Better Braking?

wrote:
On Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 2:05:05 AM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 1:47:15 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/1/2020 12:49 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 8:57:36 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

But shops are stocking up on disc brake bikes, and people (even long
time avid riders) can be heard saying "Oooh, I want a bike with disc
brakes."

I suspect if you ask them why, the answer will be "Because they're
better." Or maybe "... safer."

You suspect? Why not just ask them?

Largely because the club riders that recently bought new bikes are
almost all on a group vacation in Florida. I suppose I can ask them when
they get back.

The usual response around here is that they stop better, particularly
in the rain, and that they don't eat rims and allow for large tires and fenders.

Right! Exactly what all the publicity says! "They stop better,
especially in the rain!" My point is, I can't recall anyone here ever
saying "Damn, I wish my [rim] brakes stopped better in the rain!"

Uh (raising hand), I have. That's one reason why I bought my first disc
CX bike. I also wanted better fender clearance so I could run bigger
tires. My prior commuter was a 1985 Cannondale Black Lightning that
literally fell apart while I was riding home, so I needed a replacement
and the disc CX bike fit the bill.


It's kind of like "Damn, I wish you couldn't see the headset on this
bike!" Or "Damn, I've got ten cogs in the back, but I'd kill for 11!"
Like so many other bike "innovations," the product came first. The
justification came later.

I don't get why you hate things that work better.

Really Jay, don't you figured that out by now? Let me remind you. Frank
thinks that all the new stuff make cycling unnecessary complicated,
expensive and unreliable and it is all forced upon us by marketing
(duh...) and he has the uncontrollable urge to warn/protect us from that.
He knows this not from own experience but from his ignorant clubmembers
who ended up with the wrong bike or one of his good friends that also
ended up with something too complicated for them despite they all happen
to have a degree in math, electronics, software or worse they are a poet
or musician (WTF?).
If you mention that discbrakes are superior in the
wet in combination with CF rims which we all know is a fact then the 'discussion' starts:
Frank:'why do you need CF rims?',
Jay: 'because high profile CF rims are more aero without the weight penalty',
Frank: 'does it make you faster?',
Jay: 'Yes',
Frank: 'do you have numbers',
Jay: 'it is measured several times in TOUR magazin, you can look them up',
Frank: 'the numbers are insignifant for most of us and not worth the trouble or cost',
Jay gives up......


If you start a conversation with Frank enthusiastic mentioning your new
bike you get depressed within minutes.

Lou



So there is a simple solution...

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:56:24 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 11:05:04 +0100, Tosspot
wrote:

On 02/02/2020 01:18, John B. wrote:

snip

I have, for years, used a Chinese brake pad that looks very much
like a "cool stop" and used to fuss about with toe in until one day I
was in a hurry and didn't bother and there was no squeal and have
never bothered since. As someone else mentioned, mount the pads,
squeeze the brakes against the rim and tighten the pad mounting screw
and ride away. -- cheers,

Got a link for those?

No I don't. I came across them in some shop or another and bought them
and they seemed to work very well so bought some spares and have
continued to use them.

Note: I don't remember the price but I do remember that I thought that
they were "expensive" so perhaps kool stops from Amazon at $12 a set
would be equal. Or depending on your brakes kool stop inserts, if they
would fit.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 9:49:23 AM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 8:57:36 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/1/2020 10:37 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 2:47:47 PM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
snip

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I usually buy mid-fi equipment, Ultegra and lower, including BR-RS785 discs that you got. Technically, that was a non-series disc brake that was bundled with 105 and Ultegra (IIRC, before the current Ultegra hydro group). It's my daily driver and a great brake for my purposes.

Like it or not, discs are taking over, at least in the PNW. I am amazed at the number of disc bikes on the road and in the racks at work. I wouldn't bother with them in Florida, but they are great in a wet climate for any all in one, year-round bike.

They're taking over here too, based on what I see for sale in the few
shops we have. The last shop I was in had discs outnumbering rim brakes..
But this is just proof that people buy what they're told to buy. We have
far less rain than the PNW; and more important, we have a far, far
smaller percentage of riders who will ride in the rain. (Most of our
club's rides get canceled if it's likely to rain.)

But shops are stocking up on disc brake bikes, and people (even long
time avid riders) can be heard saying "Oooh, I want a bike with disc
brakes."

I suspect if you ask them why, the answer will be "Because they're
better." Or maybe "... safer."

You suspect? Why not just ask them? The usual response around here is that they stop better, particularly in the rain, and that they don't eat rims and allow for large tires and fenders. The racers like them because of stopping power and because they eliminate the usual braking problems with carbon rims. I would not use carbon wheels with rim brakes unless the wheel has a aluminum brake track like the Dura-Ace wheels.

My rim brakes have eaten up my Dura-Ace C35 brake track, and I'm looking at an expensive replacement. I wish I had gone with the discs on my new Emonda. I'm going to see if my son can get me a super-duper S-Works disc Tarmac from the scratch and dent bin at work, although I really, really like the Emonda and don't need any more bikes. I suppose I should just buy another C35 rim if they still make them.

As an aside, my son works with a guy who is whole hog into the scratch and dent bin and has 34 -- count 'em -- 34 Specialized bikes. He has multiple bikes of the same model, varying only by component groups and wheels. Incroyable. He should have his own bike hoarder show. I find it hard to justify the bikes I own and that goes double for skis, some of which are mighty close to others. And now that I think of it, I have way too many over-lapping bike tools.

-- Jay Beattie.

My Emonda was just delivered and that will be my last bike. I'll keep the Lemond and the Colnago and all the rest go. I am REALLY impressed with the Emonda. Finding the components is going to be a pain in the butt though because it seems like there no used 11 speeds stuff around.

On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 1:48:40 PM UTC-8, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, 1 February 2020 16:34:06 UTC-5, Duane wrote:
wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 6:19:05 PM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/1/2020 3:06 AM, wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 4:56:24 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup.
http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2
The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular
in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were
intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the
question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac
brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit
one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible
for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era,
Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz,
Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa
Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of
the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had
anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a
connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other
bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of
my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common
to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE
equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A
lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They
are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end
bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend
$4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst.. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I
felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could
unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the
bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's
but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight.
They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat
mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good
for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it
matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if
you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes
up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the
bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

With the direct mount brakes there isn't hardly any flex so you can
mount the brakes so they start with a full brake shoe contact on the
rims. No shudder and no excessive wear on the brake path on the rim
from that shuttering.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to toe in direct mount brake pads.
Perhaps less than others, but there's still a bit of toe-in.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Never toed in any brake pads. Losen bolts squeeze brake lever and tighten bolts. Done.

That's odd. A bit of toe in has been considered normal for decades.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO77mbB8w7I at 3:40, or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cRzvw5r7M at 3:00, or dozens of other
sources.


--
- Frank Krygowski


I know but why should I toe in my brake pads and how long do you thing
the toe in will last?

Lou


It was recommended to reduce squeal on cantilever brakes. Doesn’t seem to
happen on my recent bikes so I don’t bother.

It was also standard procedure to toe-in brake shoes at all the bicycle shops I ever worked at. Those brakes included side-pull ones as well as cantilever ones.

IIRC, it was also a standard procedure in just about every bicycling book printed in the 1980s.

Perhaps as brake calipers got better and more rigid toe-in isn't needed as much?

Cheers

The leverage on the direct mount brakes is pretty low so I don't think that they will need any toe-in. With my Campy Record Skeleton brakes they only need about 1-2 mm anyway.

On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 14:54:07 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:56:24 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

With the direct mount brakes there isn't hardly any flex so you can mount the brakes so they start with a full brake shoe contact on the rims. No shudder and no excessive wear on the brake path on the rim from that shuttering.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to toe in direct mount brake pads.
Perhaps less than others, but there's still a bit of toe-in.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Well, I'll see soon enough. But there had to be a pretty strong reason for them to change to direct mount brakes.

But the "pretty strong reason" may not be that they provide "better"
braking :-) Perhaps the reason is that it simplified frame making or
that they were cheaper in wholesale lots or that buyers thought that
they were "cool" or that they could advertise a bike that incorporated
them as being "NEW!", or even (Horrors) that a bike with direct
mounted brakes could be sold for more money :-(
--

Cheers,

John B.

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 11:09:17 +0100, Tosspot
wrote:

On 01/02/2020 23:44, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 11:57:20 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/1/2020 10:37 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 2:47:47 PM UTC-8, Tom Kunich
wrote: snip

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with
that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you
could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top
of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I usually buy mid-fi equipment, Ultegra and lower, including
BR-RS785 discs that you got. Technically, that was a non-series
disc brake that was bundled with 105 and Ultegra (IIRC, before
the current Ultegra hydro group). It's my daily driver and a
great brake for my purposes.

Like it or not, discs are taking over, at least in the PNW. I am
amazed at the number of disc bikes on the road and in the racks
at work. I wouldn't bother with them in Florida, but they are
great in a wet climate for any all in one, year-round bike.

They're taking over here too, based on what I see for sale in the
few shops we have. The last shop I was in had discs outnumbering
rim brakes. But this is just proof that people buy what they're
told to buy. We have far less rain than the PNW; and more
important, we have a far, far smaller percentage of riders who will
ride in the rain. (Most of our club's rides get canceled if it's
likely to rain.)

But shops are stocking up on disc brake bikes, and people (even
long time avid riders) can be heard saying "Oooh, I want a bike
with disc brakes."

I suspect if you ask them why, the answer will be "Because they're
better." Or maybe "... safer."

And I know if you ask them "Have you had trouble with your rim
brakes?" they'll say "Well, no..."

I've noticed that lately the bikes in the department stores here,
i.e., the very cheap, U,S. $100, 7 speed ones, are more and more
equipped with cable disc brakes. which leads me to believe that
there is a financial advantage to the maker for using them. At least
I doubt that the buyers of such brakes are experienced,
knowledgeable, bike gurus and are buying based largely on price.

Perhaps that might be an advertising point for the shops selling
expensive bikes... "You mean that you want disc brakes? Like those
Walmart bikes? -- cheers,

Those things are an abortion, offering all the drawbacks of cable with
none of the advantages of discs. If I had to go cable again, I'd stick
with direct pull rim brakes and Kool Stop Salmons.

Do you mean cable disc's or "walmart bikes"? A friend bought a second
hand bike with cable discs to use for a work bike. I only rode it
once, to check new wheel bearings that I had fitted for him, but it
seemed to stop all right.
--

Cheers,

John B.


My Gravel bike has cable disks, they lack power vs my MTB’s even with the
same rotor but they don’t loose it like rim brakes once wet roads, steep
off road descents are now less of a squeaky bum moments.

The main issue is unlike hydraulic systems they don’t self adjust etc, not
found they need any more maintenance bar adjustment of pads.

Compared to Canti no contest really, much closer with dual Pivot in the dry
too close to call, but as it gets wetter and dirtier the gap widens, rather
depends on where and how you ride.

I see lots of folks on a nice Sunday with very nice rim road bikes, but
much less commuter and such! Which makes sense as road disks has been
public lead rather than pro or manufacture lead, unlike say 27.5 MTB wheels
etc.

Roger Merriman

On Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 3:16:23 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 14:54:07 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:56:24 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

With the direct mount brakes there isn't hardly any flex so you can mount the brakes so they start with a full brake shoe contact on the rims. No shudder and no excessive wear on the brake path on the rim from that shuttering.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to toe in direct mount brake pads.
Perhaps less than others, but there's still a bit of toe-in.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Well, I'll see soon enough. But there had to be a pretty strong reason for them to change to direct mount brakes.

But the "pretty strong reason" may not be that they provide "better"
braking :-) Perhaps the reason is that it simplified frame making or
that they were cheaper in wholesale lots or that buyers thought that
they were "cool" or that they could advertise a bike that incorporated
them as being "NEW!", or even (Horrors) that a bike with direct
mounted brakes could be sold for more money :-(

The OE direct mount brakes on my Trek stop well enough but have a slightly different feel than Ultegra dual pivot. Their reason for being is aerodynamics and light weight. They were the brakes spec'd on my bike, and I got the bike because it was among the pro deal offerings I could get from Trek. I certainly didn't buy the bike because of the brakes, and Trek has clearly moved on to discs.

I don't know which model frame TK purchased, but the Emonda is a great bike -- a very straight forward road racing bike -- but not hyper-racy with the H2 fit. I'm not going to get into road feel, because that causes apoplexy for some or is considered wishful thinking or voodoo, but I will say that it has a just right road feel for me -- not too stiff, not too limber. It rides straight and rails on descents.

Oddities include BB90 and the Trek seat mast, but no other proprietary designs requiring special components. In fact, BB90 (like BB86) is meant for 24mm OD crank spindles. Go buy a Shimano group and throw it on. Use CF paste on the seat mast and some foam cover for the internal cables so they don't rattle. My bike came built, but it does have internal cables, so be prepared to fish wires.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 16:11:32 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 3:16:23 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 14:54:07 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:56:24 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 5:47 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 12:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 8:47:13 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2020 10:21 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:48:29 AM UTC-8, Tosspot wrote:
On 31/01/2020 05:35, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Returning to the pivot spread: There was a time when some companies
sold plates to connect the front end of a (front) cantilever's pivot
screws, to prevent that motion. I don't remember such a thing being
sold for center pull brakes back when they were popular, but it
would probably be more useful on that type of brake.

These things?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bi...booster+plates

Yup. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g...serialNumber=2 The Spence Wolf Cuptertino Bike Shrine version that was popular in the late '70s early '80s.

Huh! I hadn't seen those.

With Scott/Mathauser brake shoes/pads. All these kludges were intended to produce braking as good as a Campy NR, begging the question of why one didn't buy NR -- or even the Shimano equivalent.
Well, then as now, people bought the brakes that were attached to the
bike when they saw it on the showroom floor.

Most people are not connoisseurs. They're more affected by advertising
copy than by finely perceived differences in performance.

What advertising copy? If you were buying custom-modified Mafac brakes from Spence Wolf's shop, you were a connoisseur -- albeit one who marched to a different drummer. Spence was also responsible for launching Phil Wood and one of my favorite bikes of the era, Caylor. He then went with a lot of the PNW builders -- Merz, Rodriguez, Erickson -- and Lighthouse bikes by Tim Neenan of Santa Cruz who brought us the original Stumpjumper. Spence was kind of the Gertrude Stein of bike shop owners. I don't know if he had anything on the showroom floor that was an OTC bike.

These days, just to get advertising copy, you have to be a little bit of a connoisseur and subscribe to Bicycling or VeloNews or some other bicycle publication. The only way I know about bikes is because of my son and friends who are in the business. It is much less common to buy a bare frame these days and you are tied to a lot of OE equipment -- often proprietary -- for better or mostly worse. A lot of parts are also fit only for the showroom, like wheels. They are just bike stands on mid-fi bikes and even somewhat high-end bikes. Back in the day, a nice bike had nice wheels. You can spend $4K on a bike that has disposable wheels.

"What advertising copy?" Sheesh! The advertising copy that got them to
look at the Trek, or Giant, or whatever bike they lusted after in the shop!

IOW, you missed my point entirely. First, most people did not go into
shops looking for customized Mafac brakes. Most people never heard of
Mafac brakes. Most people (assuming they wanted something fancier than a
Huffy) went into a Schwinn shop, and the sophisticated ones went into a
Raleigh shop. They looked at the in-store catalogs and saw "Powerful
centerpull brakes!" and thought "Gosh, those centerpull brakes sure are
powerful." A few of them even wandered in here and said "Centerpull
brakes are more powerful than sidepulls" and got reamed by Jobst. Remember?

By and large, people buy what they're told to buy. Today people are told
"disc brakes are SO much safer!" in part because manufacturers are
putting disc brakes on so many bikes. So people who never had a problem
with any caliper brake won't buy a bike without disc brakes.

But the industry survives on churning. Perhaps the next churn will be
direct mount brakes. Maybe _Buycycling_ reviews (ghost-written by
manufacturers?) will begin saying "Direct mounts stop just as well and
are lighter and more aerodynamic." Maybe articles will snark about noise
and short disc pad life and bent rotors. Maybe touring articles will
talk about being stranded in the Himalayas and having to re-bleed discs
using only yak spit. And manufacturer's catalogs will say "Sleek,
aerodynamic direct pull brakes!"

If that's the way it goes, people will wander into shops and say "You
mean _all_ your bikes have _discs_?? This is 2023!!!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

Jay likes to fly with the best equipment. Anything wrong with that? I felt disk brakes to be dangerously strong in that you could unknowingly put them on FAR too hard and got over the top of the bike. So I'm not wild about them.

I think originally it was an attempt to improve braking for the pro's but it sure as hell didn't and it had a lot of added drag and weight. They seemed to have improved that with the 140 mm disks and the flat mounts for the actuators but the only thing I believe them to be good for is prolonging the life of the wheel rims.

Since the pro's get a new bike or 5 every year I don't know that it matters how long the wheels last. They are bought new every year if you don't have a wheel sponsor.

One of the things I didn't like is that you had to set the rim brakes up with a slight forward bias so that when you applied the brakes the bending of the mounting shaft would bring the brake shoes into direct flat contact.

With the direct mount brakes there isn't hardly any flex so you can mount the brakes so they start with a full brake shoe contact on the rims. No shudder and no excessive wear on the brake path on the rim from that shuttering.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to toe in direct mount brake pads.
Perhaps less than others, but there's still a bit of toe-in.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Well, I'll see soon enough. But there had to be a pretty strong reason for them to change to direct mount brakes.

But the "pretty strong reason" may not be that they provide "better"
braking :-) Perhaps the reason is that it simplified frame making or
that they were cheaper in wholesale lots or that buyers thought that
they were "cool" or that they could advertise a bike that incorporated
them as being "NEW!", or even (Horrors) that a bike with direct
mounted brakes could be sold for more money :-(

The OE direct mount brakes on my Trek stop well enough but have a slightly different feel than Ultegra dual pivot. Their reason for being is aerodynamics and light weight. They were the brakes spec'd on my bike, and I got the bike because it was among the pro deal offerings I could get from Trek. I certainly didn't buy the bike because of the brakes, and Trek has clearly moved on to discs.

I don't know which model frame TK purchased, but the Emonda is a great bike -- a very straight forward road racing bike -- but not hyper-racy with the H2 fit. I'm not going to get into road feel, because that causes apoplexy for some or is considered wishful thinking or voodoo, but I will say that it has a just right road feel for me -- not too stiff, not too limber. It rides straight and rails on descents.

Oddities include BB90 and the Trek seat mast, but no other
proprietary designs requiring special components. In fact, BB90
(like BB86) is meant for 24mm OD crank spindles. Go buy a Shimano
group and throw it on. Use CF paste on the seat mast and some foam
cover for the internal cables so they don't rattle. My bike came
built, but it does have internal cables, so be prepared to fish wires.

-- Jay Beattie.

Different strokes for different folks :-)

But from what you wrote you bought a new bicycle and than felt that a
changed to a different BB, apparently to a "better" model, and some
sort of special "stuff" to keep the seat tube from slipping and
stuffing the tubes full of foam because the internal cables rattle is
necessary...

I, on the other hand, went out and bought a 2nd, 3rd, who knows, hand
steel frame bike, cleaned and lubed it and have been riding it for 7
years with no other changes... tell a lie, I changed the handle bar
tape twice because I didn't like the color :-)
--

Cheers,

John B.

On 2/1/2020 8:05 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 1:47:15 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/1/2020 12:49 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 8:57:36 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

But shops are stocking up on disc brake bikes, and people (even long
time avid riders) can be heard saying "Oooh, I want a bike with disc
brakes."

I suspect if you ask them why, the answer will be "Because they're
better." Or maybe "... safer."

You suspect? Why not just ask them?

Largely because the club riders that recently bought new bikes are
almost all on a group vacation in Florida. I suppose I can ask them when
they get back.

The usual response around here is that they stop better, particularly in the rain, and that they don't eat rims and allow for large tires and fenders.

Right! Exactly what all the publicity says! "They stop better,
especially in the rain!" My point is, I can't recall anyone here ever
saying "Damn, I wish my [rim] brakes stopped better in the rain!"

Uh (raising hand), I have. That's one reason why I bought my first disc CX bike. I also wanted better fender clearance so I could run bigger tires. My prior commuter was a 1985 Cannondale Black Lightning that literally fell apart while I was riding home, so I needed a replacement and the disc CX bike fit the bill.

That's fine, and I"ve acknowledged two things repeatedly: Discs do work
better in a few situations, and you, Jay, ride frequently in one or more
of those situations.

Most people never ride in situations where discs are better. Yet tons of
people are buying biked with disc brakes, partly because they're told to
and partly because other choices are constantly getting more uncommon.

It's kind of like "Damn, I wish you couldn't see the headset on this
bike!" Or "Damn, I've got ten cogs in the back, but I'd kill for 11!"
Like so many other bike "innovations," the product came first. The
justification came later.

I don't get why you hate things that work better. I like all my gears. I like my discs, and I love STI. Threadless is way easier to work on, and quills don't get stuck.

If you re-read, you'll see I wasn't alluding to threadless headsets
(which are a better system than threaded). I was alluding to integrated
headsets that are buried in the frame, so you don't have to look at that
unsightly thing while you ride. Or maybe so it reduces your aero drag
force by a micropound.

But regarding your gears: Do you love the 11th one so much that you were
pining for it when you had only ten back there? Somehow I doubt it. You
probably thought "Whoa, now I've got 10!" and it was marvelous until
they came out with 11.

It reminds me of the car ads of the 1950s: "Wouldn't you rather have
THIS year's model?" And it's not new. The idea dates to the depression.
https://timeline.com/gm-invented-pla...e-cc19f207e842
One of the things I loved about bicycling is that it hadn't bought into
that nonsense.

And it's not that I hate things that are "better." I tend to think of
benefits vs. detriments, as opposed to _only_ the supposed benefits. And
I value things like backward compatibility, repairability, long life,
etc. "Better" to me is a net calculation, not ignoring one side of a
balance sheet.

I'm not an early adopter, but when things break or get stolen or wear out, I'll upgrade. There are some proprietary things I don't like, and I could have stayed with threaded BBs, but I'm fine with the press-in formats on my newer bikes. I don't know a single person who upgraded one cog at a time like your imaginary racer-consumers.

The I know people buy this aren't racers. They are people who want to go
out for social rides with friends. Some of them are even restricting
themselves to MUPs. But if they want something with better quality and
longevity than a *-mart BSO, they pretty much have to get a disc brake,
or spend several days finding a bike without one. They have to get twice
as many rear cogs as they'll ever need, with reduced cog and chain life
to match. Who knows? Depending on the next fashion, they may soon be
restricted to a 1x system, giving them a far smaller overall gear range.
(But it will be more aerodynamic!!!)

Time marches on! Go jump on a modern bike with discs and lots of gears and even electronic shifting. See what you think.

Discs? I've ridden bikes with discs, and talked to guys riding them.
I've heard squeals, scrapes and odd, difficult to diagnose noises. I
talked to a guy who was left without brakes on a trip when his touring
bike burned through disc pads far sooner than he expected. I felt the
sudden "Whoa!" deceleration that taught me I had to operate the lever as
if I were squeezing a baby's hand. I perceived all those as negatives.
I've never had a friend describe a moment when a disc offered a benefit.
And I didn't experience any benefits - but then, I don't experience
significant detriments with my own brakes.

Lots of gears? My bikes top out at 9 cogs, but I do far more miles on
two bikes that have just 5 cogs. The 9 do not make me dislike the 5.
Maybe I'm just more tolerant of cadence variations. (Heck, I ride a
three speed around town.) And even if I found Di2 to be very snappy, I
can't imagine buying into a bike system that used a computer interface.

To me, riding a bike is a simple joy. I'm really not interested in
complicating my bikes with (say) five different bottom bracket
standards. I don't like the idea of cascading incompatibilities - like
fewer spokes pushing carbon rims requiring disc brakes requiring new
levers and through axles.

All this for what? So I can fly by the scenery 0.3 mph faster? I'd
rather look at the scenery a little longer.

--
- Frank Krygowski