After riding the same road bike for 10 years, I started thinking itâs time for a well-deserved upgrade, and I bought a Specialized Tarmac Disc Pro -- it has ultegra hydraulic disc brakes. Before I bought it I asked anyone in my club who I saw with disc brakes how they found them and the response was always the same -- âTheyâre great!â I read articles and online reviews, and did not feel that the âconsâ that were mentioned were of any major concern to me: a little heavier, a little less aero, slight possibility of rotor causing injury in a crash... Iâm all about safety, and I thought the sense of security that I would feel when riding in the rain, or if I were ever lucky enough to do an epic descent somewhere like in the alps or the pyrenees, were well worth any of those cons.
So now Iâve had the bike for a year, and the brakes will not stop rubbing. I take them back to the bike shop to get adjusted, and theyâre okay for a while, then they start up again. Usually just when Iâm going up a hill and riding hard out of the saddle, but lately itâs been worse. When I mention it to others, they say, âYeah, mine do that too. Thatâs disc brakes.â So how come nobody mentioned that before? I love everything else about the bike, but the constant noise is really irritating. Itâs hard to enjoy a quiet ride in the countryside, when you keep hearing âtsst.... tsst.... tsst...â A friend with the same problem also keeps going back to the shop, and he says he is expecting that there must be a way for them to eventually get dialled in, his argument being, âDo you think Peter Sagan puts up with this on his bike?â My response was No, I donât, but he gets to have his disc brakes (along with the rest of his bike) tuned before every ride, whereas the rest of us are not so lucky.
I feel like this is something that should get mentioned more, when people talk about pros and cons of disc brakes. I would not have bought disc brakes if I had known they were so finicky. I really dislike riding a noisy bike. Am I the only one? Sorry for the rant, but just had to get it off my chest.
So now Iâve had the bike for a year, and the brakes will not stop rubbing. I take them back to the bike shop to get adjusted, and theyâre okay for a while, then they start up again. Usually just when Iâm going up a hill and riding hard out of the saddle, but lately itâs been worse. When I mention it to others, they say, âYeah, mine do that too. Thatâs disc brakes.â So how come nobody mentioned that before? I love everything else about the bike, but the constant noise is really irritating. Itâs hard to enjoy a quiet ride in the countryside, when you keep hearing âtsst.... tsst.... tsst...â A friend with the same problem also keeps going back to the shop, and he says he is expecting that there must be a way for them to eventually get dialled in, his argument being, âDo you think Peter Sagan puts up with this on his bike?â My response was No, I donât, but he gets to have his disc brakes (along with the rest of his bike) tuned before every ride, whereas the rest of us are not so lucky.
I feel like this is something that should get mentioned more, when people talk about pros and cons of disc brakes. I would not have bought disc brakes if I had known they were so finicky. I really dislike riding a noisy bike. Am I the only one? Sorry for the rant, but just had to get it off my chest.