Here's why you're wrong about disc brakes

Triathlon Forum
1

The most common arguments, explained away. You’re not going to get me to change my mind. In fact, I probably won’t respond to this thread. I just hope that this “knowledge-driven” community, when confronted with some pretty simple rationale, would open their collective hearts to this brave new frontier. (Wait, it’s not new? Hydraulic discs have actually existed for years? With great measures of success? I’m gonna need a Wikipedia citation…)

You don’t need brakes for triathlon: Cool. Try to navigate the first 5 miles of any WTC event and tell me that people don’t do unpredictable things right in front of you. Brakes help. Better brakes help more. Discs are slower: Maybe. But maybe you should get a better position, tighter jersey, better helmet, lose 10 pounds. All of which would help you more than discs hinder you. Nobody agrees on a standard: Just wrong. Look at the mountain bike world. Of all the bullshit “standards” they’ve launched over the last decade, disc brakes are essentially the only thing left unchanged. Why? Because the fvckin’ work. Also — since they’re going to be standard on road and CX bikes whether you like it or not, wouldn’t it be nice to again have all your wheels compatible with each other? They’re dangerous death weapons: Again, in the years of widespread disc use, we can point to maybe 3 injuries as a direct result of disc brakes. I’d bet there are more injuries from exploding carbon clinchers (at least based on everybody’s N=1 stories around here). They’re an industry marketing conspiracy: Sorry, they don’t get together and collude to make rim brakes obsolete. It’s progression. They have to market it, just like they marketed V-brakes, just like they marketed “lightweight powerful cantilevers,” just like they marketed wide rims (and skinny rims before that), just like they marketed carbon (and aluminum before that). Please, please, tell me more about how you hate power steering, seatbelts and ABS in your car. Disc brakes are too much work: In 15 years of owning hydraulic disc-equipped mountain bikes, you wanna know how many times I’ve had to bleed them? None. Maybe the shop did it 2 or 3 times when they changed pads. Which leads to my next point…**Expensive: **Look, I get it. It’s another new thing. But if you can spend multiple thousands on a bike that has disc brakes, just take it to the shop. Here’s why. That probably means you make at least $30/hour to afford the bike. If it takes you an hour to learn how to bleed brakes, your cost is $30 worth of your time, plus materials. That’s what a shop charges, and they’ll do it better than you. Because — again — bleeding brakes is NOT something you should have to do often. **Disc wheels are such a hassle to swap out: **So wide-rim race wheels aren’t a hassle? You don’t switch between aluminum and carbon brake pads? 20mm and 27mm? Ohhhh, it must be those extra 5 seconds with the thru-axle must really rob you of valuable time. Speaking of…**Back to #1. **Don’t you train on your race bike? Ever? You might need brakes in your day to day life. Why not have good ones?

2

All your points are wrong.
.

3

eh…2/10

You really don’t make much of a case why disc brakes are better

  1. I’ve never had a problem with my brakes in the first 5 miles. Never found myself thinking, oh my, I wish I had better brakes.
  2. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  3. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  4. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  5. Huh? You are losing me
  6. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  7. Losing me again
  8. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?

I think the biggest knock again disc brakes is that it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist in this sport. The ONLY times in a decade plus of road riding where I wanted/needed better brakes were either due to my own stupidity or riding my tri bike on more technical places.

4

I am nowhere near getting a new $10,000 super bike with disc brakes but I will offer a few rebuttals.

Rim brakes are a pretty proven technology. There are very few scenarios in road and tri where the benefits of disc’s rises above the marginal gains threshold. The vast majority of people that don’t want discs are saying so because they don’t see enough of those scenarios that make discs worth it. I would venture they are also more upset that the new super bikes are being built around a technology they don’t want or need.

I understand my rim brakes, I know how to align them on my wide wheels, i know how to change pads, I know how to make them work correctly. They are pretty straight forward when working on them.

I have discs on my MTB that for the life of me i can’t get aligned. I don’t know how to maintenance them and that drives me nuts. I assume there are others that, like me, like doing their own mechanic work for the most part but are not masters of bike maintenance.

You can put all the disc brakes on your bike that you want, but I would rather stick with rim brakes. And if in the future I want to upgrade my bike, and they only outfit bikes with discs, I am going to be pissed.

5

Drink the Cool Aide
.

6

My only reason for not considering a frame with disc brakes: discs don’t represent enough of an improvement for me to ditch 4 wheelsets and 2 PowerTaps.

I’m perfectly happy with the performance of rim brakes on aluminum brake tracks.

7

…and discs are better than rim brakes on a tri bike because?

I agree that disc brakes are coming and will be standard in five years, but not because of consumer demand.

There are bikes (MTB, Tandem, Cross) where there is consumer demand and discs just make a whole lotta sense.

8

Your points 3 - 6 and 8 - 9 are, to me, non-issues.

So it comes back to points 1 and 2. Is the extremely marginal benefit from point 1, which is entirely circumstantial and, to the extent that it’s even an issue, still largely dependent on one’s handling skills, enough to outweigh the costs of point 2?

Regardless how you come out on that question, does it justify the increased cost (point 7)?

9

I’m with you on this one. I’ve been reading all the negative comments on the P5X and it being a disc equipped bike and I keep scratching my head. In 4-5 years (the typical refresh cycle for a bike of this caliber) I suspect the industry will have converted to disc brakes as common practice. If you upgrade your Road, TT, CX, MTB bikes in that same time you’ll be happy the industry foresaw it and had your best interest in mind.

To me the biggest argument you made was service related. A Di2/eTap bike with hydraulic disc brakes = years of maintenance free shifting and breaking. Every shift, every break lever squeeze exactly the same again and again and again. No twisting cable tension dials, shaving brake pads, or dealing with pad for a given braking surface.

10

1. I’ve never had a problem with my brakes in the first 5 miles. Never found myself thinking, oh my, I wish I had better brakes.

My point. I’ve never experienced a situation in a triathlon where I thought I needed better brakes. Indeed, I can’t think of any crit that I’ve raced, regardless of conditions, where I thought that. In fact, the only time where that’s been a marginal issue for me on the road has been when bombing a somewhat technical descent, something that I generally wouldn’t do on a TT bike anyway.

I don’t dispute that disc brakes are better, but it’s just that I’ve rarely been in a situation where I’ve needed better.

That said, I’m fully willing to admit that it could be a situation where you don’t realize the benefit of a technological improvement until after you’ve become dependent on it. But even if that’s potentially the case here, there’s still no clamoring from the triathlon crowd for better brakes.

11

It started with mirrored sun glasses, short time later they didn’t greet, than they had horrible fluttering bags ore even bag packs, some mounted rear mirrors, at the end every sign for others to take care being close to that buddy is helpful …

12

Yeah, there’s only one instance I can think of where better braking would have made me faster in a TT. And then only maybe.

It was a TT Iost by 2 seconds to the guy who started 30 seconds in front of me. So I went and did the Strava replay thing. And found I was as-fast-or-faster almost everywhere, but he kicked my ass in one technical turn. Braked later, went into the turn hotter. That cost me 7-8 seconds.

Normally, I’m good in a turn. Nearly Aryton Senna in a crit. . I can take turns to the adhesion limit. But I have zero confidence in my TT brakes. They’re awful. So I start braking about two miles out from a turn. Frame famous for bad braking. TriRig Omega in front, which, though perfectly nice, isn’t as good as Dura-Ace, particularly with puny little levers. And carbon wheels. Most of that is my own doing. I could get HED Black wheels. But I got Flo CC’s. Because Flo. And I really like my bars, except the puny, weak levers. I upgraded to Omega. I chose the famously bad-braking frame.

Still it would just be a breath of fresh air for me to get braking that both brakes like a road bike, and is top-grade aero.

In retrospect, if I had to do it over, I might have just gone with a Cervelo P3, or something that can be set up with a standard Dura-Ace caliper in the rear. And just optimized the crap out of everything else.

13

This is a pretty good argument. Find me a race where rim brakes are banned.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b387/Mugen_EP/Untitled.jpg

14

snip

If you need to brake so much in training or racing, just get Magura’s and Hed Jet’s/Flo’s. End thread. If you want to shift from the basebar, go with eTap blips. Next.

15

That rule will be very short lived. So far this week I’ve seen multiple athletes riding disc brake equipped bikes:

Susie Cheetham
Andy Potts

I’d also venture a guess we will see Heather Wurtele, Tyler Butterfield also but that’s yet to be seen. If these people are permitted it’s only a matter of time.

16

The main argument against them is that they are a higher aero drag than rim brakes. Therefore they make your bike slower.

The secondary argument against them is that they are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist in THIS SPORT.

There are plenty of places where disc brakes are obviously superior. However they don’t exist in the sport of triathlon with the exception of outlying circumstances.

Given the two arguments, I would say there is no good reason to put disc brakes on a tri bike. If argument #1 is shown to be invalid via wind tunnel data (otherwise identical bikes with rim and disc brakes), then the second one somewhat evaporates into a “well I guess it doesn’t actually matter”.

Essentially nobody in this sport needs the benefits that disc brakes provide while at the same time we are doing everything we can to avoid the very detriment that they have.

17

I’d argue disc brakes would be more dangerous for many riders in races. Imagine if every tri-rookie or crap cyclist goes out and buys a bike with disc brakes. Now all of the noobs that are not experienced cyclists now have the power to slam on the brakes on descents, abruptly stop in the feed zone, and do all the other stupid things noobs do, just faster. God help them when they lock up the front wheel on a wet road. All the fast swimming crap bikers I have to pass every race scare me enough already, and the bike industry now wants to make them slower. FML.

18

“This is a pretty good argument. Find me a race where rim brakes are banned.”

for almost the entire era of bar-end shifters (prior to electronic) spain’s rules disallowed them. people from overseas would show up for races in spain and not be allowed to race.

where were (or are, if you’re still racing mechanical) the shifters on your tri bike?

19

All your points are wrong.
+1 and +1 and +1 … …

20

eh…2/10

You really don’t make much of a case why disc brakes are better

  1. I’ve never had a problem with my brakes in the first 5 miles. Never found myself thinking, oh my, I wish I had better brakes.
  2. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  3. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  4. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  5. Huh? You are losing me
  6. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?
  7. Losing me again
  8. Ok, so why are disc brakes better?

I think the biggest knock again disc brakes is that it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist in this sport. The ONLY times in a decade plus of road riding where I wanted/needed better brakes were either due to my own stupidity or riding my tri bike on more technical places.

I gotta move to where you guys ride. I wish I’d never had a situation where rim brakes didn’t work just fine.

I live in Auckland New Zealand. We have 2 seasons. We have the cold rainy season and the warm rainy season. We’re just transitioning at the moment. Depending on the day, it could be either season.

I ride at least one of my bikes, virtually every day. Almost every day I wish I had disk brakes on my bike. On rare nice days here, rim brakes seem to work OK. The problem is that I’m so used to grabbing handful of brake lever then praying. In the dry I tend to over brake, because we get so few nice days. You might be lucky enough to hardly ever ride in the rain but I’m not so lucky.

The simple fact of the matter is that disc brakes work better in the rain than rim brakes. Braking in the rain, with discs, is arguably the same as braking in the dry. Sure, there’s a risk of locking a wheel and the tire/road interface could become the problem, but I’ll take that option every single time, rather than squeegee-ing water and crud off the rim, preparing for impact.

Then of course, as I predicted, and is coming to fruition, disc brakes have freed up rim design. Disc specific rims mean that overall, disc brake bikes are MORE aero than rim brake bikes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the Cervelo S3 disc has 2% less drag than the rim brake version. OK, that’s not a lot, but why would you choose the less aero bike that brakes not as well?

In the dry, the braking argument is less obvious, but there’s still the aero advantage.

But to be fair, the OP didn’t really sell the argument very well at all. Better to stick to real benefits than the OP brought up. Still, they got the answer right in the end.