Originally Posted by
SoSmellyAir
Regarding strictly the braking aspect, you are correct; both road bikes and mountain bikes have disc brakes. But have you considered suspension? Road bike forks deflect to cushion the weight on the forks, whereas mount bike forks have suspension travel. So road bike forks are a compromise between (a) keeping both forks similar to provide suspension when riding down a less than perfectly smooth road and (b) overbuilding the disc-side fork to resist the twisting forces when braking hard.
While you are correct in your post, it is not relevant to the conversation we were having. We were specifically discussing the article where Chris Froome inferred that disc brakes were a nightmare for his techs because of fading and rub issues. If a World Tour mechanic can't set up disc brakes to eliminate those issues, they probably need to look for a different job...There is no doubt the disc side of the fork has to be built to handle the increased brake stresses but, the added weight is a non-issue when the UCI has a minimum weight of 6.8kg on race bikes. Disc brake bikes can be built that light and are on a regular basis.