I am planning on buying an Atomic Covert road bike.
Can I put disk brakes on it? Are there adapters for rigid forks/road bikes or do I need to replace parts?
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2Every image of an Atomic Covert bike I found via Google had regular road bike rim brakes. Why do you think an adapter is required? – Argenti Apparatus Sep 11 '20 at 11:18
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Im sorry my bad. i mean disk brakes – Anonymous newbee Sep 11 '20 at 11:44
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3Buy the bike you want, don't get something that is sub-par and then throw more money at some dodgy adapters. You'll end up with a bike that doesn't work well, or at worst is unsafe. The "disk brake adapters" available are a poor substitute for a frame designed with the right bosses in the correct places, and with the frame-loads that disk brakes create. For the money, save up and buy a bike with the specs you want. It'll have a warranty too, which a bodge job won't have. – Criggie♦ Sep 11 '20 at 11:49
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1In addition to the answer and comments, rim brakes are adequate for almost all riders in almost all circumstances. If this bike has lower-end Shimano, it's probably worth replacing the stock pads with something like Kool Stop. That would improve the braking substantially. If you very frequently ride in the rain, this would be a rationale to consider disc brakes, but I suspect most of us don't frequently do this. – Weiwen Ng Sep 11 '20 at 12:42
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1Don't forget that you would have needed to convert the wheels to discs as well, which means replacing them. Effectively, "converting" to disc brakes requires replacing the frame, fork and wheels, or essentially 95% of the bike. – Grigory Rechistov Sep 11 '20 at 16:59
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Can I put disk brakes on it?
No. You cannot effectively convert a rim brake frame or forks to disc brakes.
(Alternative answer:
do I need to replace parts?
Yes, the frame and forks.)
Seriously though, if you are buying a new bike, buy the bike you actually want rather than planning to convert or upgrade. There are disc brake road bikes available across a wide range of price points theses days.
answered Sep 11 '20 at 12:13
While they are a few "adapters" that might sometimes allow installing the rear disc caliper onto certain frames (if lucky), these adapters look ugly and certainly won't fit the aesthetics of a road bike. Such an adapter would be more fitting for a hybrid, utility or ancient mountain bike.
Similar adapters for forks do not exist because a rim brake fork is not designed to be strong enough to endure the twisting action that would arise at the fork leg if a disc brake somehow gets placed there.
A frame failure at the rear dropout in a case when such a brake adapter rips the chunk of the frame out is quite dangerous, but in many cases still allows to stop. A fork suddenly losing one of its legs is a certain visit to a doctor or even to a mortician.
answered Sep 11 '20 at 17:07
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1Here's a photo of someone's retrofit. They brazed on some brake mounts to a fork that wasn't up to the job. rodbikes.com/articles/graphics/bentfork1.gif It looks well done with paint to match, but the structure of that fork tine/leg simply couldn't cope. From rodbikes.com/articles/brakes.html – Criggie♦ Sep 11 '20 at 22:54
Don't do it. Yes, back when disk brakes were new and few bikes were available with them it sorta made sense to "upgrade" the bike to disks (though you had to be a real bike nerd to do this). But, as the others have said, the compromises you'd have to make to get disks to work on a non-disk bike are expensive, dangerous, and just flaky.
If you want disk brakes, buy a disk brake bike.
answered Sep 11 '20 at 21:42
