I don't want disc brakes on a tri bike if I bought one.
But I don't want more, any sort of under BB brake, custom bullshit almost functional in front of, behind/inside the fork crap.
I want simple plain old road calipers and I am wiling to pay any aero cost for that.
After all, the S5 is a dam aero platform and it runs bog standard calipers.
I will take a good disc system over anything but a standard caliper on a TT bike anyday.
But I want disc on my road bike.
It lives in the mountains.
Carbon wheels are a thing; and one of the things is that a good mid depth carbon rim rides better than any aluminium rim.
Quite considerably so.
There is considerable flex and compression in the sidewalls that is just nice to ride.
They also generally support higher spoke tensions and don't have woodles in tension around rim joints.
I really enjoy building carbon rims over alloy, they are just nicer to work with.
I like the frictionless feel and connectedness that hydraulic brings, but that is not disc specific.
But it does seem to be that disc is fluid operated generally so I like discs more.
It allow very nice invisible cable runs, especially when combined with electro.
I don't understand peoples fear of bleeding or adjusting hydro.
It is quicker to flush and bleed a modern brake than replace cables on any internal run brake.
The pads self adjust, rotors are one nut to remove that uses the same tools that you already own for other jobs.
You can adjust the lever reach just like any other brake, you can adjust the freeplay.
You can basically set the brake up to feel any way you want it.
There is no merit in letting unresearched technology fear drive your buying decision.
There is also a really great case for buying well chosen 5 year old TT bikes for tri and simply not wasting your money.
But I just don't see any value in super expensive rim brakes to make up for shortfalls in the system.
Disc brakes have a foot in the door, not because they have improved out of sight, but because rim brakes have become such a pain in the arse.
The single biggest selling feature of rim brakes is simplicity, and this hardly describes any of the intergrated/custom setups of the last 5 years.
There are complaints that discs will not align with calipers when swapping wheels.
Well most cassettes don't align and most brake pads don't either.
Then you also have pad composition to worry about.
I don't need or want disc brakes on a TT bike, but if it gets rid of the current crop of crap functioning brakes, hodge podge of standards and time consuming maintenance than I am in.
As a bonus I get to have comfortable strong fast wheels built however I want just like we could 20 years ago.
No frigging way will I spill huge amounts of money for current rim braked wheels when I can build better disc wheels for a fraction of the cost.
Actually, I want to see tri-bikes disappear.
Drafting is rife, put everybody on training friendly, safe road bikes and let drafting become part of the equation.
It is unenforceable in any meaningful way now anyways, so get rid of aero brakes, have a road bike with uci shorty bars if you want and make cycling easier for everybody.
Tri bikes really have become too specialised for the majority of people to ride on everyday roads anyway.
Then we can all ride low maintenance disc braked carbon wheeled comfortable safe bikes.
The original tri formula has had it's day.
It has morphed into a horrible beast due to high participation rates and the drive for it to be a finisher event, not an individual race.
Let the road bikes rule.
But I don't want more, any sort of under BB brake, custom bullshit almost functional in front of, behind/inside the fork crap.
I want simple plain old road calipers and I am wiling to pay any aero cost for that.
After all, the S5 is a dam aero platform and it runs bog standard calipers.
I will take a good disc system over anything but a standard caliper on a TT bike anyday.
But I want disc on my road bike.
It lives in the mountains.
Carbon wheels are a thing; and one of the things is that a good mid depth carbon rim rides better than any aluminium rim.
Quite considerably so.
There is considerable flex and compression in the sidewalls that is just nice to ride.
They also generally support higher spoke tensions and don't have woodles in tension around rim joints.
I really enjoy building carbon rims over alloy, they are just nicer to work with.
I like the frictionless feel and connectedness that hydraulic brings, but that is not disc specific.
But it does seem to be that disc is fluid operated generally so I like discs more.
It allow very nice invisible cable runs, especially when combined with electro.
I don't understand peoples fear of bleeding or adjusting hydro.
It is quicker to flush and bleed a modern brake than replace cables on any internal run brake.
The pads self adjust, rotors are one nut to remove that uses the same tools that you already own for other jobs.
You can adjust the lever reach just like any other brake, you can adjust the freeplay.
You can basically set the brake up to feel any way you want it.
There is no merit in letting unresearched technology fear drive your buying decision.
There is also a really great case for buying well chosen 5 year old TT bikes for tri and simply not wasting your money.
But I just don't see any value in super expensive rim brakes to make up for shortfalls in the system.
Disc brakes have a foot in the door, not because they have improved out of sight, but because rim brakes have become such a pain in the arse.
The single biggest selling feature of rim brakes is simplicity, and this hardly describes any of the intergrated/custom setups of the last 5 years.
There are complaints that discs will not align with calipers when swapping wheels.
Well most cassettes don't align and most brake pads don't either.
Then you also have pad composition to worry about.
I don't need or want disc brakes on a TT bike, but if it gets rid of the current crop of crap functioning brakes, hodge podge of standards and time consuming maintenance than I am in.
As a bonus I get to have comfortable strong fast wheels built however I want just like we could 20 years ago.
No frigging way will I spill huge amounts of money for current rim braked wheels when I can build better disc wheels for a fraction of the cost.
Actually, I want to see tri-bikes disappear.
Drafting is rife, put everybody on training friendly, safe road bikes and let drafting become part of the equation.
It is unenforceable in any meaningful way now anyways, so get rid of aero brakes, have a road bike with uci shorty bars if you want and make cycling easier for everybody.
Tri bikes really have become too specialised for the majority of people to ride on everyday roads anyway.
Then we can all ride low maintenance disc braked carbon wheeled comfortable safe bikes.
The original tri formula has had it's day.
It has morphed into a horrible beast due to high participation rates and the drive for it to be a finisher event, not an individual race.
Let the road bikes rule.
