Originally Posted by
79pmooney
I bet the faster wheel change and neutral support wheels is a bigger deciding factor despite that article. If you have GC riders ahead of team support, a flat means a getting a neutral wheel that is not changed by the team mechanic. Seconds lost can be many thousands of dollars costly, especially if that GC rider has no teammates on had to pull him back to the lead group. And if that wheel doesn't have a disc that works, that could be a real problem in the mountains! Both Ineos and Jumbo-Visma are GC teams. Discs are simply too high a risk in the GC picture (as long as your riders aren't raised on discs and expect that stopping power going into mountain turns).
Sure there's some small percentage of risk to needing a wheel change during a race. But there's a 100% probability of running extra weight on a bike during the entire race if your team uses an older aero bike that's not competitively light. It's not so cut and dry that using rim brakes is the best choice if the bikes weren't as heavy. JV is switching to Cervelo next year. If I had to bet, I'd side with James Huang's expectation that they'll switch to discs then.