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There is no other sector where they've moved to hydraulic disc brakes then gone back, as the performance is superior to existing braking systems. The manufacturers, who pay a lot of money to get teams on their bikes, want it, and consumers appear to want it too (take cx as an example, discs are used sparingly by the pros, but at a local league level the majority of riders are now on discs). Ultimately pros will have to adopt them, so the CPA (which is toothless) should either engage constructively or pipe down.
Cyclocross and MTB don't have the crash potential at speed that road racing does. Disc brakes make perfect sense there. Adding additional danger into a sport where multiple riders crash at speed into each other doesn't seem worth the trade off.
Manufacturers do indeed want disc brakes so they can sell gravel/adventure bikes to the general populace. As for the (majority) of consumers wanting it ? Difficult to tell really. Disc brake bikes are selling, but is that because they're being pushed by the industry ?
Using your Cyclocross example for instance, of the forty Cyclocross bikes listed on Evans, 38 have disc brakes. It's not a suprise therefore that amateur cross races are dominated by disc brakes.
Ste_S-
I'm definitely not a #buyer but had enough dodgy moments on rim brake bikes to want to try discs when they became readily available on road bikes. I built up a Kinesis 4S disc and I can honestly say the difference is like night and day. There's an improvement in the dry, but they really shine when the weather turns grim. I'll never buy another rim-braked roadie.
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I think for cross and road racing discs make little sense to pros but are compelling for consumers. Cross moreso, hence they be sellin'.
The CX World Champs was won in both mens and womens cats on bikes that were four years old or something with cantis. IIRC.
TurtleRecall
Howard
The UCI have been luddites for too long. There is no other sector where they've moved to hydraulic disc brakes then gone back, as the performance is superior to existing braking systems. The manufacturers, who pay a lot of money to get teams on their bikes, want it, and consumers appear to want it too (take cx as an example, discs are used sparingly by the pros, but at a local league level the majority of riders are now on discs). Ultimately pros will have to adopt them, so the CPA (which is toothless) should either engage constructively or pipe down.
Ventoso's injury was nasty but there is only his word that it was caused by a disc and even then he doesn't know for certain. Given the description of the incident and the location of the injury, it could've been caused by something else. If rider safety is key, and it bloody well should be, then I'd expect the UCI to look at everything related to it, rather than making a knee jerk reaction to some negative publicity. That was how McQuaid and Verbruggen operated, some of us were hoping for a more considered approach from the Cookson regime.