Excellent question. A while ago I was in Europe. There are lots of types of bikes there that I never get to see at home so I always had my eye out. There was one bike in particular that had a special elegance about it, and one of the things that contributed to the wonderfully clean lines of the bike was the lack of rim brakes. As I grow older I see bikes in terms of form as well as function. So I resolved a while ago that my next project would have drum brakes.