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Disc Brakes, and the Darwin Award of Mountain Biking...



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During my 14 years in Munich, starting in the early 2000’s, I developed a love for mountain biking. Not the type where you get a lift up to the top of a mountain and ride down, but the sort where you ride to the top in the first place. It was a fulfilling, if not exhausting, hobby. However, there were times when I became eligible for that not-so-coveted Darwin award. You see, mountain biking in the Alps, even when you ride up, still meant you had to come back down, and many of the tours I did would involve gradients north of 15%, often up to 25%. It was, in a word, steep. Coupled with the fact that I considered myself invincible, as I was in my early 30’s, it was quite a mix. Fortunately, I had my trusty hydraulic disc brakes, which far out performed rim brakes when it came to maximum performance.


Disc brakes on mountain bikes became popular around the 2000’s, although, as often is the case, they were not particularly new back then. US3878921A from the then Lambert Brake Corp in 1974 was an application for a bicycle disc brake. Notably, this particular patent application involved using a solid disc, as can be seen in figure 1, and was actuated by a traditional cable set up.


The technology progressed, and in the 90’s, there was a switch to hydraulic systems and discs, and there followed a number of patent applications for the various components of the braking system, including holed discs, flexible brakes discs, calliper adapters or mounts, etc. US5950772 from Hayes Brakes Inc shows a patent for a braking system with a fixed brake pad, and an opposing, moving brake pad, with a disc running between them. Engaging the braking system pushes the moving pad into the disc, which in turn flexes the disc to engage with the fixed pad. Of course, technology never seemingly stops progressing, and so we had a variety of applications for various technologies. Take US2010/0051394 for example. This is an application for a system which prevents a front brake from being used without the simultaneous application of the rear brake.

And then there is a much more recent application from Shimano, US11007987, filed on 20 May 2019, with a priority of 23 May 2018, and granted on 18 May 2021. This patent claims an electronically controlled actuator which controls the application of the brakes dependent on an input from a user operating a brake lever. The system which is actuated by the electronic controller seems to remain a hydraulic one. After all of that innovation, there remains one system which, at times, doesn’t seem to have caught up: the human brain. And thus, whilst hurtling downhill between Tegernsee and Shliersee one sunny late morning, I not only learnt the advantages of a braking system if you use it, but also that mountain bikes don’t fly particularly well, and land very poorly, especially when they land on the person who had been riding it moments before. You can't patent stupid! What innovation is behind the hobbies that you enjoy?


 
 
 

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