Not officially though…
Michiel vd Heijden of the Dutch Rabobank-Giant team posted the above photo to his twitter account yesterday, it’s since been taken down, but what it confirms is that Shimano are in fact developing hydraulic disc brakes for the road.
From what we can gather from this single image, it appears that the system is an electronic Dura Ace Di2 system with a longer and more bulbous shifter showing that perhaps Shimano is housing the master cylinder in the shifter similar to the SRAM RED Hydraulic system. It’s hard to tell from this angle, but it also looks like it’s a two piston caliper setup. Rotor size appears to be 140mm front and rear, which we suspect may end up being the standard size for road, though we’ve heard murmurs of a 120mm being tested. The rotors appear to be the same centerlock rotors currently available on Shimano’s MTB line, which makes us believe that these tubular hoops are laced to one of Shimano’s existing MTB hubs.
No official word from Shimano, but with the swiftness that the twitter post was yanked, the photo most likely shows some “pretty close” to finished product.
It’s like indexed deraileurs, the tecno geek will rail on and on about how wonderful they are but in reality an experienced rider can manage just fine without them.