OBoile

I think he's referencing a thread that was popular a couple of weeks ago where someone was complaining about their shop not having a bleed kit.

noodle soup

Thanks. I must have missed that thread.

OBoile

One of my two cars is manual. That's the Canadian quota covered.
And, going forward, it will all be automatics.

Riveting

Have hydro disc on the mtb already, but I'm waiting for mainstream anti-lock disc brakes before I upgrade the road bike.

Psimet2001 

Off the top of my head:
1. Adds a mechanism that needs to be maintained. All hydraulic brake systems break down over time. Fluid at a minimum should be flushed and replaced. in 20 years of sitting around it's going to need a flush and bleed at a minimum and a full take off and throw away replacement at most. Right now a cable caliper just needs the dust blown off of it.

2. Cost to maintain. a Hydraulic bleed at my shop will cost you $35/wheel and I am on the low side. Want your cable rim brakes adjusted? Why - are they now working well right now? Really? Can you still pull on them with enough force to cause your tires to skid? If so then any additional braking force will just cause you to skid sooner....the brakes aren't limiting your stopping power but anyway...I'll 'fix' them by adjusting the cable. That will cost you $10 for the bike. That's a savings of $65.

3. "Everything is great but I did notice that when I am out of the saddle I hear a light scraping coming out of the brakes. Can you open them up so that they don't touch the rotor when I am out of the saddle?" Nope. Welcome to disc brakes. It's been this way since the beginning but mtb riders are heathen knuckle draggers that never cared about that because they were too busy shredding the gnar. What I can do is pull your pads, clean the pistons, lube the pistons and piston seals, bleed the brake caliper, machine the mounts flat, and true your rotor, check your derailleur hanger to see if it's loose allowing the axle to move/flex. Then after all that works out it "might" be slightly better. That will be $120.

4. "Rob, I left my thru-axle on the ground by my car when I left the house. You wouldn't happen to have one I could use?" - "Which of the 15 different size standards is it? Regardless - no. I have a pile of quick release skewers though if that will help."

5. "Rider in. Rear flat." "Hello racer. I know you're anxious to get back out into that break you were in. I understand you're pumped full of adrenalin, and your heart is racing so fast you can't talk or think straight BUT I'm going to need you to answer a few questions first. First off do you have a set of wheels in neutral? Secondly which size wrench does your thru axle take? If you don't have a set of wheels in neutral- what is your axle size? What size rotor do you run? I may have to move the caliper to match up with our rotors.... or even your rotors if you brought your own set...."

6. I hung my own bike up (disc) an as the wheel slowly rotated while hanging there I heard a slight squeak and it stopped rotating..... FFUFUFUUUFUFUFUFUUFUFUFUJFGJHGHGHKKSKASEKOEHRUEOHROHEOHDFSOKJH. *sigh*

7. Tools needed to install, remove, maintain a rim brake caliper: 5mm hex wrench in most cases, a cable cutter. Tools needed to install, remove, maintain a hydraulic disc brake..... : 5mm hex, T25, T10 (? bleedport), Bleed kit, mineral oil/dot fluid, Replacement barb and olive, safety glasses and gloves, possibly a post facing tool kit, rotor fork, etc....

I'm not against disc brakes - hell they make me more money than rim brakes. I ride on disc for just about everything. There are times I like them better than rim brakes but on the whole my life isn't amazing better or particularly safer with them. They are just fine for what they are but they are going to cause a ton of issues for those that don't ride often and/on super cheap bikes over time.

Psimet2001 

I've directly gotten business from other shops because they don't have the right bleed kits and/or lack the training to do it correctly. Personally I have spent hundreds on bleed kits annually to have the kits in working order and the correct replacement parts. A ton of shops don't have bottom bracket faceing and thread tools either and these kits cost about the same. They will all eventually have them but even we didn't until we HAD to.

Psimet2001 

^ Yup. This.

The piles of Zipp wheels made this more of a thing. They flex(ed) so much during sprints or out of the saddle that if you didn't open your calipers all the way up they would drag and even start braking.

In general though - like in cross - braking can change how you ride and race. Braking harder and later is always the sign of a fast rider in those scenarios.

noodle soup

That is shocking,

In this area(Phoenix) a shop absolutely must have the tools and training to bleed brakes. Most of the brakes I bleed are on mountain bikes, but we do a handful brake bleeds every week.

Psimet2001 

You just answered your own question. We continually shock those in the industry when we have to remind them there are no mountains in Illinois. There are mtb sales but not nearly as many as the rest of the world. I might see 1 or 2 actual mtb in the shop in a month. The rest are road, cruiser, hybrid with v brakes, juvenile.

EDIT: In other words no one in this area has really needed bleed kits for general service until they started popping up on cross and road bikes.

WhyFi

Your perspective as a service provider and race support is far different than that of the typical user; I see a lot of this as being neither here nor there or making a mountain out of a molehill.

Maintenance? I had to replace my brake cables more frequently than bleed my lines, let alone replace the lines. My experience thus far has been almost completely frustration-free (one high-spot issue), including self-install on one of my bikes with hydro. Lost TA? Don't be an idiot when you take out the TA - remove the wheel and put the TA back in immediately; why would you throw that on the ground? Racer with a flat? Wrong forum, different world. High spot? Hit the disc with a truing lever. Different tools? Yeah, people that do their own maintenance *hate* excuses to buy new tools (and you're not exactly being fair with tools/parts rundown). I mean, come on, Rob - this just comes off as some sensationalist retrogrouchery.

Are discs perfect? No, of course not. Install/maintenance is certainly more involved, when it's necessary, but the intervals between necessary maintenance have been pretty damn long and the benefits (one-finger braking, great feel/feedback, all-weather performance, not eating through my rims, etc, etc) have been worth it, IME.

noodle soup

+1

It is a PITA to source the proper replacement, but that is an issue which is easy to prevent.

Psimet2001 

Again - you're not representative of the vast majority of the riding public. I still have enthusiast riders who fight back when I suggest they need new cables and housings or a chain and they're riding carbon with 10 speed.

You can ignore a cable system for decades and it will still work. Not so with disc. The bikes I see daily are ones that have been ignored for decades. Worse are the ones that are ridden non-stop with no care or attention given to them. On a cable system that means new pads.

My position is that it's still not the right product for the application. It lacks fundamental standardization across the board and is an unecessary complication on many levels for the vast majority of riders/users. That's normally not a problem (shifting for instance. Di2, hell even basic indexed shifting...who cares) but on a brake/safety system ..... I feel differently.

Listen this is like talking about tubeless, overly large rims, etc. The fans will always drown out those who sit saying, "we didn't need this." The industry is just going that way come hell or high water. There is nothing I can say that will ever change it. The question was posed - what apart from weight would be a reason to not want hydraulic discs. I answered it. To sum up my previous post, "because to have hydraulic discs puts the majority of riders at a higher risk of having a brake system that is not functioning or maintained properly."

I may be a retro-grouch on this but I am riding on them. I had no choice. Are they better than what I had before? I'd honestly have to say no. If I was still on rim brakes I would not be sacrificing anything. If I did 10+ minute descents then I would no doubt prefer disc brakes. It's really that simple for me but like I said - I don't get to choose. I'll just keep getting more money for the increasing levels and frequency of service these customers have.

I really can't wait until the retro/vintage trend in the future though where all the hipster enthusiasts go back to only running rim brake bikes. "They're so sleek and cool. They really work better than most people think they do and they're just so fun to ride." FWIW - I will be against that move when it happens as well. They all just need to get off my yard.

RedBullFiXX

Everyone has a choice, sometimes free is a choice too

Seattle Forrest

A shop I like can do anything you need to an MTB, but can't handle some stuff for road discs. But that's in a tiny mountain town that's known for its singletrack.

KraneXL

I think that's the point of the thread: the industry can remove choice -- or at least mitigate it. As previously pointed out, when was the last time you could choose manual or automatic on a new car's option list? And the choice of disc brake on a car are no longer even an option. Front or rear.

f4rrest

Forgetting could be painful...

Psimet2001 

...and we can do anything you need for road/cross but can't handle some stuff for mtb (like shock service). But we're in a huge town in the middle of the suburban sprawl of Chicago.

Seattle Forrest

Or a car without seatbelts. Is that a problem?

Unlike with cars, you can get a frame and wheels made for you to your specifications. Even if all the major bike companies refused to sell rim braked bikes starting tomorrow, you can go to a frame builder and have a rim brake bike made. But the manufacturers won't stop selling rim brake bikes, because they like money.

Seattle Forrest

They'd be happy to go without shocks if you could sell them a joint. Those people make surfers look like teetotalers.

kingston 

I don't understand where you guys are coming up with this idea that manufacturers are going to force us to run disks on our road bikes. I'm pretty sure I'll buy more road bikes in the future, and I'm pretty sure they won't have disk brakes. There will always be a small market for the retro-connoisseur with deep pockets who wants rim brakes. Just like you can still get down-tube friction shifters, triples and centerpulls all in shiny silver if that's what you want.

MSchott

It's all about the Benjamins. When disc brakes dominate the market so deeply that the cost of rim brakes to the manufacturer goes up too much then they will become rare or obsolete. To continue the manual transmission analogy, lack of demand means the cost of certify them for many markets is prohibitively high and availability is now nearly zilch.

kingston 

Still don't get it. I drive a new car with a manual transmission and even bought a pair of drum brake hubs not too long ago. I seriously doubt that even our ridiculously over-protective nanny state will ever outlaw rim brakes on a road bike. Until then, someone will make rim brakes and compatible frames for retro-grouches like me who have no use for disk brakes on our road bikes.

beermode

Not sure what the resistance is. You get better braking. I think some people are fooling themselves if they think they are just fine in the rain. Maybe at slow speeds with no hills. Sure.

Other reasons? Aesthetics? Sure, I get that. Some calipers look sexy.
Maintenance is minimal. Maybe that scares people that never touched their rim brake, but the irony would be guys swearing off disc breaks while having a pressed fit bottom bracket.

caloso

Some of it is not wanting to have to buy a bunch of new wheels.

beermode

That is a damn good reason if you have multiple wheel sets.