HardyWeinberg

I don't see why not, as long as the rim has a braking surface. My disc bike does have rim-brake compatible wheels, for instance. The Disc LHT in the photos looks like it has disc-only wheels.

I will check that out, thank you. -> is that organic/steel or organic/aluminum or both, by the way?

well biked

Avid just lables them as "organic" in regard to the pad compound. I had a terrible brake squealing problem on my mountain bike, using BB7's, and completely solved it by switching to Avid's organic pads.

tcpasley

Has anyone had trouble keeping 700c disc wheels true? Any excessive spoke breakage? Any rim cracks at the spoke holes?

I bought a Nashbar cyclocross frame and carbon fork with intentions of building a commuter-tourer with disc wheels. However, after thinking about the stress applied to the spokes on disc brake wheels, I decided to stick with cantilever brakes. My 210# mass also figured "heavily" in the calculation.

A local rider here in Raleigh had a catastrophic front disc wheel failure on a Trek Portland. Granted, the Bontrager SSR front wheel on the Portland had too few spokes (24 paired spokes), but that led me to pass up a great deal on a set of those wheels and Avid BB7 Road brakes.

Cheers,

tcpasley

Reduce, Reuse, Rebicycle

MassiveD

https://yarchive.net/bike/disk_brakes.html

https://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/fork/

And here is the discussion of wheel disengagement forces that cause wheels to pop out, which is why Thorn won't allow this design. These are large forces:

ftp://bin-login.name/pub/docs/unix/y..._brake_qr.html

There are also problems with fork integrity.

Here is Jobst over at Sheldon:

" The fork can only be slender and light because it carries no bending loads at the dropout. With disc brakes forks would require a substantial increase in cross section (and weight)."

The draft design does not seem to show that.

MassiveD

"Has anyone had trouble keeping 700c disc wheels true? Any excessive spoke breakage? Any rim cracks at the spoke holes?"

My feeling is that the main problems would be from the wheel dish. From what I can make of the Jobst discussion in the Bicycle Wheel, hub brakes only increase loads on spokes by about 5%. All main failure modes for spokes are fatigue related, and the main forces there are from the wheel build and rider/bike weight. When you go to a dished wheel you affect the spoke rigging angle, and effectively transfer the main loads to the disc side spokes. This is why fatigue failures are so much more comon on rear wheels, (along with weight loading).

xenti

Anyone else think disc brakes on a curved fork is a bad idea?

sstorkel

I haven't. I use a Nashbar aluminum touring frame with a Nashbar carbon cyclocross fork. Use an Avid BB7 disc on the front and cantilever brake for the rear. Front wheel is a Velocity Synergy OC rim mated to a Shimano XTR centerlock hub with 32 DT Swiss Competition double-butted spokes. The off-center drilling of the Synergy rim keeps the spoke tension very similar on both sides of the wheel, despite the dish. Built the wheels myself and haven't had a single problem with them, though I'll admit they've only done 3000-3500 miles.

FunkyStickman

Not really, if it's made well. If you're considering disks on a loaded touring bike, go with something that's strong enough over something light. The tubing thickness has more to do with the fork breaking than curved legs.

MassiveD

"Anyone else think disc brakes on a curved fork is a bad idea?"

As far as I know it is completely irrelevant in two senses. First it makes no difference to the brake or fork if it is curved or not. What maters is that it is beefy, and the wheel doesn't come off. Be one case where I would prefer those flanges on the drops, and bolt on wheels. (It might also help to have the disc mounted forward, though they don't seem to do that much. Thats will seat the wheel in the drop when the brakes are applied.)

Curved forks normally go hand in hand with flexy forks it isn't exactly suspension, but it does deal with road noise through the fork. But that should be irrelevant since the super stiff fork you need for this stuff is not going to be consistent with that approach, so might as well save weight and make it straight.

MileHighMark

If you're not ready/willing to make the jump to discs, I highly recommend replacing your canti's with v-brakes. I converted my SOMA Saga over to v's, and it's a huge improvement.



Details here.

longhaultrucker

all i know is this is the bike i have been waiting for. all my bikes have disk on them and outside of a taco'd wheel due to some loose spokes i have had less problems out of disk than any other bikes i have ever ownedeasyto adjust and the stopping power will toss u over the bars if you crank down on them to hard. sure they get hot but its safer to get them hot than the rim in my humble opinion plus if you think one is getting to hot just back off it for awhile and let it cool. As a long haul trucker I understand brake heat better than most as our lives and yours depend on that info when going down mountains. one of the reasons cars dont use drums anymore is that disk brakes cool quicker and offer a mechanical advantage in stopping distance. I.E. they are just flat out safer. the argument was made when disk brakes went full throttle in cars the same breath has been spent making the case in trucks and now we have gone backwards in a sense that here we are talking about bikes and yet again the same victors of old are saying nay to the future.........comical it is

ToppDogg

I do not own a LHT but with my touring bike and cantilever brakes I've never been satisfied with my stopping, I would think the disc will greatly increase that when we are loaded and in wet conditions. I hope to ride all winter and here in the NW that can mean plenty of moisture.

azesty

I thought about getting discs for my touring bike, but where I am going next year, China to Turkey, disc brake parts will be few and far between. V-brakes are easy to get in most places.

z

DropBarFan

I did a loaded tour of Blue Ridge Parkway a couple of years ago on a Novara Randonee with cantis/Kool-Stop road pads. Brake setup fine for normal round-town riding but woefully inadequate on the Parkway ride which featured long descents in fog...there was no "scrubbing off" rain from the rims because the air itself was saturated. Hands/fingers got badly fatigued from brake lever effort...on the final run down to Buena Vista the brakes hardly worked...I had to ride into a gravel truck emergency ramp.

I admit I have no experience with discs but for every post saying "rim brakes work just as well" I read 3X the # of posts saying "disc brakes work much better esp in the rain", "disc brakes require less effort" etc. OTOH I've done decades of riding on racing bikes/touring bikes in all weather conditions with rim brakes (Campagnolo Record, Mafac center-pulls etc) & they all suffered from poor wet-weather braking though some were better than others. IMHO the heat build-up problem is less important than wet weather performance. I guess I'll have to try discs to be sure.