Zabel’s all-in for disc brakes
In an interview with Radsport-News.com, Erik Zabel has spoken about how he believes disc brakes can offer a race-winning advantage. Zabel, who was one of the most successful sprinters of his generation, now works for Katusha-Alpecin as performance director, and was one of the forces pushing the team to make a complete transition to disc brakes for the 2019 season.
“It wasn’t easy to convince everyone to go this way. But I believe that it is an advantage to master the techniques before everyone uses it,” Zabel said. “You don’t have to be a prophet to see that in three to five years only disc brakes will be used.”
“If you can brake later, you can have an advantage of a few hundredths of a second. In the end, that makes the difference.”
Much has been made of the introduction of disc brakes into the professional peloton, and their adoption hasn’t been without a few hiccups along the way. Katusha-Alpecin is all-in, however, and Zabel explained the steps that the team has taken to accommodate the new technology and support riders with mechanical issues in the event of flat tyres.
“In the finale, when things have to go quickly, a complete bike change makes more sense. We have adopted that, in fact we have ordered new roof racks which offer space for eight complete bikes.”
Para quem não pesca nada de inglês:
O Erik Zabel assumiu o cargo de director de performance na Katusha e uma das medidas que tomou foi usar apenas bicicletas com travões de disco. Objectivo é dominar a técnica de travagem com discos primeiro que toda a gente, visto que segundo ele, em 3 ou 4 anos o pelotão será composto apenas por bikes com travão de disco.