SRAM Leaks Images of New Brakes

yea. more crappy SRAM brakes.

Forget the components… how can I get a pair of those gloves???

It’s MALLORCA, not MAJORCA.

@mindless
why? i am unaware with any stiffness problems of the sort so long as you own a decent frame and fork.
road bikes dont need to track through the same stuff as mountain bikes so there is really no need to beef up that part of the bike. Flexible wheels would entirely negate any marginal stiffness you would be able to get from it. In any Crit or road race it would also take longer to change a wheel.
As far as disk brakes go, if the market stick to 135mm rear, they will likely need to re work the spacing of the road cranks and how far out the chain rings need to be in order to get a straight chain line.
Road brakes are fine in about 90 percent of cases they are used in, and if the user knows what they are doing they will likely never really have any issues in a recreational setting.

It might seem silly but people still ride tubulars, when the clincher has come so far, and people still go out of their way to buy hand made steel bikes when carbon frames are clearly make the best power transfer.
Rim brakes and road bike will never part ways, they are the lightest system out there and always will be, and weight is a bigger player in road biking than mountain biking.
Until someone can make something like RZR wheelset with disk brakes, or mad fibers, rim brakes are going to be the prominent brake in road bikes.

Alas, “power transfer” is certainly not the end-all of bike characteristics, especially when you consider there’s not been a single published study that correlates bike stiffness with improved performance. Weight in road cycling isn’t such an exclusive or important game that disc brakes won’t happen and won’t be seen in the pro peloton. Disc brakes are coming to the road, and their market share will grow. There’s no getting around that, especially when you understand that power is not the key metric in performance braking: modulation is, and it’s in modulation that disc brakes kill caliper brakes. You can have right now 303 Firecrests or 404 Firecrests custom built onto disc hubs, so there’s no need to wait for Mad Fiber or for RZR’s to come in a disc variant.

Enhance this. YEAHHHHHH!

Mark W.

Just a few things:

1) After developing the 15mm through axle, Fox proved that it was actually far faster to change a wheel with a TA than with a traditional QR.

2) You may be unaware of stiffness problems and road bikes may seen just fine, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. 50 years ago everyone though the bikes seemed just fine as well. Nobody was longing for carbon fiber or needing a 14lb bike, but look at us now. Why settle for just fine when we can innovate and have the best?

3) Hydraulic rim and/or disc brakes very well might make their way to majority of road bikes over the next few years. Magura already proved that hydraulic rim brakes could be made lighter than conventional caliper brakes. Companies are now working to lighted the hydraulic disc system, as well as to lighten the hubs and rotors associated with it. So no, you won’t find a high end racing bike equipped with discs right now… but you very well may in 10 years.

Remember, everything that is stock now was thought to be only a weird fad at some point.

@joshua murdock

Your argument for the through axle is true for disk brakes, and because you would void the warranty and be very risky on a suspension fork if you filed down the tabs around the drop out to change wheels faster. But unless you have road disks why should we shove a through axle standard in when we have rim brakes.

the stiffness argument though i do disagree with, I’m sure we could make something better than that for the road bike that is more click and play for racing. There are other parts of the bikes we can still do better with stiffness though right now than the drop out. Road bikes are also missing linked suspension, part of that flex may actually improve the ride of the bike. Look at bikes like the Cannondale Flash 29er and the Stumpjumper HT 29, they are cutting edge bikes that could have gone with the rear through axle that do not because it makes them ride better with out them.

I do see where you are coming from on the stiffness but i think right now, a frame and fork made with high quality carbon and a good lay up would not really give a measurable benefit to the rider if he or she had a through axles unless he or she had a massive power output and had a very very stiff pair of wheels to do it with.

The industry keeps advancing each year, I mean look carbon clincher road wheel are all over, electric shifting is easy to get(if you have the money), carbon bikes are all over, and 29 inch wheels are the biggest thing in mountain biking . I am not oppessed to change, i just think that not all of the changes we could make, would be the best ones with the tools and the we have to work with.

Mark W,

I think we’re both right! You have some good points, too!