Incremental Improvement and the Disc Brake

VJ always has the latest stuff!

By last Monday I felt about ready to start trying to get back in shape, and that feeling was reinforced the following day when Dr. Savoie told me I was clear to resume my normal activities. Of course I'd resumed normal activities a long time ago but was still holding back a bit, well OK, a lot, on the intensity. I mean, what better excuse than a broken bone, right? Well, anyway, it was time.

So I've been trying to slowly, incrementally, increase the amount of time I spend pushing myself on the local rides. I think it's going fairly well. By Wednesday afternoon my legs were feeling a little sore, but I drove out to the lakefront with the bike anyway. The plan was to ride two of the three laps of the WNW training race, and then take photos of the finishers to document the placings. Michael B. has been keeping a spreadsheet of the top five from each week's race. Unfortunately, just after we rolled out for the half-lap warmup I realized I'd forgotten to lock the car, so I circled back to lock up and then rode about halfway to the Seabrook loop before turning around. I knew they'd have a tailwind and wanted to at least get past the broken-up asphalt around Franklin Ave. before they caught me.  Well, I dramatically miscalculated and ended up riding all the way back around the fountain traffic circle before they came streaming by. I accelerated as the unbroken line of riders went by, hoping to latch onto the tail end before I blew up completely. That didn't quite work out. Just as I got to the back, the group came to the one-lane section over the outfall canal. With a strong crosswind coming from the right, and riders already lined up along the left-hand gutter, there wasn't even a hint of draft left for me. I eased up and was soon caught by Wes and another couple of riders, so that was good. We rode a decent enough pace and I got in my two laps, so I was reasonably satisfied with that. Maybe next week.....  On the plus side, the turnout was again quite good, so I'm feeling optimistic about the training races sticking this summer. If the turnout keeps increasing, however incrementally, I could see groups of 30-40 showing up pretty soon.

So I've been seeing a lot of hype about road disc brakes recently. The whole thing kind of fascinates me. While I don't have anything against the idea, really, it seems like the amount of attention it's getting far outweighs the importance, unless of course you're in the business of selling bikes in which case I suppose it holds the potential for a lot of sales. I've been riding bikes a long time, and although I can't speak for people who ride really fast down really long and steep mountains, I have never, ever felt that my brakes were in adequate.  I'm including there the old Universal Super 68 brakes that got me down the 60 mph hill in Bisbee back in 1980. Overall, it seems like the need to have an entirely new frame and fork kind of outweighs any incremental braking benefits to be gained, so at least from my perspective it's more of a cost issue than anything else. If someone gave me a new bike with disc brakes, I'd be fine with that, but I can't see paying extra for a disc brake road bike right now, at least until some better standards evolve. The only benefit I can see, and I think it will probably be a significant one, is that carbon wheels, especially tubulars, could potentially be made with lighter and/or more aerodynamic rims if they didn't need to have braking flats. But then, what do I know. I still can't afford a pair of aero carbon wheels, and I can't help but think that all of the cumulative incremental advantages of aero frames, aero handlebars, aero wheels, electronic shifting, etc., etc., must be at the point where I'm at some kind of significant disadvantage once the speeds get above 25 mph, which lately seems to be most of the time.