PoorInRichfield

This is the common complaint with Shimano (and perhaps other brands) and has been my experience as well. Where I live, it seems to be cool to put a stop sign at the very bottom of a hill. As a result, I'm on my brakes really hard to come to a complete stop and when I start moving again, one or both rotors start rubbing for a while which eventually goes away. It's my understanding that the new 12 speed Shimano group brakes have a very slight increase in pad gap distance to reduce the rubbing noise caused by the tight pad clearance.

BlazingPedals

Where can you get these mythical $2 rotors?

Racing Dan

Shimano rotors tend to be a complex construction of a alloy spider, rivets and and a sandwich brake rotor. All with different temperature expansion coefficients. Im sure a simple 6 bolt, single piece, stainless rotor would be less prone to warping.

t2p

Shimano offers inexpensive one piece rotors

Shimano claims the three layer rotors (aluminum core between steel plates) with aluminum carrier manage heat more efficiently

because aluminum dissipates heat better than steel - I'm going to side with the Shimano engineers

t2p

at the dollar store

problem is you only get 1/2 rotor

Racing Dan

Thats fine, however bonding metals with different coefficient of thermal expansion is very much likely to produce warping in the presence of heat. The principle is used in a long variety of mechanical and electrical contraptions exactly for that reason. Shimano may be able to out engineer the effect, but reducing warping sure is a lot easier in a single piece brake disc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallic_strip

Atlas Shrugged

Your internet sleuthing missed a key point, BiMetal does not have the corresponding material on the other side of this the warping. Given the design I would state that the trimetal design is actually more stable than a solid disk. Much like a sheet of plywood is more stable than a single plank.

NoWhammies

I don't know. I am no engineer but I think the engineering Shimano has done behind the Ice-tech rotors is pretty damn amazing.

Racing Dan

Then again, If the design was inherently balanced and warp resistant, then why would Shimano have to redesign and market an improved, warp resistant design that is "Designed to significantly reduce heat deformation during long, steep descents". Shimano discs was always a triple sandwich, that clearly isn't inherently warp resistant. Quite the contrary. Warping/pinging and delamination are common complaints, that are likely to originate in the sandwich of dissimilar metals.

Atlas Shrugged

With the exception of the Fender Stratocaster or perhaps a traditional mousetrap most products are in some form of constant improvement this would be a example of this. I never indicated that the Shimano Rotor could not be improved, only a laminate is usually more stable the a solid. I also pointed out the bimetal example is irrelevant because the rotor clearly is not. If solid rotors are preferred by some that is great however Shimano has produced millions of the IceTech rotors with very good market acceptance.

Polaris OBark

I think what some people interpret to be transient rotor warping is instead failure of a piston to fully retract, which can usually be resolved by one or two additional short sharp squeezes on the brake lever.