Found: Alligator’s Prototype Carbon-Kevlar-Ceramic Disc Brake Rotor

The rotor looks damn similar to the one developed by Alien Machinery we found on the Eurobike:
http://www.cx-sport.de/content/cyclocross/material/eurobike-2012-querbeet-3
Skip down to Alien.

Cool rotors, probably might be a nice idea for wicked descents where you might be laying on the stoppers for extended periods of time without having a chance to let them things cool off. And I’d say just the thing for on- OR off-road, because tiny, poor heat management rotors on ANY bike is a bad idea if you plan on stopping effectively. This might help those weenies get the much needed reliability in stopping power that they might be realizing they actually need, versus a handful of grams saved.

Ceramic is an insulator, not a heat “mitigator”. The benefit or ceramics is light weight, and extremely high melting temperatures..

They managed to get the words carbon, Kevlar, and ceramic all in one product. They’ll practically sell themselves based on that alone.

Whoah – a rotor made entirely of insulating materials? Sounds like the worst heat-dissipation plan ever. 100% now goes into the pads/caliper. Not only a bad idea, it’s opposite the direction that the large companies are going, like the ice rotors that Mindless mentioned.

Yikes. Can just imagine these going on road bikes and seeing all sorts of new problems with lightweight calipers overheating.

If the link St. John provided is correct about a 160 mm weighing 47 g – that’s roughly half of what the current crop of lightest 160 mm rotors weigh, and still less than 140 mm.

I have a 140 mm on the rear of my cross bike, and I’d much rather it be 160 mm. But there is failure concerns…

This might be the right answer for heavy braking. F1 cars use a carbon/carbon rotor with a carbon pad. They need huge amounts of heat to work properly (generate friction), like heat well beyond what would fade a normal car’s brakes. This may pair well as small rotors and long road decents may generate the heat needed.

To Mindless – “That is all that is needed.”

How to stop any kind of evolution… Seriously this type of comment cannot be on this kind of web site.

It’s not if todays composites/ceramic are not adapted to low braking temperature that it will never have a future in cycling !!! And even if it’s not perfect I would enjoy testing one different piece of technology.

carbon/ceramic brakes (like on porsches, ferraris, etc) stop well, hot or cold. carbon/carbon brakes (like in f1, airplanes) require high temps to stop. two totally different animals, sharing our favorite word -carbon.