THE SPIN DISC WORLD
Disc brakes have completely taken over pro racing. Is there any way back for the embattled rim brake? “Rim brakes have struggled to stay relevant for several years. It’s natural selection, survival of the fittest”
If the news from September is to be believed, then the woolly mammoth has a brighter and more prosperous future than the bicycle rim brake. As improbable efforts by an American bioscience firm continue to resurrect the longextinct beast, which last roamed the Earth some 4000 years ago, the last remaining disc-brake holdout in the men’s WorldTour, Ineos Grenadiers, finally succumbed to the inevitable and put disc brakes on their bikes at the GP de Denain.
Of the 19 WorldTour teams, Ineos Grenadiers had been, for some time, the only team not to use discs in some measure. Since the UCI allowed their use in competition in earnest at the start of the 2017 season, the direction of travel from rim to disc has only been one-way, to the extent that the British-registered squad were lonely outliers. While individuals still opted for rims on occasion - 2021 Tour de France winner Tadej Poga ar could still be found on rims in the mountains - Ineos Grenadiers remained solely a rim brake-equipped team. Of course, this is likely to have been based on science rather than romance - the team famed for its ‘marginal gains’ and leaving no stone unturned may have concluded that the
DEPUTY EDITOR The longtime Cycling Plus staffer offers his take on all the comments and controversy on the frontline of the cycling scene
weight penalty of discs over rims was too high a price to pay for superior braking. This equation is no doubt different for the likes of me and you, but for the world’s best bike riders - and bike handlers - braking in the wet is lower on their list of requirements.
Weight, as well as improved quick release of the wheels in the event of puncture plus discs’ integration with the top-end Shimano groupset, Dura-Ace, which Ineos Grenadiers uses on its bikes, have largely been worked on. This is seen in the launch of both Pinarello’s new Dogma F Disc bike and Shimano’s latest Dura-Ace iteration, R9200. And it’s this bike that appears to have been the trigger for the team’s decision. Even Fausto Pinarello, the company founder, has been won over: “I’ve been convinced about disc brakes since I started riding them myself and I’m happy the team is going to race on them in the final part of this season.”
Rim brakes have struggled to stay relevant for a number of years, and with this last bastion broken down their future in pro cycling, certainly, looks in doubt. It’s natural selection, survival of the fittest.
In part it’s because of the disappearance of the old guard of riders who, having used them for long careers, looked upon rim brakes with misty-eyed reverence; in their place come upstarts less wedded to the past and more open-minded about the products at their disposal that will get them to the top. Notwithstanding Poga ar’s minor stage dalliances with discs, the Tour de France has not yet been won on discs, but that’s more to do with the fact it’s largely been won by Ineos since discs came in. If Poga ar keeps winning, it might be years until it is!
In the world of amateur cycling, we were riding disc brakes on road bikes several years before they were sanctioned for races, and their takeover has been similarly swift. You might still be riding on rim brakes, though, and if you are there’s a good chance it’s because you just haven’t bought a new bike since 2015. You’ll struggle to find a modern bike without them fitted (frankly, you’ll struggle to find a bike, full stop, at the moment); I’ve been trying to buy one recently, but only to fit into my 2016 model turbo trainer, which clearly wasn’t built to accommodate the disc brake caliper on my Specialized Tarmac.
Like in the world of pro cycling, there are still riders convinced of the superiority of rim brakes, but at Cycling Plus we think that the argument in favour of discs has already been won. With Ineos’s belated shift in stance, rim brakes’ time looks to be almost up. Perhaps best not to count them out just yet, however. We thought the same thing about the woolly mammoth...
JOHN WHITNEY