Don’t bother, just adds extra weight and if you fit discs I doubt you’ll ever tear them off and fit cantis. Plus the (ENVE?) fork will be disc only anyway right?
Pure racing: cantis are fine, discs are ok and will only get better with time, noone here is good enough to worry about weight penalties / brake performance penalties.
Mixed use: Sure, go discs if it’s not considerably more expensive or makes any other deal breaking compromises, they’ll be better for long descents / avoiding supercommuters / wet weather braking / hauling up touring loads etc.
2014 off-the-shelf stuff is starting to (disc) break cover, hurrr. Thru-axle forks on the new Giant frames is an interesting move, has anyone else done that?
Looks like the Shimano hydro stuff will hit stores in November, so early Euro and US season will be off the table if you’re not a sponsored rider, never mind DDCX!
Giant also has that crazy proprietary oversized steerer tube. Must be hella stiff up the front. Though I’m still drooling for a 2014 giant tcx but with xx1 drivetrain and red 22 brifters (pretty much Adam Craig’s set up)
MTB friends of mine have been saying its the next step after hydro. moar stiffness everywhere. will make wheel changes even more difficult in race (but hey if you are running discs you arent changing them as quick anyway). agree i’m not sure its something that needs to happen.
yeaahhhhhh - im going to go out on a limb and say thatll be #prolyf only. unless you want to custom your rig.
everything they are doing makes sense… it’s just changing the game. The bikes are getting more cross-compatible with your 29er than your roadie. that’s the difference.
the wheel change thing is a serious question though. unless you have pit bikes (#fullprolyf). although, at the Sycacross race last round i couldn’t find a spare rim brake wheel - everyone had disc sets though… so maybe it is changing?
still think it all comes down to spares at this stage. you got a bunch of road gear - get cantis, you ride 29ers - get discs
You guys talk about drifting but think thru-axles are overkill? And with discs, a thru axle will be almost as quick to change, zero time wasted making sure the disc is located correctly to avoid rubbing.
But I never see you in person Here is my logique. Happy for people to knock it down.
re: thru-axles, if you’re breaking traction sideways, you’re putting a lot of stress on the interface between hub and fork, and having a stiffer interface there means more predictable, less flexy/sloppy/snappy drift.
re: quick changes, thru-axles locate more precisely than a 9mm pushing into a fork tip, which results in the disc being located more precisely with regards to the caliper, which means no worrying about rub. Most of the time a change with QR is ok, but if youre in a hurry, shove it in, there is mud everywhere, it can easily go in slightly askew, still lock, and rub.
i went into my lbs and they had one focus mares ax2.0 disc/105/2013 for $1360, it seemed like a pretty good price, i know the 2015 models should be coming out soon so sales are on, is there anything else which is similar or better?
Surely front through axles are just as quick as QRs if not quicker now?
Rears depends very much on the frame interface. Some bikes are quick, some its a faff lining up the thread to spin the thru axle into.
this was a little bit of a thread dig, so the through-axle discussion is a bit old now.
However it seems for my uses that there’s little advantage in buying a new cx bike for general riding if anything without thru axles and hydraulic discs is already going to be outdated this season, i may as well look for something secondhand with a higher groupset and cable discs/QR.
Seeing the pit changes at recent world cup XC events I would probably say otherwise. Esp seeing the extent to which such pit crews are going to to try and speed them up - modify TAs to accept 8mm hex keys in order to be removed/installed using cordless drivers. Of course this is not such an issue if you are a CX team with spare bikes. TAs will have advantages if using them singletrack and technical CX courses but not so much on CX courses that utilise playing fields and similar such grassy parkland. Speeds aren’t high enough to tell the difference, or so I would have thought. Having wheels with stiff rims would be more beneficial IMHO.
Here is my logique. Happy for people to knock it down.