Originally Posted by
Kontact
One reason I ride a 27 year old Merlin is that nothing has ever felt so nice to ride.
If a $14,000 bike feels greater than anything else, I can see why you'd want one. (I just don't personally think any of the disc bikes feel very nice.)
My 27 year old Litespeed Classic (is that how old a '96 is) is one of my top two most comfortable bikes. The other one is the 12 year old Felt "Z" CF bike. Both are rim brakes, but that doesn't really have to do with comfort. It's totally fit really and also geometry, angles stay length, etc. I have a "new" titanium gravel bike (Lynskey GR300) which is also very comfortable - again because I buy and build based on fit. It has disc brakes which are fine and caused me to learn some new stuff which isn't bad at my age. I'm even getting used to the aesthetic of them and they've gone from a "why?, they're ugly too" for me to "meh, it doesn't matter, they work fine and look OK".