Originally Posted by
79pmooney
There's a third option. Use good cable operated caliper rim brakes. Maintenance is simple. Visual checks are simple,. The only hidden portion of the entire system is portions of the cable. Replacing cables is easy. (Maybe not on some "brifters". I can't speak there, having never ridden them. Brifters always struck me as a bad idea on several fronts.) Both caliper brakes failing completely is a very rare occurrence. I've heard of maybe a few cases in my lifetime whereas I've heard as many in the past 20 years with a vastly smaller number of disc setups.
One data point - I rode down Mt Washington in 1976. Flatted 3/4s of the way down from over-inflation from a very hot rim. (Melted the glue for my sewups. I burned my fingers when I touched the rim. Brakes still worked fine.) Now I had been doing what you are not supposed to do with either rim or disc brakes; ridden them near continuously going down 3000' of 11+% average grade. (Gravel surface and many corners you weren't going to make going fast.)
Yes, I should have been using a glue that set up harder and wouldn't melt. If Mt Washington had been a regular ride instead of once in a lifetime, I would have. But otherwise, those no-name centerpull caliper brakes did just fine despite dispelling a very large amount of energy as witnessed by my rim temperature. (Aluminum with its excellent heat dissipation, not carbon fiber.) Using discs going down that hill without stopping? I'd let someone who weighed more than me with the same brakes and fluids go first and call me from the bottom. (Actually I probably wouldn't. I was young and stupid.)
Ben
Calipers, cantilevers, rod brakes, V-brakes, i've tried them all over the last 40yrs and they're rubbish.
A hill is no match for a motor. The best rim brakes i've had are the ones on my 80cc petrol Ellswick. All over-engineered steel with proper rubber bricks for brake blocks, it's an over-the-handlebars job if i go too firm at any speed and they keep coming back for more. Unless it's wet. In which case, they're useless.
Brakes notably affected by wet weather are not acceptable to me.
My e-bike is much faster than the Ellswick. And much heavier. And i use it on footpaths so it's constant braking/accelerating across town. It's huge floating discs and twin-pot calipers are absolutely in another world compared to the Ellswick's rim brakes or any other. And despite being used every few seconds for miles, they're utterly consistent.
The only thing worse than the feeling of the cable stretching is the knowledge that the cable is crushed at the end... it's a bodge job next to hydros, feels it and works like it.