all 3 of my bikes have rim brakes - calipers on the road bike, cantis on the mountain bike, v-brakes on the folding bike - and they all stop my bike just fine the vast majority of the time. however, after having just come through my first season of winter bike commuting, i did notice some braking deficiency with the cantis on my winter bike when the roads were really sloppy and dirty. vigilance to keep the pads and rims as clean as possible helped, but i can see how a disc set-up would be preferable for sloppy weather riding. it's too bad that my mountain bike is too old to accept disc brakes. if i ever get a new bike to build into a true winter/foul weather machine, it will definitely be disc-equipped.

rim brakes can work for sloppy winter riding, but i found the constant rim cleaning to be tedious and annoying after a while.


by the way, what are the performance differences between mechanical and hydraulic disc brake systems. is one system clearly better than the other, or is it more of a personal preference thing (just like everything else in the cycling world)?