Ashima’s got some new hydraulic, pistonless road brakes in their design queue. Dubbed the PanCake Brake (PCB), it uses the same PanCake design of their forthcoming pistonless mountain bike disc brakes. The hydraulic line feeds directly to a diaphragm seal that holds the pad, eliminating the traditional piston, reducing weight and complexity.
The system operates using a normal brake lever, with cables (just visible at the top of the image above) feeding into the stem, which houses the master cylinder. From there, the hydraulic lines run through the steerer tube and fork crown, giving the system a very sleek appearance…for the front anyway, no word on how this’ll be done for the rear brake.
Contributing to that sleek appearance is the one-piece carbon arch/arms construction, which also makes it potentially very lightweight.
Price and weight are unknown yet, other than to say “expensive” and “lightest weight of any system on the market.”
BikeRadar has more photos (including these two) and details.