Disc road bikes - your opinion

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by Swami:
"Looks like Campag braking is at the usual **** poor standard and they're still working on "perfection" then as the Colnago seems to come with Formula calipers and rotors..."

Colnago has to make do with the second best until the very best is available. The Campy prototype calipers are based on the Formula RR1 calipers...reworked to Campagnolo's almost unobtainable quality standards. At least Colnago isn't stooping to use a recalled, unsafe shimaNO product. Campy is currently on the second generation levers and will release theirs minus the multiple recalls of shimaNO's craptastic chicom builds.

Hey...did you hear...Campagnolo won the Giri d'Italia...in Italy? SCRAM finished second.

When the Campagnolo units hit the shelves there may finally be a reason to install disc brakes on a road bike. No...not for the hallucinating loons that think there is some 'more powerful' braking to be had. No, simply because they are Campagnolo and stunningly designed products that will make any chicom carbon fiber frame look better.

Anyone remember these really hot 'trend setters'?



Yeah...the 'other' hydra disco brake setup everyone just had to have because potato.

Buyers are still trying to figure out how to dispose of them without being seen and, of course, how to achieve the same state of drug-induced euphoria that they were under when they decided to buy the stupid things.

 

[jhuskey]

I heard Quintana won the Tour of Italy but fact are second hand **** in todays standards.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by JH:
"I heard Quintana won the Tour of Italy but fact are second hand **** in todays standards."

Quintana is Columbian Spanglish for "Campagnolo".

Nairo translates as "Nuovo".

And he did it all without needing to resort to disc brakes. Or a dictionary.

 

[jhuskey]

Of course , in some realm this is true but I can't do pharmas like that and function.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by CAMPYBOB
Quote by Swami:
"Looks like Campag braking is at the usual **** poor standard and they're still working on "perfection" then as the Colnago seems to come with Formula calipers and rotors..."

Colnago has to make do with the second best until the very best is available. The Campy prototype calipers are based on the Formula RR1 calipers...reworked to Campagnolo's almost unobtainable quality standards. At least Colnago isn't stooping to use a recalled, unsafe shimaNO product. Campy is currently on the second generation levers and will release theirs minus the multiple recalls of shimaNO's craptastic chicom builds.

Hey...did you hear...Campagnolo won the Giri d'Italia...in Italy? SCRAM finished second.

When the Campagnolo units hit the shelves there may finally be a reason to install disc brakes on a road bike. No...not for the hallucinating loons that think there is some 'more powerful' braking to be had. No, simply because they are Campagnolo and stunningly designed products that will make any chicom carbon fiber frame look better.

Anyone remember these really hot 'trend setters'?



Yeah...the 'other' hydra disco brake setup everyone just had to have because potato.

Buyers are still trying to figure out how to dispose of them without being seen and, of course, how to achieve the same state of drug-induced euphoria that they were under when they decided to buy the stupid things.

These are the neat looking hydraulic brakes used by Cav to haul him to a rather quick stop and avoid the pile up caused by the German Ape when his Campag rear mech fell off and took out half the bunch, and most of Tony Martin's skin, in the Tour last year.

 

[oldbobcat]

Originally Posted by swampy1970

These are the neat looking hydraulic brakes used by Cav to haul him to a rather quick stop and avoid the pile up caused by the German Ape when his Campag rear mech fell off and took out half the bunch, and most of Tony Martin's skin, in the Tour last year.

Did alfeng hear about this?

As of April 14, 2014, SRAM is recalling its hydraulic road brakes, due to seal failures. That would include the ones Cavendish was using. As far as I know, the new version is in production, but those affected by the recall are getting their replacements first.

 

[alfeng]

Originally Posted by oldbobcat
Did alfeng hear about this?

As of April 14, 2014, SRAM is recalling its hydraulic road brakes, due to seal failures. That would include the ones Cavendish was using. As far as I know, the new version is in production, but those affected by the recall are getting their replacements first.

¿?


Yes.

Thank you for asking ...

I did read about it ...

But, as you certainly must know, things SRAM-related tend to be of little interest to me.

BTW. I guess that it is lucky-for-me that I prefer Shimano rear derailleurs!!!

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by Swami:
"These are the neat looking hydraulic brakes used listed on eBay by Cav..."

FTFY

After the recall, all four sets that were actually sold to unsuspecting customers were found on Craigslist for under $20.

SRAM is still trying to sell Hydro-R brakes, but adding a hydraulic master & slave cylinder setup to a single-pivot design boosts the braking up to almost that of a 1984 Campy Delta brake. All of this can be yours at more than twice the weight of a cable-actuated brake caliper.

 

[AyeYo]

Road down Pike's Peak today with hydro discs. I was keeping an eye out for snow piles to ditch in if necessary. The group stopped 14, yes 14, times (20 mile ride) to allow the brakes the cool. The ride leader said they replace pads every three rides. My rear brake was worn to start and metal to metal by the bottom. The brake feel was inconsistent depending on whether the pads were hot or cool. Road down Mt Evans yesterday with Ultegra 6800 rim brakes on stock pads, stopped zero times and the rims were cool at the bottom. There was no visible difference in pad thickness and the brake's performance did not change at any point during the descent.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Originally Posted by AyeYo

Road down Pike's Peak today with hydro discs. I was keeping an eye out for snow piles to ditch in if necessary. The group stopped 14, yes 14, times (20 mile ride) to allow the brakes the cool. The ride leader said they replace pads every three rides. My rear brake was worn to start and metal to metal by the bottom. The brake feel was inconsistent depending on whether the pads were hot or cool.

Road down Mt Evans yesterday with Ultegra 6800 rim brakes on stock pads, stopped zero times and the rims were cool at the bottom. There was no visible difference in pad thickness and the brake's performance did not change at any point during the descent.

Lies! The users of antiquated rim brakes are even now kissing houses at the gates of the city! The glorious forces of hydraulics are winning the day on every hill and mountain in the realm!

 

[Volnix]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CAMPYBOB .
Lies! The users of antiquated rim brakes are even now kissing houses at the gates of the city! The glorious forces of hydraulics are winning the day on every hill and mountain in the realm!

I went for a commute in the rain today with my Dura-A-Crash brake pads and I dont just want disc brakes now, I think I want some Drum brakes! With cooling fins!!!

Oh and those GP4000S (zuper) V.II... Well, they are Ok in the rain, in the Nürburgring, in marble street tiles, not so much!

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by AyeYo

Road down Pike's Peak today with hydro discs. I was keeping an eye out for snow piles to ditch in if necessary. The group stopped 14, yes 14, times (20 mile ride) to allow the brakes the cool. The ride leader said they replace pads every three rides. My rear brake was worn to start and metal to metal by the bottom. The brake feel was inconsistent depending on whether the pads were hot or cool.

Road down Mt Evans yesterday with Ultegra 6800 rim brakes on stock pads, stopped zero times and the rims were cool at the bottom. There was no visible difference in pad thickness and the brake's performance did not change at any point during the descent.

So the Shimano test guys have been travelling the biggest hills in the US and Europe and strapping on diving weights to bring their weight upto 130Kg (286lb) and report no problem and you can't make it 1.5 miles down a road that averages 6.5%?

Guys hammer down downhill MTB runs on disk brakes at speeds that would leave you crying for mommy and using brakes in a manner that requires precise acts of weight distribution and timing and you can't make it down a road? You might wanna take up a new hobby...

Maybe your near future should be all consumed with being amazed at how a bicycle can change from the small to big ring quickly as outlined in another thread - it seems as though braking is a little too advanced a skill for you right now.

 

[oldbobcat]

Originally Posted by CAMPYBOB



Lies! The users of antiquated rim brakes are even now kissing houses at the gates of the city! The glorious forces of hydraulics are winning the day on every hill and mountain in the realm!

I don't have a horse in this race but I don't like half-baked conjecture. I'd like to know more about the bikes used on that Pikes Peak downhill before further comment.

 

[AyeYo]

So the Shimano test guys have been travelling the biggest hills in the US and Europe and strapping on diving weights to bring their weight upto 130Kg (286lb) and report no problem and you can't make it 1.5 miles down a road that averages 6.5%? Guys hammer down downhill MTB runs on disk brakes at speeds that would leave you crying for mommy and using brakes in a manner that requires precise acts of weight distribution and timing and you can't make it down a road? You might wanna take up a new hobby...  Maybe your near future should be all consumed with being amazed at how a bicycle can change from the small to big ring quickly as outlined in another thread - it seems as though braking is a little too advanced a skill for you right now.  

You keep talking about high speed downhills as if they put more stress on brakes, they don't. The slower you go, the more kinetic energy the brakes need to absorb. All that energy used to get you up to 50mph+ is energy not dissipated by the braking system. The faster you descend, the cooler your brakes will be. The bikes used on Pike's were Jamis MTBs with a mix of Haynes and Tektro hydro discs. I was on some 650b, didn't pay attention to what model. The bike used on Evans was a 2014 CAAD10 Ultegra. Descent speed in both cases was 20-30mph because the wind on Evans was horrific and I was too scared shitless by crappy brakes to go faster on Pikes. The discs also had the benefit of me standing up and using my jacket as an air brake to try to minimize the load on them, not to mention the poor rolling MTB. I was in the drops and hiding from the wind with the room brakes. There's no half baked conjecture, just personal experience. The half baked conjecture is the statements swampy keeps makes with no evidence or reasoning to back them up

 

[swampy1970]

So those weren't even road hydraulic brakes? Shimano engineers took 130Kg riders and tested - including dragging brakes all the way down descents - cause that's what some people do. If you'd read the article that was posted sometime ago you'd know that. Personally I think a big shot of whiskey and CampyBob trying to sell you I-tie bike kit would get you down the mountain in short order if you're of nervous disposition. Road bike brakes are an offshoot of MTB brakes and they get dragged to hell and back down very steep hills. Given disk brakes have been used for well over a decade it's safe to say that if people had to stop down a descent every 5 minutes for brakes to cool or risk impending doom then hydraulic disk brakes would have gone the way of Campagnolo MTB group sets and the Dodo. The highest temps on a road bike on grades that aren't super steep - say less that 14% - are most likely achieved after repetitive hard braking. Steep hills where riders hammer out of the corners at full sprint and then get on the anchors hard, lean it over and again a full sprint out of it, like in road racing. That's the same way that downhill MTB racers ride too. Your average track day race car probably has pads that can deal with over 1000F on a temporary basis. A couple of hundred degrees ain't jack in the grand scheme of things. I've grabbed my rims when I've flatted on the local steep gnarly hill and I about burned my fingers - and that's with rim brakes. You started this thread with a personal vibe against disk brakes. Not sure why - every other wheeled racing sport on the planet uses disk brakes with probably the exception of truck (big rig) racing over in Europe. Those big guys need more surface area that the wheels allow so massive drum brakes are the order of the day.

 

[swampy1970]

obviously, any sort of fade is highly dangerous. But discs are not the only brake system that will fail with excessive heat. SRAM was able to blow a tire off its rim after five minutes at 550 watts (on a dynamo tester), but saw zero damage to its disc brakes after 12 minutes at 800 watts. In other words, if you’ve never blown a tire off a rim due to heat, you’ll certainly never boil your road discs. Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/11/bikes-and-tech/the-torqued-wrench-12-road-disc-questions-answered_308954#8xZmHr2ZS0BQyE27.99 ------------------------------- The Shimano discs are a dramatic improvement over any rim brake, even with the slightly grabby 160mm rotors. They are confidence inspiring, utterly controllable. They’d be even better with a bigger tire, too. Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/05/bikes-and-tech/reviews/ridden-treks-new-domane-6-9-disc_326099#iXlWhGwATAbTVsy3.99 --------------------------------------------------- Disc brakes had their first real high-profile challenge in the soupy conditions in Verona, Wisconsin. Certain conditions creating a specific consistency of watery mud wreaked havoc with disc brakes. Brakes needed to be adjusted every lap and some riders blew completely through their pads before the end of the race. The backlash and I-told-you-so were deafening. Chronic pad wear turned out to be the Achilles heel of discs; we’d seen it in mountain biking and knew the problem existed, but this issue was cast into sharp relief as the snow melted and the Verona course loosened up. I carelessly voiced my unmitigated frustrations to Lennard Zinn and he interpreted my tirade as a defection back to cantilevers, but nothing could be further from the truth. I still stand firmly in the disc-brake camp, but as with everything, they are fallible. Manufacturers will get to work on ’cross-specific pad construction (SRAM already has) and there will be another performance jump. For the record, I have ripped through cantilever pads and shredded the brake tracks of a pair of Zipp 303s in similar conditions. At least with discs all the wear points are cheap and replaceable. Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/02/news/cyclocross/the-fall-of-discs-what-weve-learned-about-cross-disc-brakes_274587#mAoVX1VOuQp6cBdU.99 Even the mighty Sven Nys digs discs - the only obstacle is the extra "water bottles worth of weight" that he doesn't want to carry on his back as he runs up hills.

 

[Colnago62]

I wonder why the UCI won't make disc breaks legal? One of the articles mentions slow wheel chsnges as a problem. Until that issue is resolved, it might a hard sell to pro road teams.

 

[swampy1970]

It's not just that - it's bad enough right now for the neutral service car to support Campag and Shimano/SRAM back wheels, let alone having to also support rim and disk brakes. "I need a shimano rear wheels with disk brake and thru-axle and a Camapg front wheel with wing nuts"

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by Colnago:
"I wonder why the UCI won't make disc breaks legal?"

In addition to a myriad of technical issues, the concern is for injury to riders from the discs. They are hot, sharp rotating knives and in a stackup of riders might pose a safety risk. Worse than chainring teeth? Who knows? It hasn't been much of an issue in MTB and CX racing so far, but those tend to be more strung out and lower speed events.



Quote by Swampy:
"The highest temps on a road bike on grades that aren't super steep - say less that 14% - are most likely achieved after repetitive hard braking. Steep hills where riders hammer out of the corners at full sprint and then get on the anchors hard, lean it over and again a full sprint out of it, like in road racing."


This just in! Dateline: All of Italy!
Flash! In the recently finished Giro D'Italia ALL the riders made it down EVERY steep descent easily and safely in conditions of horrible heat, pounding rain and even snow and ice in temperatures so cold the organizers were concerned that riders' hands wound not be able to work a brake lever connected to ANY kind of braking mechanism!

NO rims were shredded! No pads were ground down to the brake blocks! No one kissed a house!

Mile after mile after mile of descending. On those deadly rims made of silicone lubricated ice carbon fiber that just can't be slowed down according to some and are prone to melting as postulated by others.

 

[swampy1970]

Did you see how slow Movistar was descending on some of those stages when chaperoning Quintana down hill? AyeYo could have kept up with them and you would have had enough time for a shot of geritol at the top! From slowtwitch: You might have seen that Hed released a carbon clincher wheel at Interbike 2012 (not 2013) called the ‘Vanquish’. At the time, it seemed as though the wheel was ready to go and would start selling right away. Then there was a delay. According to Mr. Hedtech himself, Andy Tetmeyer, the rim was finalized and passed all of their heat-related testing – but the tires didn’t. In their tests, they claimed that they couldn’t get aluminum rims to heat over about 250 degrees Fahrenheit, because of how quickly they shed heat with convective cooling. Tetmeyer told me that carbon is a more effective insulator and will retain heat much longer – resulting in rim temperatures climbing well over 400 degrees. Alternating between cool temperatures and extended periods at 450 degrees change the material’s properties and can result in tire and tube degradation. Interestingly enough, they claim that tire failures didn’t happen during steep descents, but rather at the next stop sign after a descent, when most of the convective cooling has stopped. My personal guess is that this type of failure is most likely in a worst case scenario – heavy rider, big descent, and dragging on the brakes. Hed told us that it’s a risk they aren’t willing to take. To prove it to me, Hed brought out an aluminum test wheel that had been placed in an oven and repeatedly tested at temperatures they see on the road with carbon clinchers – the yellow residue is burnt on from a clincher tire bead: I asked the question – Why aren’t carbon tubulars dangerous, then? Tetmeyer said that the different construction completely changes the game. Tubular tires are insulated by a base tape, and the inner tube is not sitting inside of the rim. The rims still retain more heat than an aluminum rim, but the tire and tube are more isolated from it. As of today, Hed plans to roll out the Vanquish rim as a road disc brake-only product. I’m not playing judge and jury on the ever-present carbon clincher debate, but this certainly piqued my journalistic interest. No other wheel manufacturers seem to be saying the same thing, at least that I’ve heard. Could blowouts be happening and get blamed on a bum tire – when it is actually due to the carbon rim? Do certain designs or rim laminates retain more heat than others? How many hot/cold cycles does it take to break down a tire and tube? I don’t know, but I can say that this topic surely deserves continued investigation. http://www.slowtwitch.com/Tech/A_tour_of_the_Hed_Cycling_base_4001.html From elsewhere on the interwebz: “Having worked with Fabian Cancellara, I’ve watched him destroy a pair of carbon rim pads in a single Vuelta stage,” Keith Bontrager said, quoted recently in Bike Biz. “From a thermodynamics point of view it was a big mess." Say it ain't so!!!