When will we see bikes completely without cables? To achieve this, it will be necessary to get rid of the hydraulic lines of disc brakes, or the cables of mechanical brakes. But many obstacles stand in the way.

Wireless is making its way into our lives. Moreover, it may already be present in your car, since certain gearbox and even steering controls operate without a mechanical connection. It is also present on certain bicycles with derailleurs or telescopic seatpost controls without a physical connection, simply by encrypted wireless communication. If the wireless at SRAM (AXS) allowed users to clean up the handlebars a bit and remove the derailleurs or seatpost control cables, there are still some sheaths that we can’t get rid of for the moment: the brakes. However, several major manufacturers have already worked on wireless brakes, in this case without a physical link. Unfortunately, you are no closer to seeing them hit the market.

In the laboratory, it already exists. SRAM had been working last year on a brake caliper system with small motors pushing the pistons like hydraulic fluid would. All controlled by a wireless lever on the handlebars. The American manufacturer acknowledged that it had already built a prototype for internal testing. Except this one will never see the way to production for countless reasons.. The first being that as things stand, a wireless stirrup is…huge. The fault is the presence of the motors (despite their miniaturization) and the battery, while a hydraulic caliper is super compact. There are also two obstacles to overcome, and not the least:

Above all, wireless brakes would induce the presence of a battery in the caliper, and a battery in the handlebar control. And already today we have a battery per derailleur (in addition to a possible battery for the telescopic seat post) on the AXS systems, it would start to make a lot of batteries to recharge ! The bicycle completely devoid of cables and sheaths is therefore still a utopia, but we could have surprises in the next ten years or so. The dream of the end of hydraulic brake bleeding will remain a sweet dream for now.

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