79pmooney

I blew out a sewup descending Mt Washington on rim brakes. (Rim was too hot to touch and the tape melted.)

And worn out rims? Everybody who commutes Portland winters and has hills with stops does it regulalry. My winter bike rims go two winters - maybe. At that point the concave of the rim surface is, oh, 1.5 mm? (I never measured, but it is scary real. One rim blew off sounding like a gunshot from inside the house.)

I am not a disc fan. Good rim brakes work very well and I love that all the issues can be seen with the naked eye (well, all except broken cable strands at the exit from the brake hoods - replace cables regularly). In fact, rim brakes are the notable exception to the "rule" that you can have any two of strong, light and cheap. The Mafac Racers from the 1950s did all three quite nicely. Modern Shimano dual pivots likewise. And a whole lotta others. (The Grande Compes I raced an eon ago were sweet as are the SunTour Superbes on my current road fix gear. And the mis-matched sidepulls I put on my "Team Dumpster - $15 plus levers, the front caliper bent - were real stoppers.) But there are places where they have issues. In the lava dust land of the Pacific northwest, rim wear is very real. Wet weather stopping must be approached with common sense. But even with those very real challenges in my hometown, cheap, light, strong, simple -I forgot simple! - works for me.

Ben