@feld Well, IMO this article is just biased. My wallet cried every time cork pads bit into the carbon rim. I have a set of aluminium wheels not fit for riding after just 3 winters due to the brake wear… Disc brakes and DB wheels ale less affected by the rain and mud. Never gonna buy rim brake bicycle again… @tk@cycling@mastobikes
@feld Every time I get from a disc brake gravel to carbon rim road bike I feel like I have no brakes. Sure, DB can be noisy when dirty, but never ever had to doubt the stopping power or reliability. But ultimately, for me it’s more important in terms of the parts longevity, especially as expensive as wheels can be. The idea of brake pads chewing on the structural part of wheel just makes me straight scared, especially on steep downhills… @cycling@mastobikes
@feld@cycling@mastobikes@ssamulczyk disc brakes are worse in rain...... compared to drum brakes which are never used on bicycles but are (were) used in motorcycles. Compared to rim brakes they are more lore less the same in theory.
@feld@cycling@mastobikes@tk the "nobody asked for them" section is so incredibly out of touch. on basic entry level bikes for people who treat bikes as a commodity, disk brakes have been a sign of "modern quality product" for almost two decades now, everyone except ultra nerds wanted them on their bikes
@feld@cycling@mastobikes@tk i've had v-brakes on all my childhood bikes until i was 14 or so and they always sucked, when you down the bike in the bushes and the link caught on something you'd have to put them back together correctly before riding and god beware you didn't check every time, having disk brakes was a huge upgrade, i never had to do any real maintenance on my disk brakes for over a decade and then swapped the bowden-link-actuated calipers for cheap hydraulic ones. sticking to rim brakes is a gimmick, they suck, like carburetted engines or writing with typewriters.
@tk@cycling@mastobikes I’ll concede that there are applications where disc brakes-specifically hydraulic- are better than rim brakes. But those situations are, I think, wildly overstated, and usually far outside the use-cases of the vast majority of cyclists. #biketooter
@nothingfuture@tk@cycling@mastobikes I think the opposite is true; that the concerns around disk brakes are mostly of concern to people riding in pelotons - which are I think reasonable, the whole "adding spining pieces of sharp metal to a pile-up is bad" argument is pretty compelling - but that for almost everyone else, disc brakes are purely better.
Hopefully though "these brake is subtly better under these conditions" is an in-extremis question for everyone and all brakes are fine.
@mhoye@tk@cycling@mastobikes
I came up riding tandems with sketchy canti brakes in hills, and- it was ok? We adjusted our riding to braking power.
On a road bike, I’ve never felt I needed discs. And I rode canti’s on mtbs all through the 80’s/90’s and into the early 00’s. They were fine. Until you were riding DH courses.
Are discs better? Sure. Good hydro discs have immense amounts of power. Were rim brakes enough? Yeah. Most of the time. #BikeTooter
Adjusting the cantis I found that there's such a thing as too much and too little mechanical advantage. And in between, there's a sweet spot. Discs apparently have much more mechanical advantage, at the cost of having a tiny range of travel of the pads. Which makes them tricky to adjust, in their own way. >
@nothingfuture@mhoye@tk@cycling@mastobikes What limits me eg from going faster on descents is not a lack of braking power but hesitating to put myself in situations where I'd have to brake hard. How I'm sitting on the bike & how much I'm at one with steering it and finding the right line has more potential for improvement, I think.
If it was really long descents or really really long rides, I guess discs would make it easier on my hands. <>
@v_perjorative@tk@cycling@mastobikes To be clear- I’m not saying discs are bad or whatever. I’m saying that most of the time, for many, many people, they’re overkill.
Some people seem to feel that discs are necessary for a bike to be safe; that is very rarely the actual case. #BikeTooter
The only benefit of disc brakes for the average rider, is the ease of adding fatter tires onto road bikes. That’s it. But a redesign of mechanical brakes also would have worked fine for road bikes and been hella easier to maintain.
Conventional brakes are surprisingly effective when paired with fresh, quality pads that are properly installed.
@LabSpokane@nothingfuture@v_perjorative@cycling@mastobikes Has anyone done (relatively empirical) tests for stopping distance? I was fine with my rim brakes, until I had a car pull out right in front of me when I was descending (but not breaking the speed limit; daytime but with lights on and a bright jersey), and I did not have as much braking power as I wanted. I’ve been considering an upgrade to disc brakes ever since.
@hughtaylorscifi@LabSpokane@v_perjorative@cycling@mastobikes Stopping distance is primarily determined by the friction between the tires and the ground (assuming the brakes are capable of producing enough power to lock up a wheel). Beyond that, rider skill at applying maximum braking force to the front wheel determines minimum stopping distance.
Learning how to stop as quickly as possible is a learned skill. #BikeTooter
Won’t argue that a bit. But … discs require less hand force on the brakes and are much easier to stop quickly in a panic situation.
And I say this as a rim brake advocate. I have both types and appreciate them both for different reasons.
And I agree that for the average recreational rider on flat ground, disc brakes are mostly unnecessary and a rim brake would actually be better from an all-in utility standpoint.
@nothingfuture
I feel like this is the crux of the issue: while rim brakes are just as capable of locking up the wheel as disks, disks give better modulation—they're easier to use without locking them up, particularly in the wet, or on older wheels that have seen some bumps. You don't have to keep your wheels as precisely true—I've been riding on a back wheel with a broken spoke for a month now because I'm too lazy to fix it, but with disks it's not an issue.
Another thing in their favour, particularly for time-poor commuters like me is that apart from replacing the pads, hydraulic disc brakes are maintenance-free. I wish I could get back the time I've spent adjusting, tightening, loosening, lubricating, and repairing my rim brakes and tweaking spoke tension to stop the wheel rubbing. But the hydraulics have been set-and forget.
I have both types on road bikes, and there is a definite improvement in stopping distance, which can be a selling point for faster riders in cluttered areas. I haven’t quantified it nor have I seen studies, but surely someone has done them.
I highly recommend trying out Swissstop BXP blue brake pads. They are night and day better than a standard pad for far less than the cost of a new scooter.
@LabSpokane@hughtaylorscifi@v_perjorative@cycling@mastobikes maybe, but it’s almost certainly an effect of rider modulation of those braking systems (and not a result of the power of those braking systems). Unless we’re talking about very unusual circumstances (extremely high speed, carbon rims with rim brakes, wet, etc).
Once a brake has sufficient power to lock a wheel, the limiting factor has to be tire/road friction. #biketooter
As long as we’re talking the average road bike rider, the average rider rides on the hoods, not in the drops, and disc brakes make a world of difference in the amount of force that can be applied and modulated in that case. Discs can also be appropriate for those with weaker hands/arthritis & make things safer.
But once again, a higher performance or even just a fresh rim brake pad can close a bit of the performance gap.
@LabSpokane
If you are talking about the average rider, they take their bike to the shop to get the pads replaced, but only at the point where they are making grinding noises or not working properly. Hydraulic discs self-adjust through the life of the pad, so they stay close to as-new performance right up until they're almost completely worn out, while rim or cable discs require constant adjustment to stay at optimum performance. @nothingfuture@hughtaylorscifi@v_perjorative@cycling@mastobikes
@tk@cycling@mastobikes They also require more skills, tools, and materials to maintain and repair.
Aside from that, a decent rim brake on an aluminium brake track has never failed me before, even in the worst conditions. And it pains me having to listen to the noise of wet or overheating discs on other people's bikes around me.
@raucao I have a set of alloy rims that went at least through 3 winters and are pretty chewed up. My point would be it’s eating up on the structural part of the wheel and not on a replaceable, cheap metal disc… Does matter with more expensive sets of wheels… @tk@cycling@mastobikes
What makes you think that these are "quite chewed up"? That missing millimeter of brake track is probably well within spec for rim thickness. Comparing with my rims these have easily another three winters in them. Wouldn't worry too much about them.
@robertmx Probably because winter where I live lasts for maybe 2-3 months and they look like that after 13kkm in total (including nice weather). That’s not confidence inspiring. For comparison, my carbon wheels did a lot more but mostly in nice and dry conditions and still look spot-on. So IMHO it is chewed up for how much those actually did.
I still use and love that bike (it’s been around 8 years), but the next one will be disc and electronic shifting…🙈🤷🏻♂️
@ssamulczyk@robertmx@raucao@cycling@mastobikes FWIW, the decent alu rim manufacturers I dealt with used to specify something like 0.5 mm wear max (if it isn't manufactured with a wear indicator / drill spot). Beyond that the rim is beyond design limits. Mavic specs 0.4 mm for alu rims without an indicator, etc.
@jond That is actually Mavic and I just measured it with the vernier. It lands somewhere around half a milimetre. It’s an analog tool, but it’s very near… I mean, no one is forcing anyone to go disc brakes… Stick with the bicycle you like. But for me, having an expensive wheel set in a pretty bad weather - it’s just such a waste of money with rim brakes. DB do plenty for wheels longevity… @robertmx@cycling@mastobikes
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