Originally Posted by
wolfchild
I can only think of 2 advantages of disc brakes:
- much better stopping in winter where ice/snow build up on rims can make rim brakes almost useless and road salt/grit on the roads wear out your rims in one season and...
- if you do a lot of downhill mountain biking
If you don't do the type of riding described above, then rim brakes is all you will ever need. A properly adjusted rim brakes with good quality pads will stop just as good as disc brakes.
I may go further and say that maybe only the first point is a reason. I’ve mountain biked for years, with plenty of long descents (>2000 vertical feet), and never felt I needed more than cantilevers or v-brakes. I always had plenty of stopping power with properly set up rim brakes.