JonathanGennick 

The video in the original post compares a specific brand and model disk against a specific brand and model rim brake, and using specific tires on specific wheels on a specific stretch of road. Fun video. Engaging presentation. But I am reluctant to generalize the results beyond the specific conditions and equipment in the one test.

coominya

Why are they better for me, because I would pick up a fraction more top end speed due to aero? Most of us ride for fitness, I think many have lost sight of that.

rydabent

I was just at a bike shop looking at road bikes with disc brakes. Looking head on, saying they have an aero disadvantage is grasping at straws. One wrinkle in your jersey would probably cause more drag.

Barabaika

Don't hesitate to sell your outdated double-butted chromed clunkers on Craigslist!
I will accept the Cinelli Super Corsa or the Miyata 1000 without disk brakes for $100.

jefnvk

Obviously rides a fixie

Try the politics comment area on your local news site, if you want thousands of remarks that say nothing....

Hence why time trialists wear skin tight aero suits, helmets that look ridiculous, AND don't use disc brakes!

corrado33

Really? You're arguing that most of us ride for fitness but need brakes that are only "better" in the rain and that's only when riding as fast as possible down a decent?

For those of us riding for fitness and fitness only, disc brakes offer absolutely no advantage and only serve to make both disc and rim brakes more expensive.

But I fear my complaints will fall on deaf ears. The entire bicycle industry is sold on selling us schleps parts that are marginally better (or not better at all!)

Lazyass

I don't have a side in the disc brake fight, rim brakes never made me crash, but why would someone riding for fitness not want to ride fast downhill? Does anyone purposely go slow? I mean it's fun to blast downhill.

corrado33

It IS fun to blast downhill, but riding fast =/= riding as fast as possible. Does braking 0.05 seconds later really matter if you're riding for fitness?

My argument here is that disc brakes (on road bikes) are a result of the bike media and are only going to make rim brakes more expensive.

DrIsotope

It has nothing to do with deaf ears, and everything to do with you presenting an opinion as fact. The arguments against discs center on "too heavy, less aero." The argument for discs goes more like, "better in the wet, better choice for carbon wheels, more braking force with less lever force, allows for more aero wheels, brakes never wear the rims out, allows fitment of larger tires and wider rims, etc, etc."

But as I've said before, we do live in a world where both types of brakes can and do coexist. Choosing a bike with disc brakes is not in and of itself a tacit condemnation of rim brakes... and vice versa.

jefnvk

You should try PEDALING downhill into a brutal headwind at 7MPH. Friggin' AWESOME!

#sarcasm / at least you have a good story if you do

Maelochs

I am sure you will be punished for saying this.

corrado33

better in the wet (The vast majority of riders don't ride their road bikes in the rain.), better choice for carbon wheels (carbon wheels = aero and light... wouldn't you want the... you know... lighter and more aero brake?), more braking force with less lever force (Is this fact or opinion? And wouldn't that depend on lever pull?), allows for more aero wheels(but less aero bike overall, so is this... really... a positive?), brakes never wear the rims out (when's the last time you wore out a rim? People wear out rims once every... 15,000 miles? Do you think a carbon rim is going to last 15,000 miles?), allows fitment of larger tires and wider rims (how large of tires do you need on your road bike? Buy a frame that fits the tires you want.... Not to mention that they make rim brakes to fit any size tires available... Lastly, the usual limit for road bike tire size is height, not width. A properly designed frame would be able to fit tires larger than anyone could ever want on a road bike. Besides, this is an argument for mountain bikes... not road bikes)

manapua_man

The biggest factor for wanting disc brakes on carbon rims for a lot of people is probably the cost involved in replacing rims with worn braking surfaces. You don't put much wear on rims with disc brakes, and I've basically gone from replacing at least 2-3 a year to maybe one across all my bikes. Now that's not a big deal with decent alloy rims, but it'd be a little painful if I was running carbon rims all the time.




With how popular gravel/adventure bikes are getting, I don't really think that is only an argument for mountain bikes. A lot of tourists like to run fatter tires too.

DrIsotope

Conjecture, and wrong.
I don't believe in carbon wheels as they provide marginal gains at best, at a tremendous reduction in service lifespan. But on that point, the DuraAce 9100 disc setup is within a few ounces of the caliper setup, and the weight is lower. And with frames so light they have to put in lead to even make them competition legal, I don't thing a few ounces down low are going to break the deal.
That is an objective fact... unless you're using hydraulic rim brakes, like the handful of people out there who are. This is why forklifts use hydraulics, instead of just pulling on a cable with some pulleys. Rim brakes are as strong as the hands of the person pulling the levers.
Removing the brake track allows for a more aero wheel. Good rotors (like RT99s) have negligible aero penalty.
Do brakes never wear the rims out, or do they wear them out at 15,000 miles? Are they only worn out by those road riders who wide in the rain, when road riders don't ride in the rain? Commuters ride in all weather, and often on paved surfaces. Are they not road riders? There's a guy that posts on here that wears out a rear wheel every two winters or so.
As big as I want. If my frame will fit 60mm wide and I want to run that, why should my brakes be the limiting factor? This is the 21st century. We don't need to ride around on 700x18s.
Yeah, we should all just go back to cantis and V-brakes. Because no one has ever had an issue with those brakes, ever. Let's all make compromises specifically to avoid disc brakes.

elcruxio

Well, if I didn't ride in adverse conditions / through a snowy, slushy winter there would not be much fitness to be had from cycling. If I used solely rim brakes I'd be swapping rims every two years or so. And with swapping rims / building wheels there's the whole ordeal of getting them within 0.1mm true and tensioned to within 5% mean. As much as I love creating perfect wheels I really hate them breaking before their time due to something as silly as wearing down the rim when it's 100% avoidable with discs. With proper hubs, spokes, rims and disc brakes it's theoretically possible to build a wheel that lasts forever when you only need to swap the disc every 5-10 years and bearings when required.

Also, I do like the control discs afford through better modulation. there's a lot of talk about people being able to endo easily with rim brakes but I feel the goal is to avoid that. I ride in traffic which means I sometimes get close calls with cars, pedestrians and even other cyclists. I brake a lot because I like to be careful around risks but I also like to go fast so hard braking and acceleration etc. Anyways my last close call was with a car that right hooked me and forced me to do the hardest braking I've ever done so far. It was so hard in fact that I manualed for close to 10 feet. Manualing means that I only had the front tire in the ground with the rear tire hovering over the ground.
Now I doubt, nay, I am absolutely 100% certain I would not have achieved that with rim brakes since every rim brake I've ever tried is either very weak and and required a crudton on hand effort to get maximum power out of or very powerful but also very grabby. Both lead to limited control over hard braking. With the discs I have I get a nice long lever action where the force increases effortlessly and linearly and most of all, is not grabby at all.
Mind you, this amount of control also nicely translates to adverse conditions like wet or icy asphalt where grip is limited.

And talking of adverse conditions, there was this one fun time when on my old road bike the rims iced up in such a way that I had essentially 0% braking power. No matter how hard I squeezed the lever there was no slowing down, other than the natural slowing through friction and air resistance of course. Luckily I was not going very fast or I would have had a very bad time. I walked home.

So for me discs have been very useful and have solved a number of issues I used to have, all related to recreational riding for fitness.

coominya

I ride discs and caliper, and never ride in wet weather, and I can assure you the braking of the discs is far smoother, more responsive and more powerful for the amount of grip needed. They are all round a better experience, much like having a better gear train which does the same thing but is smoother and more responsive than an older design. I suggest you ride them before you diss them.

HerrKaLeun

Oh, no. Another disc brake discussion. Didn't we have the same discussion back then when freewheels came? "Too complex, fixie is much simpler". And when derailleurs came: "too much weight, something else to brake". and when air tubes came "you just get holes in them". And when aluminum came "wood is a more natural product". If they had internet back then I'm sure we could resurrect the same discussion every time new technology came.

In 5 years most new bikes will have hydraulic discs and no one will discuss that topic anymore.

It is simple physics that hydraulics are superior to cables (be it rim or disc). No cable stretch, barely any friction. Also simple physics that larger mechanical advantage can be achieved with less pad clearance, which is hard to do with rim brakes unless you can maintain 100% true wheels all the time. i don't see being able to maintain 0.5 mm clearance of the pad to the rim. Disc brakes also can increase performance easily by installing larger discs (more force, better cooling).

And I recall how often I have to adjust brake pads on the rim brake bikes in my household, which are the ones barely ridden. My main bikes have hydraulics and never need service besides at some point probably some bleeding or pad replacement, which also is simpler than most cable dealings once you have the right tools and procedure.

The mistake most people make is comparing cheap cable disc brakes with undersized discs to the very best and most expensive rim brakes. If you compare good hydraulic and properly sized disc brake to a good rim brake the results are clear.

Kapusta

This^^^^

I do end up riding in the wet, but even in the dry, I just find discs nicer to use for the above reasons.

We can argue armchair engineering until we are blue in the face, but how they work and feel in practice is what matters.

I would love to see a discussion regarding discs that only included people that have spent at least 10 rides with them on a road bike. I fully expect that opinions would vary, but at least it would be based on actual experience, and not hypothetical conjecture.

Lazyass

Yeah it matters. It's the fun factor of flying downhill as fast as you can go. Everyone flies downhill unless they're scared. Which some actually are, I've seen it.

rydabent

Remember how firemen on steam locomotives resisted diesel engine locomotives? Some people just cant stand change. Multi speed, click shifting and clipless pedals were all resisted. Tires with thin tubes in them instead of solid rubber wheels-------egads!!!!!!!!!!!

mcours2006

I'll concede that it is a lot of fun flying down a long decline...but I'm one of those who are more fearful of this practice. But still do it once in a while.

Carry on.

Maelochs

Once again, people prove that even the most intelligent can be idiots.

"Everyone Must Agree With Me Because I Am Right!

"My opinion is the Correct opinion ... My preferences are the Correct preferences!

"Naturally I dismiss everything said by anyone who disagrees--They Are Wrong!"

Times like this I wonder ... If we do poison the plant and make it unfit for human life ... would that be a bad thing?

Kapusta

Yep. And I find there are many situations where how fast I will go is influenced by how confident I am in my brakes.

I don't know where the idea that people riding for "fitness" are not pushing themselves. As far as I know, all it means is that you are not currently in a race.

FBOATSB

I heard that. My newest bike is thirty six years old. By the time I upgrade, it will be electronic automic shifting, computerized anti lock braking with collision avoidance sensors, all in a fifteen pound bike. NTTAWWT :-)

Lazyass

Yeah, that was kind of a head scratcher.