Went shopping for a new bike last weekend. First new bike in 12 yrs. Started out in this Trek/Cannondale shop. The sales guy is showing me the Trek line up. Rolls out a Domane.....


Me: I've read about the model, would like to ride it, but I don't think I need disc brakes.

Sales guy: Disc brakes aren't the future, they're NOW.

Me: Well I live rurally in the mountains and hardly use my brakes. Where I ride there are no stop lights. I never break for traffic. And by the time I think about scrubbing off speed downhill the next uphill starts and slows me down. I have the same pads on my bike that came with its 12 years ago and they're fine.

Sales guy: Disc brakes work great when wet, don't fade, you'd be amazed.

Me: How about maintenance?

​​​​​​​Sales guy: Well you have to bleed them every few years.

I say OK. Then to myself I really don't brake much why do I want to bleed the brakes on my bike?

​​​​​​​

Then he shows me how you can adjust the "cushiness" of the ride by sliding this collar up and down the seat tube.

Me: That seems kinda gimmicky. It's a bike, not a Lexus.

​​​​​​​Sales guy: You'd be amazed how much you'd use it.

Me: If I want to adjust cushiness why don't I just let some air out of my tires?

​​​​​​​Sales guy: Just stares at me and says, want to ride it now?

Is it me? should I want this stuff?

Hydraulic disk brakes do work "better" in every situation I can think of..
Hydraulic disk brakes need practically no maintenance, practically no adjustment, for the life of the pads, then you just put in new pads and off you go.
Hydraulic disk brakes need nothing, if you get a good one, I have had mine for 16+ years and have put in 3 sets of pads and changed the dot3 brake fluid to synthetic 10+ years ago and never touched anything on them, Not even bleeding, not a single problem, ever...

All my bikes have coaster brakes. I know you would find those on a road bike, but I just like curves and tanks.

And I'm only 52. There is a coffee shop downtown that was formerly a bike shop until the owner switched careers for coffee and microbrews. He has a series of panels on the wall from around 1976 with the Pope Columbia, a bike safety clinic for kids and senior citizen 'pedal pushers' They had newer bikes than most of mine!

It's interesting how the hobby/sport has changed.

I turned 71 on monday I have a Road bike From decades ago,,

No Clubby rides, to join here (and be dropped in a mile from the start)
so it hangs there for a couple years... Looks nice, though..


what I've been riding most is a Folding Bike Love the Step thru functionality

My Bike friday Has plenty of widgets on it.. Rohloff speedhub, Disc Brakes
(now a Cable to a Hydraulic TRP HyRd Caliper) Hub dynamo,
Wired LED head and tail lights..

LBS is a Trek Dealer, (Summers I Help out , some)
the company (Trek University) does train young shop employees to over sell ..

I live in a Rural corner of the state , so shop has MTB up front
and Cruisers by the windows..
Summer Cycle tourists pass thru town by the hundreds, and sometimes,
they get tubes parts titres Replace broken spokes , etc..

few road bikes, and most carbon bikes are shipped in by their owners ,
to CC ride the coast..

when some were carried, they got picked up to feel the weight,
while browsing..
& It took years to sell ,, Monied bikies live in Portland..




,,,

I didn't know hydraulic disc brakes have been around for sixteen years.

I had {and still have** the same feeling towards discs brakes as you; but after having using them for a little bit now, I can say that these are a nice feature. My ride is only months old, so I'll have to report back how they work out over time.

{Could I have gotten by with traditional type, yes, definitely. But maybe since this is fat tire bike they think the mud and gunk riders might find it more appealing.**

As it just so happens I began tackling relatively steep hills; and as a result, I started using the brakes much more than I thought I'd ever would. Where I'm located I climb short steep grades in the nearby park where I then turn around and descend again. There can be a number of people walking, some with dogs.

If I ever get out your way again I will enjoy not having to slow down to a crawl on the descents.

The whole attitude of this salesperson is completely off putting to me and I would have left and gone to another shop. But then again, when I head into a bike shop (or a car dealer), I pretty much know what I want and what I don't want in a new purchase. The bike in my avatar was purchased earlier this year. The salesperson/shop owner just helped direct me to a manufacturer/model that met my needs and price range.

I agree that disk brakes are great for mountain bikes due to better cooling and fewer issues with mud and water. However, I think they add needless complication to road bikes. Although 350htrr has had good luck reliability- and maintenance-wise, I don't think they're typically as good as his experience indicates. I've had two recent encounters with hydraulic-disk-equipped bikes. One where a fellow rider had a brake inexplicably lock up (neither she, nor I could figure out what was wrong so she ended up calling for rescue) and the other where suddenly a fellow rider's bike was suddenly splattered with brake fluid (bad coupling or something) and he suddenly had no brakes. Two major failures that could never happen with caliper brakes. Add to that problems with short pad life, hard to eliminate screeching noises from near invisible particles getting into the pads, etc (not to mention that the stays and forks need to be much heavier to accomodate disk brakes) and my caliper brakes look pretty darned good.

As far as high pressure salepeople are concerned, "run away!" Try to find a non-corporate bike shop. Stay away from the Trek, Giant and Specialized dealers if you can and try to find a shop that has been in business for a long time with older, experienced salespeople.

You're singing my song. For a lot of us, all those features are answers to problems most of us do not have.

Disc brakes are nice on MTBs of if you ride in rain and other bad weather. Or on tandems. Or if you weigh a whole lot. But they aren't necessary, and are more of a PITA to adjust and maintain than calipers.

Some of the improvements relating to ride quality just aren't a big deal, IMHO. I have had people tell me their bike rides like a pillow, since it has soft inserts, special carbon weaves and the like. First of all, I'm not sure I want my bike to ride like a pillow. I kinda like it on the lively side. Second of all, while all the bikes I have (steel, Al, Al/C and C) all ride differently, they all ride just fine.

Sometimes I think a lot of this stuff is the ENC (emporer's new clothes) syndrome.

But yes, you're old.

I want my road bike to have rim brakes. I want my road bike to have a threaded bottom bracket. I ride mainly in the complete flat land and no mountains anywhere near here but if I live in the mountains I would still have rim brakes. I still happen to run 23mm tires but I am no retro as such. I don't want downtube shifters and probably would go DI2 shifters but my 6800 shifts flawless and not worth it yet.

Sounds like you went to a shop and they told you want you needed. That reminds me when I go to the local shop all the mechanics still would rather have threaded bottom brakes and that is the kind of bikes they ride .I am my own mechanic and wheel builder. Find another shop you need a road bike and I don't think you need that stuff. It is not bad stuff I just don't think you need it.

Trek makes some perfectly adequate bikes at lower price points ,

and my LBS also carries Raleigh ,

The USA importer gets quality steel bikes made by Pac Rim Suppliers

POE Seattle..

I agree. If you ask for the best (ie highest priced) bikes they have, they're of course gonna come with all the latest modern gear and designs. The Domane comes in at many price points. I wouldn't write off an entire company because one bike has features you don't want.

Scott marketed a hydraulic caliper brake for bicycles back in the mid-80s. They sent us a sample at Trek. Marketing didn't like it, and it didn't really catch on with other manufacturers either. It was available as an aftermarket component for a while, but not very long, IIRC.

Exactly, and... When hydraulic disks started to catch on, other/some manufacturer's dumbed it down to the point where it is today....? Using "mineral oil" that freezes, that boils, that needs replacing, that needs bleeding every 2 years or so, and using "cables", that need adjusting.. sorry but using a cable to activate a hydraulic brake caliper is like using... a crank to adjust the pitch of the rotor on a helicopter...

Worked for a very large Specialized dealer for a long time and dislike the "concept store" crap and up sell, up sell, up sell sales technique required of the sales staff. Happily, I no longer work for them as it just became a grind like the typical copier sales job. Even though I was good at sales and was the leader most months, it took the fun out of it. I now work for a smaller Cannondale shop and it is a pleasure to work there, if only part time during the season. Find a different shop.

As for disc brakes, they are a feature. Nothing else. On an MTB they make sense when the trails are wet. Outside of that environment they are overkill and not needed for safety. In almost 40 years of riding I have never failed to stop using rim brakes in a controlled fashion to avoid danger. Never. Closing in on 80 thousand miles and it has never been an issue. Even when mountain biking the disc brakes did not make a huge difference except when the trail was muddy.

As for maintenance, most manufacturers recommend flush and bleed annually or every 2 years. Most of the mountain bikes I have serviced that are used a lot require annual and sometimes twice a season flush and bleed. Flush and bleed is expensive. We charge 60 bucks a brake. Each manufacturer has their own way of doing this and you have to have the correct kit to do it. Pads do not last as long as rim brake pads and if contaminated by something in the environment require replacement to get them to stop chirping. Many of the bikes come with thin rotors and under hard braking conditions they warp. The better rotors are thicker and resist this more effectively.

All this and I haven't even started on the brake levers!!

Why complicate things? Rim brakes are effective, low maintenance, easy to work on, and inexpensive. They just make sense.

The problem with the market that I think eventually will develop is that wheel manufacturers will reduce the specification of the rims to the point that if they are used at all for old-style brakes, they will rapidly deteriorate to breakage.

The perceived popularity of disc brakes will see even standard rims having deceased production in any form, as the thinness of the rim walls takes over.

I have several bikes with disc brakes operated by cables, but with good-quality rims. For the type of riding that I do, and am likely to continue, the disc brakes don't offer me any significant advantage in my judgment with one exception -- the tandem when ridden in really long and deep downhills with corners... and even then I would be uncertain as to the required ongoing performance potential. I am in the process of acquiring rear wheel disc brake assembly, but the project of not completed yet in planning.

Totally wrong... Hydraulic brakes are "maybe" an over kill for most people but not really "just a feature", the sensitivity, the consistency in all kinds of weather, the reliability, ( less maintenance, less adjustment)…
Yes, maintenance, That would be because of the manufacturer's chinsing out...
Complicate things... ? Hydraulic brakes are as simple as it can get...

I really believe most hydraulic brake problems today are the cause of... cheap manufacturing... Come on people, how many car/vehicles have you heard of that have major hydraulic brake "problems", need adjustment/bleeding/needing brake fluid changes all the time, ... ?

and... Why would it. offer an advantage when it's not really hydraulic? It is still a cable operated brake...??? No.? Cable stretches, cables need adjustments, cables are cables, hydraulic is hydraulic.

EDIT; I really think most people really do not understand the difference between hydraulic and I mean fully hydraulic systems, and cable actuated brakes even if it's hydraulic at the end point, Hydraulic/fully hydraulic, you put in 1Lbs of pressure and you get 1Lbs of pressure on the brake pads... Cable, you put in 1 Lbs of pressure and you get... what ever... because the cable stretches... It's that simple, really, then also the position of where the brakes are, rim or axel, a huge difference in wet or dry... IMO

"Totally wrong... Hydraulic brakes are "maybe" an over kill for most people but not really "just a feature", the sensitivity, the consistency in all kinds of weather, the reliability, ( less maintenance, less adjustment)…
Yes, maintenance, That would be because of the manufacturer's chinsing out...
Complicate things... ? Hydraulic brakes are as simple as it can get...

I really believe most hydraulic brake problems today are the cause of... cheap manufacturing... Come on people, how many car/vehicles have you heard of that have major hydraulic brake "problems", need adjustment/bleeding/needing brake fluid changes all the time, ... "

Perhaps working in a shop has skewed my perception a bit as I see service issues constantly, however having had them on my mountain bike I know the experience. Not worth the expense, complication, and maintenance. My motorcycle requires flush and bleed annually. The cars we have it is recommended every 2 years. Not sure about others, but I take care of my stuff and follow maintenance schedules provided by the manufacturer.
I will gladly replace pads, cables and housing on a caliper brake before flush and bleed plus service the brake lever and reservoir. If you have not done this, then you are unable to understand the significant difference in hassle and time between the two.

Well now, Yes some manufacturer's used to say replace brake fluid every 2 years, like 20 years ago.... But many today say... Never, it does not need replacing, just top up…
Like oil changes, used to be every 3,000 miles then 6,000 miles and my wife's Prius C now says 10,000 miles. Things have changed in the last 20 years, or maybe not, like I said not so much for "some" manufacturer's that cut corners...

Would you buy a car with drum brakes? What about crank windows? Embrace the future and stop living in the past. There's nothing remarkable there.

Did the OP actually ride any new bikes?

Wizbang features are useless unless they improve the riding experience.

It might be that the newer bike has something to offer, or not, a test ride (preferably a whole day or a weekend) would be the only way to decide.

Talk is cheap, its the currency that salespeople use most often.

If the riding experience matches or exceeds the asking price, the bike should sell itself, no sales pitch necessary.