Seems Shimano has more than just renderings of their new flat mount disc brake standard for road bikes. Koga just sent us this photo of a fork for an upcoming bike. Since they plan on showing it off at Eurobike, presumably complete, it means there must be a Shimano brake ready to go with it (right?). We’ll be on the show floor with camera’s ready to snap, stay tuned…
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, it’s like you’re trolling the commenters by calling this a standard. Just say its a new mounting configuration. Personally, I like the idea of having the brake mounted more low profile. I’m guessing it doesn’t need to stick out as far because of the smaller 140mm rotors on road bikes?
There are no standards in the bike industry. Sorry guys, BSA is not a standard anymore. Its just BSA. And PF30 is just PF30. This brake stuff is the same way, new mounting options.
And in a couple of years there will be something else that is new and hopefully by then all the people that have personally lost and been wronged by this option will finally be able to accept it so they can start hating on the new thing.
Actually it is a standard.
A technical standard does not mean that it is standardized 100% in the industry (or an internationally accepted standard at that).
It just means that it is a defined set of technical specifications and requirements that are to be used to make it compatible with other devices that are meant to interact with it.
In this case, the fork is manufactured to the tolerances of the specification to accept flat mount brakes that are manufactured to the tolerances of the specifications.
There are open standards, closed standards, industry standards, industry accepted standard, international standards, etc etc.
Sometimes the defined International Standard ends up becoming defunct for a newer standard developed by the industry (51mm vs 74mm post mount for example, since we are on the subject of brake mounting).
I think the biggest troll that disc road bike manufacturers are pulling is not going to 15mm/142x12mm from the get-go, simply so they can introduce it later and call it a “glorious technological revolution.”
Thru-axles front and rear is the obvious choice, maybe not for ProTour bikes but for everyday use it’s way better than a QR.
@Dale, I’d highly recommend a 160mm disc on front for all but the smallest of riders. I was given this advice when swapping in an Enve RD fork and TRP Hy/Rd brake on my non-disc road bike and glad I took it (I’m 175lbs). I run DA calipers w Reynolds cryo-blue pads on a cc rim on back and barely use them, so 140mm would be fine on the back for all but the heaviest of riders. I suspect this “standard” is spaced for 140mm so would need a PM spacer.
“The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.” -Anon
I don’t get all the angst. If Shimano is willing to publish a spec that frame builders are willing to build to, what’s the downside? The pitfall is that this could lead to vendor lock in, but if this spec is backward compatible with post mount hardware (which *already* have adapters) and it fits very clean and stable on the fork, then I guess I’m not seeing the downside.
My only hesitation to buying another bike with disc brakes is that I’m done with QR. Too much of a pain to get the rotor clearance just right when putting a wheel back on. If this speeds the adoption of thru-axle (and the pic above is almost certainly just a prototype) then I say bring it on.
here is a photo of the Shimano flat mount with an adapter to mount the rear caliper on a new KTM.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this, and 15mm will be next I’m guessing. I haven’t had problems aligning with QR now that my freeza and hy/rd pads are bedded, but I do get occasional light rub under flex from time to time. The Enve RD fork has a nice built-in clip so I never needed zip ties, but it’s only available for tapered headtubes. Pics @ windluvr dot com slash masi.
Shimano is the 800lb gorilla of the bicycle component world. If they unveil a new disc caliper mount for road bikes it will pretty much become the default “standard”. It looks like it works with adapters for other “standards”. Why would anyone hell bent on using SRAM “brakes” be upset (other than with choosing SRAM brakes)?
@Aaron @ervgopwr, yup, thru axels are the way to go. And if I recall correctly, there were some extensive tests done in the 00’s some time that illustrated quite clearly that QR’s and disc brakes are a dangerous combination, with the wheels pulling out of the dropouts depending on the quality/tightness of the QR itself. 15/142 thru is a solid combination.
As far as the actual *ahem* ‘standard’ – it’s nice and clean but I just fail to see why Shimano could not have dropped this from the get go – it’s not like people were already putting discs on road bikes. All it looks like is a typical industry farce, intro’ing something ‘new’ after people already started to commit to whatever was started with.
Anybody with a brain will run 160mm or larger disk. 140mm is too small in front. Thus, an adapter will be needed, making any “improvement” moot.
Prediction: It will go the way of the direct derailler mounting standard Shimano introduced, and nobody cared about. And integrated shift mounting, that few people actually use.
