FBinNY 

This says it perfectly. It's not about superiority of one system over an other, but about suitability for a purpose. I don't believe disc brakes offer benefits for high performance sport or race road bikes, but that doesn't mean that they may mot offer benefits in other applications.

Unfortunately, the road bike world has gotten used to marketing products on a top down approach using the pro peloton to demonstrate superiority. This is what's driving the effort to get the UCI to modify it's position on discs, and not requests from riders wanting more brake.

Never mind that the needs of most riders have about as much relation to pro racers, as those of soccer moms have to formula V auto drivers.

Ray Dockrey

I just bought a Giant Anyroad 2 that has disc brakes. I really liked the bike as far as comfort goes and it suited my riding style. It came with disc's which was fine with me. Yeah, the bike does look cool but having no other options for brakes I took what was available. They stop as well as the ones on my mountain bike and modulation is good. What I like more then anything is they are 140mm which means they flex less and stay true.

But whether they are silly or just marketing hype I really don't care. They work for me. I like them. Are they heavier? Sure, but so am I.

Camilo

What I'm "worried" about (not really worried... see below) is that a legitimate reason to develop good discs for road bikes might be the carbon fiber rims that racers use. OK, so those racers might need a good disc brake and thus good disc brakes are made for the high end racing bikes.

The consumer of good road bike gear who doesn't race, but really, really likes to ride a lot and therefore really likes to buy high end equipment still doesn't need them because he/she uses good aluminum wheels instead of CF. But, maybe out of ignorance or maybe because the bike companies shift their marketing and manufacturing that way, the "enthusiast" thinks that discs are the state of the art technology and therefore, because of this less-than-informed opinion, adds demand to the already biased marketing strategy of the manufacturers.

If the brakes really work well, are reasonably light and reasonably priced, it doesn't really matter. Except that they're not needed.

Anyway, I'm in my 60s so I probably won't worry about it again. I'll probably take the opportunity to ride a road disc bike if I see a "good" one. The only disc bike I rode on the road was a very new cross bike I rented. It was constantly noisy - low level scraping/hissing sound which would go away with braking, but would come back with the tiniest amount of road dust (not trail dirt) It wouldn't be tolerable if it were a fact of life with road discs, but I dont' know if that's the truth. I did try to adjust them and couldn't find the sweet spot. But I'm not skilled at all with discs.

roadandmountain

i test rode a mtb with mechanical disc brakes. They were pretty bad. Worse than my v brakes with kool stop pads, that's for sure.

I don't think disc brakes are worth the weight, cost or mechanical nuisance on a road bike. For an mtb or 'cross bike, yes, they can definitely make sense.

Question for off-road riders: any of you still use v brakes?

FBinNY 

Haven't gotten that far yet. Still using traditional cantilevers.

john.b

Cool story, bro.

Weatherby

I wanted a disc braked road bike but recently I decided the whole system was still too much in its infancy. Too few frame and fork choices and standardization questions, etc.

The reasons they appeal to me are overall better rim clearance for fenders with larger tires, better wet braking, better modulation, and they are consistently quieter than cantilever brakes. Wide angle cantis do not have much mechanical advantage and although the braking of some cantis are just adequate, disc brakes would be a huge improvement over them. The main advantage they have over side pulls is elimination of the carbon rim blow out problem on descents.