Disc vs no disc
 

Simple question.
Disc (hydraulic or mechanic) or V brakes?

V brakes.

V brakes for me.

Vbrakes for me too.
Incidentally, my daughter burned herself badly on her hot disc brakes, after a fall at a mountain bike park.

Disc if you will be in the dirt, mud or rain. Extreme downhill too.

Otherwise, v-brakes are very capable, lighter and give you a much better selection of wheels.

I actually am in rain quite often. How much heavier are bikes with disk brakes?

Another vote for v-brakes.

For wet or winter conditions I prefer discs. Otherwise rim brakes (with decent pads like Kool-Stop Salmon) are adequate. If I could only have one bike it would have discs.

Yeah, in Seattle, you expect rain 365 days. :P
So again my question, is the weight increase significant?

Maybe one half pound additional. Not a huge difference by any means.

I ride rain or shine so for me it's disc brakes.

i've had a mountain bike with cantis, a folding bike with v-brakes, a road bike with calipers, and my new hybrid with hydraulic discs. in dry conditions, any of those braking systems, properly adjusted, will do the job just fine. however, in the wet & sloppy, there's just no comparison between the discs and the rim brake set-ups i've used. discs are made to stop you no matter what kind of wet and messy conditions you're riding through.

if i could only have 1 bike (heaven forbid), it would be hydraulic disc brake equipped.

Discs will be about a full pound heavier. This takes into account the brakes themselves plus the slightly heavier hub systems, increased frame gusseting, and changes to the wheel itself. Depending on the quality of the disc system/hubs the difference could surpass one pound in some cases. You would have to decide whether this is a significant increase or not. I have bikes with both and in my type of riding see no advantage of one over the other. I have a $6,500 MTB that uses XTR V-brakes and they are great. They were used in place of disc brakes with their heavier hub system to attain the lightest build possible on this full suspension bike. In this case the difference is significant (weight wise).

On a mountain bike, hydros all the way. Anything else and I'll go with Vs. V-brakes are easier to maintain and keep working well, and also cost less to maintain. The power and modulation ability of hydros for riding technical singletrack is unbeatable, but it seems like I'm having nothing but problems with my discs this year. I won't give 'em up until they totally break, and then I'll just upgrade them to a more reliable brake, but other styles of brakes are just easier to use on a day to day basis.

And if you ride enough, you'll figure out how to use Vs, cantis, or calipers no matter the conditions. I've ridden a road bike through 3" of slush before, and you just have to learn to use your brakes earlier than you might normally to stop.

To go with the theme, I'd also say if I could only have one bike, it would be equipped with Avid Single Digit 7s using either a Shimano or Kool Stop pad. Ridiculous stopping power, and super easy to keep working.

that sounds easy enough in theory, but when that city bus blows a stop sign and is about to send me to the morgue, i might not have the luxury of that extra time at my disposal.

Even with discs you have to have time to prepare to stop. If you hit the brakes too hard in nasty winter conditions like I have here, you'll just skid which will at least double your stopping distance anyway. To each his own, but I still think that in all conditions riding a V-brake will be just as good as a disc, and has some advantages that discs don't have.

Hahaha!

my experiences have proven otherwise. my hydraulic discs stop much faster in wet conditions than any rim brake system i've used.

Not to mention that road grit on rim brake pads will chew the crap out of your nice aluminum rims if you ride in sloppy conditions. Discs FTW!

From another thread: "They add like a pound or less. My Portland weighs about 2lbs more than my Defy,which are close to each other in specs and frame size,but the Defy also has lighter tires/wheels and a carbon seatpost."

Weight's really not an issue. I switched to discs on my commuter after my first winter when my V brakes packed with snow and I bounced off the side of a car. No injury/damage,but I've had zero issues stopping since. Then I came to appreciate how much cleaner my rims were,how long the pads lasted,how little fidling was needed,and how my rims didn't need to be perfectly true(also limped home once with my front brake open because I had trashed the wheel in a pothole). I have a couple nice roadbikes and a folder with calipers,but everything else is disc. It's not worth the effort to convert the roadbikes,but I am tossing about the idea with the Brompton.

If you're in Seattle your mileage may vary, but here in Austin we've seen rain a half dozen times in as many months, so for less than the cost of the cheapest disc brake system you can pick up a pair of V-brakes and Kool Stop pads and have way better performance. Cheap cable disc brakes are often worse than cheap v-brakes for stopping.

I thought the main reason for disc brakes was for off-road - mud and dirt. So when mud gets into the brake system the disc mechanism is capable of slicing through it pretty quickly - and you stop!

I'm reading a lot of comments about discs for wet weather? Did anyone see cadel coming down the alps at 80km/h in pouring rain with rim brakes? Don't reckon he needed discs for "wet weather".

Discs for dirt/mud - rims for everything else.

Go Cadel!

Didn't you buy your Sportster 20 because the disc brake equipped Sportster 10 wasn't available?

I've only been riding on discs for 3 weeks but think they rock. Much more solid, even feel to them.

First off,discs are illegal for the TdF,so whether they would've helped him or not,he couldn't have them. Second,he's racing,not commuting. He's on a closed course,and he's riding a bike that has to be as light as possible so he can get maximum performance. Third,he has team support. He has multiple bikes that are maintained daily by professional mechanics. If his pads wear,he gets new ones. If his rim is a little out of true,it's trued or replaced. His parts only have to last the day,his people have drawers full of spares that they get free or dirt cheap from sponsors.

Racing does not always translate into real life. You really wouldn't want to drive a NASCAR car around town.