Originally Posted by
Bryan C.
People made this same argument when cars started changing over from drum brakes to disc brakes. It's ok, for some people change is a scary thing. You seem to be one of those people. Do you still have a flip phone too?
I for one love my disc brakes and would never willingly go back to rim brakes. I recently purchased a hybrid bike and my
#1 must have item was hydraulic disc brakes. If the bike didn't come with them, I didn't even bother to consider it.
I'm a bit of an agnostic in the rim vs. disc brake debate. I worship at neither house. For me, it's more of a practical matter. When the price point of bikes with high quality shimano discs drops to an acceptable level (say around the $1500 mark), I'll likely begin to seriously consider a road bike with disc brakes.
I think the giant defy 1 is already at that price point with 5800, but with mechanical tektro spyres.
Right now, there's too much variation in the quality of discs to say unequivocally that "discs are better." There are some really crappy disc brakes out there (such as bb5's among others), some which are very difficult to adjust or keep in adjustment (bb7's) and still quite a few mtb specific makes and models which squeal like the dickens.
Right now, the only company I trust to get it right is shimano. Shimano hydraulics or rim brakes for me.
Right now we are close to reaching the apex of dual pivot rim brake tech, and at the start of an upward arc of road bike disc brake tech. Keep in mind, dual pivots will continue to improve: shimano is encouraging a two bolt mounting system for their 6800 rim brakes which will increase caliper stiffness considerably.
Then the two bolt mounting system will trickle down and you'll be able to get pretty awesome rim brake performance at a very affordable price point.
What really sucks right now is that there aren't any good tests of rim brake vs. disc brake performance. GCN posted a "comparo test" but it was a joke. They used carbon rims rather than alu rims, when it's well known that carbon rims suck for braking.