Campagnolo reveals new disc brakes
Campagnolo has revealed several prototype disc brake designs that will be trialled by professional riders over coming weeks and months, although no timescale has been decided for when any of them will be available to buy.
We know that all of the designs are hydraulic but Campag has been unwilling to disclose many more details.
The prototype brakes will be used by Campagnolo-sponsored teams Astana, Lotto Soudal and Movistar in this year’s Classics. Teams already have the disc brakes for training.
“We have several solutions that we are evaluating at this moment, that have been tested heavily in the lab and on the road,” said Joshua Riddle, Campagnolo’s Press Manager. When these solutions are deemed safe we give them to pro riders within the pro peloton and evaluate which one is going to give the performance advantage that we need to win races.”
Campagnolo showed us the new disc brakes when they flew us out to a launch of several new products, including the Potenza groupset, in Gran Canaria a couple of weeks ago. We saw three bikes set up with different systems: a Lotto Soudal Ridley, a Specialized S-Works Tarmac Disc, and one of Campagnolo’s own bikes.
“It’s the same concept for disc brakes. By definition, a brake is a safety product. It’s not a matter for us to rush to be the first, it’s a matter of performance and reliability over time.
“Whenever we are not the first to launch a product, we take the opportunity to check what our competitors are doing and we try to launch something better.”
“Mr Campagnolo himself has a mandatory statement: I don’t want to launch any product before it has been tested for months in real races by our professional racers.”
Campag says that it was developing the brakes prior to the UCI’s announcement that they’d become race legal for a trial period at the end of the 2015 race season and throughout 2016, but that it has devoted more resources to the project since that announcement was made.
Campagnolo intends to evaluate its various disc brake prototypes over the race season. It has both flat mount and post mount versions out there, although flat mount has to be the favourite for making it to production. That’s certainly the way that the market is going.