Originally Posted by
hokiefyd
I think the primary reasons linear pull brakes took over almost immediately are:
- Cost; it costs less to build a bike with linear pull brakes (compared with cantilevers) because they're easier to setup and require fewer parts (no straddle cable, etc). Shimano's staddle cable simplified setup of cantilevers, but also worsened the performance of the brakes in many cases. Linear pull brakes cured all of that, and they were cheaper, too!
- Compatibility and standardization; no frame changes were required -- they were designed to work with standard cantilever mounts, so design changes to the frame could be avoided. They didn't even need different hubs; all they needed were long-pull brake levers (which are interchangeable, from a cost perspective, with short-pull brake levers). They were literally bolt-on parts using the then-standard design (cantilevers), which had been standardized across the industry for three or four decades or more at the time.
Disc brakes, of course, required more fundamental changes. You now needed a fork and frame with disc mounts, and hubs. What's our standard? In the beginning, we didn't really have one. We had the "International Standard" that wasn't adopted across the board, with its 51mm tabs. One problem with IS is the lateral distance from the caliper to the rotor was different for front vs. rear, meaning different adapters or calipers were required. There were also other proprietary standards, like Hayes and Manitou. The 74mm Post Mount has become the de facto standard for disc brakes as of late, and the reference design is 160mm front and rear, which is pretty common today. But just wait -- there's a relatively new player in town, and it's another proprietary standard: the Shimano Flat Mount. I think the reference design with Flat Mount is back to 160mm front/140mm rear, like IS, but I'm not sure on that.
I think it's fair to say that disc brakes have completely disrupted the cycling industry, from design considerations (all of the various standards) to regulatory considerations (what will be allowed in racing). Linear pull brakes, such as Shimano's V-brake, were an evolutionary design from the already-standard cantilever, making its adoption cheap and fast.
I recall brake performance being what made MTBers adopt V brakes overnight in 96. It was the big news out of the blue (inb4 Ben Capron, Kestrel Bontrager) and everybody uninstalled their expensive aftermarket levers and cantis and bought XT or XTR when before, nobody bought Shimano brakes. XTR M950 killed the entire aftermarket brake and crank market overnight. It was a monumental metallurgical smackdown and the XTR and XT calipers and levers were directly responsible for the disruption in the MTB brake market. Large, important companies went out of business and parts disappeared until ebay, the interwebs, and N+1 became a big thing.
For the industry, it freed frame design from the constraints of having a centered hanger. This was huge and opened the way for modern suspension design. Marketing took over and pushed strong brakes on consumers, but this was a win win. Slight changes were required -stops and beefier stays but were minor.
Most bike parts are bolt-on; but to keep it relevant, suspension at this point in time had just been accepted as the way forward and was heavily marketed as an aftermarket item. However, many (including I) held out and rigid steel is still a thing - unlike cantis. Even thumbies are a thing, but not riding cantis on MTBs. Another example is X+1 speeds - its just a few parts away...
After disks were mainstream in MTBs, many high end XC rigs were still Vs for a long time. High end V performance and lower weight kept Vs viable. Many rigs were disk front and V rear.
Road bikes and the UCI have understandebly have been slow to adopt to disks, but seeing how far back disks on bikes go, its hard for me to see them as disruptive. News of Camapgnolo working on disks was out for years. Read about disks in 92, got disks in 99, road bikes get disks deep into the 2ks..... Hard to see it as disruptive IMO.
V brakes are bolt on, but nobody would have bolted them on if they weren't an improvement.
Back to OP, 250 for a G Escape is too much IMO.