Road Bikes - Disc or Not

[Fletch79]

Seems to be an ongoing argument with road bikers about how dangerous discs are

Whats the feeling here??
I already know which side of the fence i'm on, i am on i just wondered what the general consensus is here on PH

[Fletch79]

Debunked or not, i have friends at work who will just not entertain discs on a road bike for a varying list of excuses ...

You can't control them, they just lock up skinny little tyres
to
No ... Just No

[Fletch79]

gazza285 said:

Buy the bike you want.

I did and i have ... Like i said, just wondered the opinion of PH

All my bikes have Hyd Discs ... Watching my mate go fleeing past me on a damp day and down an exit road (the lucky boy) as i easily stopped for a 90 left at the bottom of a steep hill on a hybrid carry a load more weight than him was a good enough reason for me!

[Fletch79]

Kermit power said:

As for needing thru axles, why??? In theory, I suppose, you might get less flex under full braking, but how often do you use full stopping power anyway? I've got hydraulic discs on both thru axles and QRs. 99.9% of the time, there's no discernible difference. I'm also not sure what sort of thru axle you've got if you think there's any particular difference in effort or skill required between taking them off and taking off a traditional skewer. There certainly isn't on any of the bikes in my family. Have you ever actually taken off a thru axle?

As for mechanicals as a result of taking the wheel off, that's only going to happen if you apply the brakes with the wheel off. That can be a pain when you flip a mountain bike onto its bars, but it's actually pretty difficult to do with road levers.

Having both Through Axles on my Good bike and QR on the Winter bike ... I'll take Thru axles anytime. So much easier to remove and drop the wheel off. With Canyon you get a little QR style lever that can be swapped between wheels at the side of the road. No tools or storage required.

Disc brakes can be put on and off without adjustment unless you pull the levers .. and even then all you need is a flat blade of some kind to push the pads back to get you going ... and if you have a business card in your wallet you can setup the brakes if the scuffing (in a get you home repair) annoys you that much! but just pusing the pads back and a few pumps on the lever will get you sorted!

[Fletch79]

So I was out on my winter bike today

A downhill section and I could feel my SRAM Apex hydraulic discs fading and a little smokey at the bottom of a fairly short but quick descent

The calipers were a little warm but the fade was unexpected, I've been down that same section on my other bike with ultegra discs many times with no issues.

As the bike was bought second hand I may have to check and see if it's running cheap pads, however looking at the overall condition I'd guess it's the stock pads!

Interesting but I was never worried about not stopping even with a whiff of smoke.