Phil_gretz

^which is exactly why I have disc brakes on my commuter...

Maelochs

What's the over/under on electronic discs? You know they are coming ... because they will be needed for ABS, which will be next.

jungzest

its cheaper, high end bikes all have disks

Rollfast

If you are not adjusted well, get ready for an endo. Calipers are lightweight and allow for a great deal of flexibility in stopping power, you are more in control. And the best part is they are stinkin' simple.

Endos are not something you're going to get as much of on a cruiser that weighs twice as much, even more. Otherwise, learn to love flying?

LesterOfPuppets

Not quite yet. At our shop, half of our high-end ($5000+) road bikes have disc brakes. Approx 80% of our $700-800 road bikes have discs.

JohnDThompson 

Jan Heine of Bicycle Quarterly just put up a blog article looking at the benefits of various brake types. TL;DR version is that disk brakes have no real performance advantage on bikes using narrow tires, but the wider the tire, the more more material is needed to provide strength in the caliper to prevent excessive flex. A disk brake only needs to clear the brake rotor, which is the same thickness regardless of tire width, and thus can perform better with wide tires and rims.

https://janheine.wordpress.com/?utm_...eid=850bec5fab

Kontact 

That seems like an argument that is designed to work only if everyone forgets about cantis and V brakes.


Geez, Jan, do you actually believe what your typing?

JohnDThompson 

He doesn't ignore them. From the blog post:

There are ways around the flex issue. Instead of beefing up the caliper until it gets so heavy that nobody wants it on their bike, you can use the – very stiff – fork and frame as part of the brake. Cantilever and centerpull brakes do that, and well-designed ones offer plenty of stopping power, even in the wet.

HTupolev

Obviously Heine is aware of cantilevers, since he's a cantilever brake salesman. His commentary about discs being used to accommodate wider tires on road bikes was specifically in the context of how performance-oriented road bikes pretty much always use caliper brakes.

Kontact 

I was replying to your post on the subject rather than Jan's article.

How wide a tire would a performance oriented road bike have to have before a rim brake would need to get larger than they are? The mechanism of a short reach caliper could easily fit a 35c tire as it is, they just aren't mounted in a good place to do so.

rydabent

Break a couple of spokes on a rim brake bike in the middle of no where, and you have to back off the pads to where they are useless. Your disc brake will still work fine, and get you home like nothing happened.

Ballenxj

Now there is one good point about disc brakes.

HTupolev

Most short-reach calipers are still rated for around a 28mm max. While some can technically fit a 35 if they're mounted high enough, you usually have some very uncomfortable clearances, plus bad interference between tire and brake pad would be pretty inevitable on wheel changes. It can "work", but not in a way that bicycle manufacturers actually spec.

Kontact 

Not if the tire is now rubbing the stays.

Kontact 

That's exactly what I was saying - if you redesigned the way a short reach caliper was mounted, you wouldn't have to make any of the lever arms longer to go around a much bigger tire than we currently use it for. So you really need a pretty darn large tire (and a bike that fits it) before you say "This caliper has to be too big to work correctly!" No one is using a tire that large on competitive road bikes that this limitation is even close to being an issue. If you don't need fender or mud clearance, you don't need a big caliper for even a fairly large road tire - you just need everything to line up correctly.

JohnDThompson 

A legitimate point, but I honestly can't remember the last time I've broken a spoke on any wheel I've built myself.

N.B. I'm not a fan of low spoke-count wheels.

Happy Feet

I'm pretty sure I could get home with one of two brakes. What happens if you break a disc brake cable?

smarkinson

People love to argue about disc vs rim brakes so much that they don't even notice that this is a year old thread.

Ballenxj

And here's a good example of why you should carry a proper sized spoke wrench in your kit.

Joe Bikerider

indyfabz

They shoot horses, don't they?

BTW...Interesting troll here. The person who bumped this thread has bumped four other threads where the last post had been on either 7/12 or 7/13 of 2017. If you think that's a coinkydink I have a slightly used bridge in Brooklyn for you.

fietsbob

This thread has gone on so long that you can buy one, now, or not, it's up to you .

50PlusCycling

Because they are not necessary. Mountain bikes ride though mud and water, which can get on the rims, which contaminates the rims and the brake pads. When I got into mountain biking when the sport was still fairly new, I used drum brakes, which are even more protected than discs when it comes to mud and water.

Road bikes are supposed to be light and nimble. A road bike caliper, lever, and cable weigh less than a disc brake rotor, caliper, hose, and master cylinder. Having the caliper on the rim allows for the breaks to have great leverage when clamping against the rim, and wheel changes are much faster. I like disc brakes on mountain bikes or commuting bikes, I know how to adjust and maintain them. But for my road bikes, I like the simplicity of rim brakes. They are not sexy or trendy, but they work perfectly.