Fabian Cancellara to decline the use of disc brakes during his final season of competition: reports

As he rolls into his final year of competition, Fabian Cancellara is intent on making a statement with his races of 2016. Specifically, that statement will be simple: despite the UCI’s newfound permissiveness when it comes to disc brakes, he’ll finish the season using caliper brakes, just as always.

If that statement is anything for the veteran Trek rider, it seems to be the preference for what’s tried, tested and true—something to which his words attest.

In reports published by UK-based cycling publication Cycling Weekly, Cancellara explained his decision to stick with caliper brakes, regardless of the UCI’s willingness to give the disc variety a shot. “I don’t want to change things in my final year,” he said. “I’m still on Shimano’s mechanical group, the only one in our team to use it instead of electronic. It’s my choice.”

“I don’t think they make me go faster, or slower. It’s a technical and personal decision.”

Recently, the UCI announced that effective Jan. 1, 2016, the global cycling body would allow what amounts to an extended test phase for the use of disc brakes, lifting restrictions on pro squads in terms of their use. “After extensive discussions with its stakeholders,” the UCI said in a release, the organization “has decided to allow the use of disc brakes by riders across all divisions of UCI professional road teams.”

By the time of the UCI’s announcement, Trek riders, notably, had already been familiarized with their use during pro competitions, when they were tested at the 2015 Vuelta a spana. Sky, meanwhile, was another team to give them a shot, using them at Eneco and the Tou du Poitou Charentes.

That his own squad was one of the teams that gave disc brakes a shot lends a certain gravity to Cancellara’s decision, it seems.

With Cancellara, as the team’s leader, having decided not to use the disc brakes means they’re not likely to be used during certain races, sources say—especially the more chaotic, less predictable ones, where uniformity in gear is more important. At other races, though, Cancellara’s position is unlikely to restrict their use for the rest of the team.