51–60 of 93 posts
I used to do fast descents of Bonny Doon and similar. Think 60Mph / 100kmhr at the base. With my fat butt and damp brakes I would run through the stop signs at the bottom using rim brakes. I’ll never go back to rim brakes now that I’ve had discs. I still use my rim brake bikes for clear weather around town. For real work it is discs every single time. The author seems to have only used bicycles in optimal conditions.
I like my titanium road bike with rim brakes, I really do. But 700x28 is really the maximum tire size you can possibly fit with rim brakes. With tires trending wider - and for good reason - rim brakes are really getting left out. More often than not, I ride my gravel bike with 700x38 simply because it's a cushier ride. Good rim brakes (cantilever need not apply) can't handle a tire that size.
This is patently false. Mountain bikes have been running tires over twice as wide on rim brakes for decades. I had one growing up in the 90s. Perhaps you mean caliper brakes? Even if so, I currently run 700x28c on my 10yo racing bike, I don't think I'd have any trouble going up a size or two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hydraulic disc brakes are not lighter than rim counterparts. When manufacturers have both versions of a bike you can usually expect a ~1kg penalty for the disc version.
On a disc brake bike, calipers are ~100g, rotors ~120g, and then you’ve got ~150g of tubing/fluid. They’re certainly heavier, but the components don’t even add up to 1000g, nevermind when you offset the rim brake component weights.
No need to get emotional over this stuff, I love my hydraulic discs but they are heavier at comparable price points. It's also not particularly important to have a bike weigh a bit more, I was just letting the OC know that he was wrong on that aspect.
This seems a bit extreme. My take: * Mountain bikes are better with them. I hate the low tolerances in terms of adjusting the damn things though. * I guess they're better with carbon rims on road bikes? * But the 'limiting factor' in stopping a road bike in most cases is the road/tire contact patch, not the brakes. I can lock up a road bike just fine with caliper brakes.
> they're better with carbon rims on road bikes Carbon rims are becoming more popular across cycling not just on road. They are stronger, lighter, less fragile and the quality is improving such that I bought a pair with a lifetime warranty. And carbon rims are worse than aluminium with calliper brakes especially in wet weather conditions.
I'm less convinced about road bikes though.
If you're not an avid cyclist please take this article with a grain of salt. It's largely understood that disc brakes are better, full stop. A few guys in my cycling group who are still on rim brakes will not take the really fun descents, even when it's completely dry. They don't trust them. Pad fade, overheating brake surfaces causing de-lamination and popping inner tubes. So, sure, if all you're ever going to do is…
I had a funny, similar problem when I got into sea-kayaking. There are so many videos on Youtube that you can watch, and they will make you think you're planning and preparing to get into a sea-kayak, but, not a single one of them give you any sort of clue what it's actually like.
This article is similar (and dissimilar) to those videos. It's similar in that it makes you think you're understanding more than you really are. Dissimilar in that this is basically some old grumpy guy trolling. Maybe they're like that friend who "thinks" we should've stuck to using C to write our applications, and that virtualization was a mistake. Now consider e.g. grandma. If you were a third-party with no background into the field, you would not be able to distinguish the person being serious from your troll friend who enjoys "debates" and creating arguments for argument's sake.
Maybe it's a lesson that smart doesn't go as far as we think it would. Domain knowledge matters. (And going back to that third-party and your troll friend, maybe that is why it's not so nice being managed by a non-technical person.)
Was wondering how riders like pros in Tour de France stop before disc brakes were available
I'm OK with disc brakes, but perhaps I'm a Luddite, I think electronic shifting is terrible. Don't get me wrong, it's cool, but I think it's a step too far.
But I hate having yet another electronic device in my life that I have to keep charged up.
Was wondering how riders like pros in Tour de France stop before disc brakes were available
They stopped just fine, but their stopping distance was twice as far, and more like 3x in the rain