Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Disc brake advocates fail to note one key detail.
Braking power isn't limited by the brakes. It's limited by the maximum g-force that can be tolerated before causing an endo.
Agreed, with provisions.
Originally Posted by
FBinNY
...ALL arguments about braking power are moot.
I think you're not considering the human part of the brake "chain" enough.
Maybe you should separate between "ultimately/theoretically available braking power" and "generally or easily used braking power".
There may well be people skilled and confident enough to manage as short, or perhaps even shorter, braking distances with rim brakes than with discs.
Personally I consistently get shorter braking distances on my disc brake bikes than I get from my rim brake bikes.
There's something in the characteristics/linearity/feedback - particularly from decent hydros - that allows me to brake harder with discs than with rim brakes at the same level of confidence.
It's comparable to the summer I spent tinkering with different canti setups. Some of them were quite horrible in actual use.
It'd be interesting to see a comparison on the linearity or characteristics of rim vs disc brakes.
I.e. how much braking do I get for a certain amount of hand effort.
Doing a static test would be easy enough. Determine at what torque the wheel starts to turn at a certain force applied to the lever.
But there might be dynamic effects due to heat and brake pad abrasion that one would miss out on.
A static test might not say enough.