Originally Posted by
FBinNY
The rim wear argument is totally spurious, and IMO is the Restless Leg Syndrome of the bike world.
Brake rim wear was never an issue for the vast majority of road bike riders. Very few (outside of the Pacific Northwest) ever wear rims out, either because they don't ride enough, or because the wheels were destroyed by other means before the brakes wore them enough to worry. Note: the story is different for mtb, but we're only talking about road here.
Typical brake wear life of road rims exceeds 25,000 miles, and many here on BF report wheel life that exceeds 50,000 miles. By comparison, disc owners can expect to go through a number of rotors before then, so the total cost of ownership, even factoring rim wear is still higher for discs.
Again, I don't say there's no place for disc brakes, because they do have a place. There are road riders for which wet performance is a major consideration, and those same people will be more concerned about rim wear. Disc brakes also make tricycle design simpler, so will always be popular on 3 wheeled recumbents.
But other than those and possibly other niches, it's all one big snow job, and one more example of a "solution" to a problem that didn't exist beforehand.
BTW- With 10s of thousands of wet miles under my belt I've yet to wear out a rim. That's including my road rims with wall thickness of only 1mm when new. I got close on one of my commuter's wheels after 25,000 miles or so, but a nice lady in an SUV saved me form "disaster" by killing off both wheels first.
Here in the PNW where I commute, in the 8 wet months I would go through a set of brake pads in a month, and rims in a year. The disc pads last 3X longer, and cost less. A disc is cheaper than a rim, and doesn't require a wheel rebuild. For me discs are significantly cheaper, significantly less maintenance, and work better than rim brakes.
They're also much cleaner, which is important for domestic harmony since I bring my bike in the house.
BTW, my 1935 Raleigh Sports Model X has drum brakes which were an OE option for most of their bikes in that era, alternatives to rim brakes have been around a long time.
No rim brakes here.
