Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
Well, you shouldn't be fine with the bike industry limiting your choices and forcing you to be locked to your shop for expensive yearly maintenance (hydraulic discs).
For riding in relatively flat and dry conditions, discs add a bunch of unnecessary weight, complexity and incompatibilities.
I was riding with a fast crowd yesterday on a ride that alternated between soul-crushing climbs and warp-speed twisty descents. With rim brakes and Scott brake pads, I was likely braking at the limits of wheel adhesion to the pavement. And this was on good dry asphalt. Good thing I was on rim brakes.
It costs a manufacturer more money to design and build disc and rim brake variants of the same frame. Most of the top end frames still do come in both versions, but I can understand why the manufacturers are moving towards disc-only designs. No, I don't much like it, but I can learn how to do my own maintenance on hydraulic disc brakes if I have to.
And now I'm off to yell at Cannondale for not making the rim brake version of their new Supersix Evo Hi-Mod available to the public.
