Originally Posted by
oldacura
Thanks for the link. I've never raced and we don't attempt to beat other riders in a descent. This article focuses on the modulation of disc brakes and describes rim brakes as all or nothing. That has not been my experience with rim brakes. Most of them have seemed to me to be able to modulate - but maybe not as well as a disc. I've never thought of rim brakes as binary. The disc brakes on my mountain bike work quite well. I use them much more than I do on a road bike. However, they do tend to make noise after repeated application.
I do appreciate all of the thoughts on this. However, all of this does not answer my original query: If you dump an equivalent amount of energy into a set of disc brakes and a set of rim brakes (until at least one begins to fail), which one fails first and what is the nature of that failure?
I was just wondering out loud. I am too lazy to set up and run this experiment myself.
When we bought our tandem it came with 180mm basic steel rotors and cable Avid bb7 cable discs with a rim drag brake operated by the stoker. We ride Audax through the winter and even using the drag brake sparingly found that the rim was wearing quite quickly. I switched up to a Hope 225mm front disc and a 200mm rear with hydraulic calipers. The feed back of the brakes is much better. And my hands are much less fatigued at the end of a 100mile ride. I am sure that if we kept with rim brakes I would be looking to change the wheels far more often. And the supply of suitable tandem rim brake wheels will only get smaller as the majority of bikes go to Disc.