hoods. While, I kind of dig the Cinelli Spinaci bar type extensions it creates on my hoods, it looks terrible.

4) end user serviceability — for this I will come back to my epic trip to France last summer. Many people in our group had rented top of the line Pinarello Dogma F10’s with Discs. Unfortunately, 4 of them had warped discs that made the entire week pretty miserable. For the average bike rider, discs are a real problem. They can’t really be serviced by the casual user. They require a bike shop. Maybe that is why the industry is pushing them so hard? I don’t know, but after almost 40 years tuning and building bikes, I can tell you there is NOTHING user friendly about owning and maintaining the current iteration of disc brakes. From the bleeding of the system to caring for the the pads during transport, to warped rotors, for the average consumer, disc brakes are a nightmare. Heaven forbid the owner actually touches the disc...

So, I will keep the firefly because it is gorgeous and it loves to go downhill. However, I won’t be investing in any more disc bikes until they can fix some inherent issues.

Just my .02.

Stephen
Filed away under 'reasons not to buy a road bike with discs, at least for now'...

;)

[Clean39T]

...

[weisan]

Merge with 'reasons not to ride road tubeless', 'carbon bikes are fragile', 'powermeters are for the mentally-weak', 'ceramic bearings are hype', and '25mm tires are enough' ----- and you'll have a solid argument for not needing anything new in the cycling world for a good long time :bike:

no, no, no, Clean pal....you have derived at the wrong conclusion.

According to my calculator, the following inputs:

no disc brakes + no road tubeless, no carbon bikes + no powermeters + no ceramic bearings + no 25mm tires

= Eddy Merckx!!! hahahahah....:p

https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/6917050777_41e594b4fd_o.jpg

[Clean39T]

no, no, no, Clean pal....you have derived at the wrong conclusion.

According to my calculator, the following inputs:

no disc brakes + no road tubeless, no carbon bikes + no powermeters + no ceramic bearings + no 25mm tires

= Eddy Merckx!!! hahahahah....:p

https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/6917050777_41e594b4fd_o.jpg

You forgot '42x23 is an adequate climbing gear' and 'brifters cause carpal tunnel' ....

[weisan]

You forgot '42x23 is an adequate climbing gear' and 'brifters cause carpal tunnel' ....

You are...a GENIUS!

Helmets are optional. So is cleats.

But I suspect Mr. Merckx might be open to accepting an Apple Watch.

https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/apple-watch-series-4-review_11-768x479-c.jpg

[StephenCL]

You forgot '42x23 is an adequate climbing gear' and 'brifters cause carpal tunnel' ....

Yeah, that cassette is so small that the hub flange is larger than the last row of cogs...

I have photos of my 1991 Schwinn Paramount. It sports a 42 front ring and a 25 rear cog. I used that gear set to climb over the Alpine loop in Utah almost every weekend...no wonder my knees have issues now...

Stephen

[Clean39T]

...

[dbnm]

film vs digital.

yawn.

[johnniecakes]

Again already? Ride what you like, but ride!

[denapista]

EE brakes, Campy SR brakes have been all of the braking I felt I needed on road, minus one descent! I went down Tuna in SM mountains and that was the only time I felt like Disc brakes would have been cool to have.

I just don't see the benefits of adding so much rotational weight and unnecessary weight to the overall bike, for something you truly don't need. To me the biggest aspect of braking on a road bike is modulation. I've yet to feel that with Disc brakes.

On and Off is not a trait of braking I'd subscribe to with a road bike. Now if we're talking about a bike that involves riding on loose/steep dirt, then yeah.. Disc brakes are heaven sent.

[makoti]

You forgot '42x23 is an adequate climbing gear' and 'brifters cause carpal tunnel' ....

Don't forget "Two bottles? Why on earth would you need TWO bottles?"

[m_sasso]

And you guys completely glossed over crank length, my life of cycling is coming to an end!

[tylercheung]

Merge with 'reasons not to ride road tubeless', 'carbon bikes are fragile', 'powermeters are for the mentally-weak', 'ceramic bearings are hype', and '25mm tires are enough' ----- and you'll have a solid argument for not needing anything new in the cycling world for a good long time :bike:

Well, my cousin rides a beat up old Centurion with 8 speed and downtube shifters around town and thinks nothing of it..

[pdmtong]

Yeah,

I’ll weigh in on this literally. I have been on the fence with this topic now for over a year. I ordered an brand new Firefly last year, and I went with Disc brakes for it.

Yes, they stop well, and they allowed me to cut some insane turns on the Cols in the French Alps, I went deeper into turns at speed then I ever have before. Folks that know me know how much I love descending and for that, discs are amazing. However, that’s where the goodness ends. Literally, there is not another single positive factor regarding disc brakes. Here are the negatives:

1) weight — I am running Bora One Tubulars with discs, so I have it about as light as I can. I figure between rotors, calipers etc, discs add a good 1-1.5 lbs to a bike fitted with equal level rim brakes and more compared to an EE set up. It’s real weight with a chunk of it being rotational weight.

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.

3) asthetics — hydraulic fluid requires a place to camp out. For most unfortunately, that is a bulbous edifice at the top of the brake hoods. While, I kind of dig the Cinelli Spinaci bar type extensions it creates on my hoods, it looks terrible.

4) end user serviceability — for this I will come back to my epic trip to France last summer. Many people in our group had rented top of the line Pinarello Dogma F10’s with Discs. Unfortunately, 4 of them had warped discs that made the entire week pretty miserable. For the average bike rider, discs are a real problem. They can’t really be serviced by the casual user. They require a bike shop. Maybe that is why the industry is pushing them so hard? I don’t know, but after almost 40 years tuning and building bikes, I can tell you there is NOTHING user friendly about owning and maintaining the current iteration of disc brakes. From the bleeding of the system to caring for the the pads during transport, to warped rotors, for the average consumer, disc brakes are a nightmare. Heaven forbid the owner actually touches the disc...

So, I will keep the firefly because it is gorgeous and it loves to go downhill. However, I won’t be investing in any more disc bikes until they can fix some inherent issues.

Just my .02.

Stephen

it's great to read a strong opinion based on personal experience.

[TheseGoTo11]

I agree with much of what the OP says about hydraulic disc brakes.

[oldpotatoe]

Again already? Ride what you like, but ride!

No kidding..must be the 'safer at home' gig..more time at home on the 'puter....

[FastforaSlowGuy]

I say ride what you like. That said, for road riding, I can see a real benefit of hydraulic disc brakes for TT bikes where funky brake routing and squishy rear brake feel has become the norm. And weight is less of a concern with those bikes.

[merlinmurph]

More fuel in an RKP podcas (http://redkiteprayer.com/2020/05/paceline-podcast-199/)t where both Patrick and Selene declare that they will never buy a new rim-brake bike again.

Of course, they're not you, ride what you want.

[Kirk007]

Oops, too late for me.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200528/46c44d6d4c44668aa2c696d76ea01d32.jpg

[tylercheung]

More fuel in an RKP podcas (http://redkiteprayer.com/2020/05/paceline-podcast-199/)t where both Patrick and Selene declare that they will never buy a new rim-brake bike again.

Of course, they're not you, ride what you want.

That's because Patrick bought his DiNucci to end all DiNucci's, if I recall correctly...so he can't buy another one!

Granted I have an "around town" bike with the velo orange grand cru calipers he's using and I can't get them to bite as hard as my short reach ones...but maybe I haven't trouble shooted them enough

[EliteVelo]

Yeah,

I’ll weigh in on this literally. I have been on the fence with this topic now for over a year. I ordered an brand new Firefly last year, and I went with Disc brakes for it.

Yes, they stop well, and they allowed me to cut some insane turns on the Cols in the French Alps, I went deeper into turns at speed then I ever have before. Folks that know me know how much I love descending and for that, discs are amazing. However, that’s where the goodness ends. Literally, there is not another single positive factor regarding disc brakes. Here are the negatives:

1) weight — I am running Bora One Tubulars with discs, so I have it about as light as I can. I figure between rotors, calipers etc, discs add a good 1-1.5 lbs to a bike fitted with equal level rim brakes and more compared to an EE set up. It’s real weight with a chunk of it being rotational weight.

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.

3) asthetics — hydraulic fluid requires a place to camp out. For most unfortunately, that is a bulbous edifice at the top of the brake hoods. While, I kind of dig the Cinelli Spinaci bar type extensions it creates on my hoods, it looks terrible.

4) end user serviceability — for this I will come back to my epic trip to France last summer. Many people in our group had rented top of the line Pinarello Dogma F10’s with Discs. Unfortunately, 4 of them had warped discs that made the entire week pretty miserable. For the average bike rider, discs are a real problem. They can’t really be serviced by the casual user. They require a bike shop. Maybe that is why the industry is pushing them so hard? I don’t know, but after almost 40 years tuning and building bikes, I can tell you there is NOTHING user friendly about owning and maintaining the current iteration of disc brakes. From the bleeding of the system to caring for the the pads during transport, to warped rotors, for the average consumer, disc brakes are a nightmare. Heaven forbid the owner actually touches the disc...

So, I will keep the firefly because it is gorgeous and it loves to go downhill. However, I won’t be investing in any more disc bikes until they can fix some inherent issues.

Just my .02.

Stephen

Well written Stephen. Couldn't agree more!

[Spoker]

Of course the dramatically shorter braking distance may save your life one day.
Last weekend I flew by my rim braked buddies on a steep descend in the rain.
In the dry they used to leave me lagging on rim brakes.
What is a pound if not racing?

[tomato coupe]

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.
Have you calculated the moment of inertia of a disc rotor?

[Clean39T]

Have you calculated the moment of inertia of a disc rotor?SRAM or Campy?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[tomato coupe]

SRAM or Campy?
Either.

[oldpotatoe]

2) spin up — I can tell you without question that disc wheels WILL NOT spin up as fast as a good set of light tubular climbing wheels, or even a set of great alloy hoops like the Shamal. With more mass in the wheels, the moment of inertia is much higher. It’s real, and anyone can feel it. If they deny it, they are lying.


Have you calculated the moment of inertia of a disc rotor?

Pretty funny..the difference in 'mass' of a 450g rim and 350g rim? 3 ounces on a bicycle rim? Sorry...that 'difference' is lost in the noise, particularly with different tire designs. The 'flywheel' effect, altho it DOES exist, is teeny, tiny and the only way to observe it is on a test rig and the difference in energy required to 'accelerate' a heavier rim is on the order of .1 of 1% more...

[merlinmurph]

Adding to OldP's comment... especially when the added mass is close to the hub.

[Burnette]

And we know we've come full circle when we talk rotational mass

[ERK55]

More fuel in an RKP podcas (http://redkiteprayer.com/2020/05/paceline-podcast-199/)t where both Patrick and Selene declare that they will never buy a new rim-brake bike again.

Of course, they're not you, ride what you want.

I listened to that RKP podcast and they were quite emphatic.
So, I can only presume they would have no future interest whatsoever in Sachs,
Pegoretti, DiNucci, Bixxis, or J.P. Weigle.

[merlinmurph]

I listened to that RKP podcast and they were quite emphatic.
So, I can only presume they would have no future interest whatsoever in Sachs,
Pegoretti, DiNucci, Bixxis, or J.P. Weigle.

Selene - definitely not. She's an mtb rider at heart, does gravel events and I really don't think she would have any interest in those.

Patrick - hard to say. He already has frames from some top builders, possibly a DiNucci? Being a judge at NAHBS, he certainly has an appreciation for those frames

[Clean39T]

...

[Imaking20]

I think there's really no justification needed beyond "ride what you like" to end this debate.

There are lightweight tubular wheels for disc bikes also. These CLX32 are 1211g actual. I can tell you there's no sluggishness in terms of spin up..

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49808136597_8845651832_c.jpg


I love rim brakes. As the article says, there's a lot to be said for properly setting up rim brakes (and I'd bet a significant portion of the population has no idea what this actually looks or feels like). EE brakes, Campy red pads and FSE or Bontrager XXX never left me wanting - and I basically ride bikes so that I can descend recklessly.

Now, I've been riding discs exclusively for the last ~4500 miles (primarily road - also a "gravel" bike). I didn't buy a disc bike because I needed more stopping power (in fact, I live somewhere now where I barely need brakes). For whatever reason, I find Shimano MUCH easier to setup than SRAM disc. There's one SRAM disc setup in the garage and, when it's gone, I'll never have another. It doesn't brake better than my rim setups, it's noisy, it's messy. Setting up Shimano is not so bad.

In regular conditions, coming to a stop somewhere, my wife's rim brake setup is usually much noisier than my disc setup. Over time, the brakes on my primary road bike have gotten noisier - and by this I mean (almost exclusively) that the pads have slowly started to retract more slowly - which means a "tsk tsk tsk" sound for about 50 feet after a hard stop. It's not a big deal - but it's a reality.

When I first built the Tarmac - there was no sort of rub or BS to speak of. Not out of the saddle, not after hard breaking, nada. I attribute this mostly to Specialized doing a fantastic job of surfacing/finishing mounting surfaces. I think maybe they realized that small alignment matters a lot and, if they want to push the industry this direction, they should do whatever they can to silence (pun not intended - but I'll take it) the argument before it starts. I can also tell you that none of the other 3 disc bikes I've built up have ever been quiet - and now even the Tarmac rubs after I disassembled and reassembled. It's made me even further realize just how finicky it is to setup discs and have them be quiet. I'm fairly certain that I have just enough tension/rotation in my hydraulic lines that my calipers are just barely not wanting to center (after many, many attempts) and now I live with a minor amount of rub... that I'm not crazy about. My last gripe about disc is that sometimes things happen; like a drastic overnight temperature change or you flip your bike by accidentally hitting something in the road - and you get to bleed your brakes again because the lever is now mush. Insult to injury - literally.

Now, do I feel like I need to abandon discs? No. Nothing is perfect - and the massive tire clearance and faster wheel swaps on my disc bike are great. Plus, my Tarmac looks awesome IMO (the reason I bought a disc bike was this paint). Am I ready to have a bike in the garage again that's easy to tinker on and I don't have to worry about technology failing me on a ride? Absolutely yes.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun to ride a bike that's at the pointy end of technology; a bike that's aerodynamically optimized, running electronic shifting, a power meter, and hydraulic discs is just that. I work in technology so I appreciate all of this.

Sometimes it's also fun to ride something that is... just... simple. Almost no technology that you can't see function with your own eyes. Cables and rim brakes. This is something I can be "mindless" about on a ride when I need to disconnect from the world. As I work in technology, I also appreciate all of this :D


Again, ride whatever you want. I think most of the times these debates take place because one side of the fence - who likely has zero experience on the other - drums it up to justify their stance. Who cares? It's your bike and your time - enjoy it however you want to.


There you have my longest post of the year. Time to go pedal.