Originally Posted by Campag4life

No...he likely would have locked his rear brake on either. In the heat of the battle if going for max braking, either type will lock the wheel.


The next evolution in bicycle racing in particular as it has been a big game changer in motorcycle racing is ABS. With hydraulic disks, one may believe someday this could happen. Porte's accident was likely due to a wet road surface and his lack of bike handling skills ... ABS makes everybody better...car, motorcycle and if/when implemented for racing bicycles when descending 60 mph on mountain roadways in wet conditions when riders take more chances than they should, ABS will make a big difference. Really easy to lose that little tire contact patch in the wet as many of us have experienced but most of us ride much slower in the wet because we don't have to ride fast ... ABS on a bicycle would help a lot in this condition as well.

Originally Posted by Lazyass

.... an extra 20 or whatever seconds it took ....

Originally Posted by dabac

20 extra seconds, that'd allow for dropping the axle into the ditch, and retrieving it. Not impossible, but not fair to blame entirely on the technology. Not desirable, sure. But rarely disastrous.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

here's where I see the difference. if a team car with the right wheel has it ready, and it is early enough in a sprint stage, no big deal. The rider can motor-pace (surreptitiously) back to the back of the peloton.

if he flats late in a sprint stage he likely is schrod anyway.

But if on a mountain stage, with narrow roads and the team car is however far back in the queue, the neutral service car has to hunt for the right wheel and cannot find it ... "Sorry, we gave the last wheel with that spacing to another rider ... " then the guy sits there waiting for the entire train of riders, reporters, cops, and finally team cars to arrive, and he has lost the group and any hope of a draft, and if he has to climb more while the group is descending .....

Originally Posted by Marcus_Ti

Axle spacing/diameter isn't that much of a thing, particularly for road.

The real honest standards problem is that frame and wheel manufacturers are at odds as to where precisely the plane of the disc rotor should land on the hubs. They aren't *that* far off....but a millimeter of tolerance (0.5mm error between frame mount for caliper and wheel hub) is enough to cause pretty bad brake rotor rub when swapping between two different hubsets.


This dumb kind of thing should be sorted out and fast TBH.

Originally Posted by Marcus_Ti

This dumb kind of thing should be sorted out and fast TBH.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Yeah, i was referring to fit ... not axle diameter .... space between the centerline and the pads or however they measure it ... because if the pads don't straddle the rotor, the guy's riding with his brakes on. I should have taken more time to describe it ... but you did fine.
Yup .... but everyone wants their own proprietary system so they can make more money .... tubeless rims, BB/spindle .... you'd think here though, it would matter more and the manufacturers would actually choose an industry standard.

On the other hand ... Dan Martin got a caliper brake rim which was too narrow and crashed.