Road Disc Will Prevail

As my colleague, @bikejourno tweeted this morning

with an edit of the Merida Scultura Disc

While not imported in the States, you’ve probably ridden a bike made by Merida, under a different brand name. They’ve been in business for 25 years and following the Paris-Roubaix disc injury, released this statement.

Following the injury at the recent Paris-Roubaix race and the following preliminary suspension of disc-brakes by the UCI we would like to take the opportunity to give a statement as one of the two bike-manufacturers who used disc brake equipped bikes in the event.

For years and strengthened by the overwhelmingly positive feedback from TEAM LAMPRE-MERIDA (who concluded two weeks of world-tour racing to test the equipment under serious race conditions), MERIDA continues to believe in the future of disc brakes on road bikes. We are convinced that the added safety aspects such as better modulation and braking performance especially in the wet and when cornering, avoidance of rim heat up on long descents etc. will help the prevention of crashes and outweigh the potential risks as passive member of mass crashes.

However the happenings of the recent event has shown that further disc technology improvements should be made to reduce potential risks (for example rotors with rounded edges). For this purpose, MERIDA and other leading bike brands are in communication with disc brake manufacturers to push this development forward.

MERIDA will do its utmost to support the safety improvements of disc brakes during racing so that not just the amateur rider but also the pro-peloton can benefit from the long lists of disc brake benefits.

In my commentary about disc brakes on Medium Bicycles, I shared that no new molds are being opened for caliper brakes. There is also an unprecedented flurry of engineering activity in Taiwan right now, coming up with a fix, that should’ve been in place before the start of the season. Why the UCI is locked into a 1990s mindset is another matter. The impact to us is what the pros ride has never been more irrelevant to what we’re riding. I’ll say it again, when it comes to road bikes, get the disc, like this one.

If you don’t understand why road disc is better, the marketers have failed at their job. Well, you can ignore them too because they sold aero and marginal gains instead of massive gains in braking and bike-handling technology. The Merida Scultura Disc is an example of the advances, and so is the Trek Boone or Domane SLR.

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