Originally Posted by
Retro Grouch
I remember a particular quite cold winter mountain bike ride in the snow. On one memorable downhill the heat from braking melted the snow on my rims which promptly refroze into ice. The only way to control my speed was to ride into a snow drift. I don't know how much better disc brakes would have worked, but they wouldn't have been any less effective.
When I lived in the mountains I had cantilever brakes on my mtb and the snow collects on top of the pads and melts onto the rims so they are constantly wet, along with gritty from the sand mixed in. Pads didn't last long, nor did rims, and stopping power sucked.