Cantis not Discs

As cyclists, we quickly learn to suffer and to revel in it, bathe in the insanity of wanting your legs to burn and to fall asleep at the end of the day completely done. We have little catch phrases like, "It feels like burning!!!" that may or may not be yelled at the crest of any hill. Even if that means that you are now more out of breath and the burning just got intensified.

Cycling is about suffering.

Every person on a bike must learn to embrace that burn, embrace the fatigue to some extent. I don't care that you aren't a serious cyclist, if you ride a bike, you're pretty damn serious to me. You need to learn to suffer. Oh you just ride for exercise, well you aren't going to lose any weight until you feel that pain. "Serious racer dude" you aren't going to get any faster until you quick eating shit and make it hurt. The suffering is ingrained in cycling. It's why certain rides make my hands sweat and I wonder about my nutrition choices, in the same way that the Flying Monkey used to give me nightmares.

And for those that cared and asked, that is why there is a Making Cycling Difficult section of the Alliance blog. At some point, you may get bored as a cyclist. Sometimes it's called burn out, sometimes you just need a change. And there are other times when you have plateaued and it doesn't hurt any more. That burn that you felt the first 153 times up that hill has finally lessened. You don't drop the gears any more to hump the top or you don't scrub the speed right before you hit the lip of the jump and send it.

Sometimes you need a little nudge to bring back the hurt and make things interesting again.

I love cross bikes. I've made sure there was one in my revolving quiver since 2009. It has always been a singlespeed. And it has always had cantis. With the newest and the best coming out this year with discs on everything, I was forced to sit back and think about this fad. Do disc brakes offer a performance advantage? Absolutely, I don't think you can find someone that will argue the contrary, except that I am going to, right now.

The rest here.