Disc brakes are great!
02-14-24, 12:05 AM
#76
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Electric cars with regen braking are, of course, in a different category. It's really more of a dual braking system.
...my bad. Do you live someplace hilly ?
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02-14-24, 12:14 AM
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You need someone with higher standards than me to work on your car.
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02-14-24, 12:24 AM
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I've been riding discs on two of my bikes for a total of about 38k miles over the past several years. (7 yrs on one bike, 5 on the other.) I think I've replaced two rotors and perhaps 4-5 sets of pads, which is probably what...? A couple hundred bucks? I spent that much on a new pair of bibshorts that should arrive tomorrow.
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02-14-24, 12:40 AM
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It's almost like this thread was started by a Civil War re-enactor.
So long rim brakes, we knew thee well.
...sane world ?! What ******g planet do you live on, Eben ?
The rim-brake-versus-disc-brake “argument,” if there ever was one, ended years ago. Rim brakes lost, disc brakes won. While discs have been the standard on mountain bikes since the nineties, the decisive moment came in 2018, when the UCI, the world governing body of cycling, finally allowed them on road bikes. Roadies were the last line of defense for rim brakes on performance bicycles. After that, they quickly began to vanish from the big companies’ offerings across all categories, and today, no matter what kind of bike you’re buying, disc brakes are more or less the standard. Consumers simply expect them, and experts dismiss anyone who continues to look askance at disc brakes, usually labeling them a “retrogrouch.”
Yes, disc brakes are better in certain situations. The same is true of aerobars, disc wheels, and 5-inch wide fat bike tires. But we don’t use those in all conditions, and in a sane world, the disc brake would remain a specialty tool as well. Disc brakes do indeed allow for one-finger braking, but if you value the simple elegance of the bicycle above all else, the only finger they’re giving you is the middle one.
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02-14-24, 12:42 AM
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I ride a QR equipped bicycle with disk brakes. As with all my previous bicycles, I filed down the lawyer lips so the QR functions as it was designed to do. I had the bicycle several years before I read reports of the front disk setup being a danger. I increased the tightness some afterwards. I believe that the incidents of the front wheels slipping out are very few and caused by non cam style QR skewers and operator error or a combination of both. I have the Paul Klampers on my bicycle. The only other bicycle I have that I ride is my Tandem. I have Magura HS66 hydraulic rim brakes on it. The brakes on the Tandem are superior in power and control to the Klampers. I have never had a front wheel come loose on a QR equipped bicycle.
02-14-24, 03:00 AM
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The First World bike industry is in trouble. Post-pandemic inventory overhang and dropping sales. Competition from Asia for direct sales to customers, and new groupsets such as Sensah and LTWOO. Internet sales, on even expensive items such as bikes are becoming ubiquitous and accepted by customers.
What the First World bike industry needs to do:
What the First World bike industry needs to do:
- Make bikes difficult to work on for a weekend warrior. Introduce complex proprietary tools for undertaking basic maintenance. Hydraulic discs and electronics are great because they lock most riders back to a shop for what used to be simple maintenance. Internal cable routing: a windfall! It looks kewl and saves 0.001 watts on the road, but it allows a shop to hand a $300 bill to a customer for a stem swap.
- Introduce new transitory ‘features’ on bikes, like aero fins on 1950s cars. Like suspension elements on road bikes. Or discs, which are heavy, fussy and unnecessary.
- Change over the fleet: Introduce different dimensional standards which will render the previous generations of bikes obsolete and useless. Like wheel sizes and widths and attachment standards. Plus different bottom bracket standards and cassette systems. Note the success of how the 26” MTB wheel standard was replaced by the 29-er through a rare coordinated and concerted effort by the entire First World bike industry. Then the 27.5” standard had to be introduced because the 29er was a mistake for many riders. Of course, the industry could never ever go back to 26”. Nope.
- Introduce an integrated supply chain direct from manufacturer to retail customer. Buy up the independents and lock customers into one single brand, particularly for servicing, where the money actually is. There is no money in selling $300 hybrids, but there is profit in selling an expensive bike to a platinum card holder. Then, due to difficult to service proprietary parts, the weekend warrior is locked to you for frequent ‘servicing’ - forever. Basically, a subscription service.
- In addition to changing the bike fleet over frequently by introducing new ‘standards’, also choke off the supply of replacement parts for bikes over 5 years old. Customer walks into a shop looking for a 10-speed derailleur… “This hasn’t been made in 10 years! We cannot source this. Let me show you some newer bikes!”
- Hire a cadre of social media sycophants and influencers to rag on anyone or entity who challenges the above strategy.
weekend warrior
proprietary
kewl
Platinum card
sycophants
influencers
BINGO!
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02-14-24, 03:18 AM
#82
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I have found an error in Dave's logic. AMEX platinum cards are made of stainless steel instead of plastic, making them incredibly heavy by comparison. No self respecting cyclist would ever dare carry such an boat anchor on rides. You'd lose several seconds on even short climbs and you'd be left to watch as your powerful, dedicated, handsome riding buddies disappear over the next crest never to be seen again.
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02-14-24, 03:43 AM
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02-14-24, 04:27 AM
#84
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It's obviously a non-issue. But even if I try to take it seriously, I still think it's a non-issue. I drove my last car 154k miles over 12 years and never touched the hydraulic brake system. I suspect a bike with hydraulic brakes would be just fine after forty years of storage.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...n-shut.993571/
02-14-24, 04:37 AM
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02-14-24, 05:09 AM
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02-14-24, 06:32 AM
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I think round seatposts are greater.
02-14-24, 07:11 AM
#88
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Well if "They" want to debate 40 year storage I know from experience working on vehicles stored very long term that brake lines are a real issue and on rim brakes pads are rocks. I could care less about what type brakes someone has/prefers. These are like chain lube arguments
02-14-24, 07:17 AM
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The First World bike industry is in trouble. Post-pandemic inventory overhang and dropping sales. Competition from Asia for direct sales to customers, and new groupsets such as Sensah and LTWOO. Internet sales, on even expensive items such as bikes are becoming ubiquitous and accepted by customers.
What the First World bike industry needs to do:
What the First World bike industry needs to do:
- Make bikes difficult to work on for a weekend warrior. Introduce complex proprietary tools for undertaking basic maintenance. Hydraulic discs and electronics are great because they lock most riders back to a shop for what used to be simple maintenance. Internal cable routing: a windfall! It looks kewl and saves 0.001 watts on the road, but it allows a shop to hand a $300 bill to a customer for a stem swap.
- Introduce new transitory ‘features’ on bikes, like aero fins on 1950s cars. Like suspension elements on road bikes. Or discs, which are heavy, fussy and unnecessary.
- Change over the fleet: Introduce different dimensional standards which will render the previous generations of bikes obsolete and useless. Like wheel sizes and widths and attachment standards. Plus different bottom bracket standards and cassette systems. Note the success of how the 26” MTB wheel standard was replaced by the 29-er through a rare coordinated and concerted effort by the entire First World bike industry. Then the 27.5” standard had to be introduced because the 29er was a mistake for many riders. Of course, the industry could never ever go back to 26”. Nope.
- Introduce an integrated supply chain direct from manufacturer to retail customer. Buy up the independents and lock customers into one single brand, particularly for servicing, where the money actually is. There is no money in selling $300 hybrids, but there is profit in selling an expensive bike to a platinum card holder. Then, due to difficult to service proprietary parts, the weekend warrior is locked to you for frequent ‘servicing’ - forever. Basically, a subscription service.
- In addition to changing the bike fleet over frequently by introducing new ‘standards’, also choke off the supply of replacement parts for bikes over 5 years old. Customer walks into a shop looking for a 10-speed derailleur… “This hasn’t been made in 10 years! We cannot source this. Let me show you some newer bikes!”
- Hire a cadre of social media sycophants and influencers to rag on anyone or entity who challenges the above strategy.
.
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I knew where I was when I wrote this
I don't know where I am now...
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--
Shad
I knew where I was when I wrote this
I don't know where I am now...
05 Gunnar Roadie Chorus/Record
67'er
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02-14-24, 07:46 AM
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I wore out a pair of Tektro pads on my Globe Live 3, and probably a front disk after about 5 years (they started getting noisy and when I replaced them, the pads were gone-daddy-gone with metal scraping metal.) I swapped the whole set out for Shimano XTR. Perfectly quiet for 8 years so far, longer levers and superior modulation too.
By the way, define “superior modulation”. Everyone and his brother goes throwing that term around but I seriously have no idea what they mean. Every brake I own…every brake!…is easy to control with my being able to put in a little or a lot of effort or anything in between. The only brake I ever owned that was difficult to control the amount of force while braking was the only set of hydraulics I ever owned. A little bit of squeeze or a lot of squeeze gave the same result…a lurching, fork diving, warbling stop right now! They were impossible to control and I’m no neophyte when it comes to using brakes.
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02-14-24, 08:36 AM
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By the way, define “superior modulation”. Everyone and his brother goes throwing that term around but I seriously have no idea what they mean. Every brake I own…every brake!…is easy to control with my being able to put in a little or a lot of effort or anything in between. The only brake I ever owned that was difficult to control the amount of force while braking was the only set of hydraulics I ever owned. A little bit of squeeze or a lot of squeeze gave the same result…a lurching, fork diving, warbling stop right now! They were impossible to control and I’m no neophyte when it comes to using brakes.
02-14-24, 09:08 AM
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...in fairness, Koyote lives in the frozen North. There wasn't a lot of topography in MN when I lived there. But still, that's quite a feat, if true. I've changed out a lot of disc pads on cars, and if there's a way to do it without touching the hydraulic system, I'd love to hear about it. I will pass the tip along to my maintenance staff.
fwiw, I bought an S-10 Blazer with 66K miles and replaced pads and rear shoes, including rebuilding the rear wheel cylinders. Around 200K I did it again and there was still pad life left but the rear cylinders were sticking.
Bought a Trailblazer with 110K and put front pads, rear were still ok. Just checked them Friday @205K and fronts look good but rears are getting close. It has a lot to do with how I drive. I've never replaced a rotor on any car I've had.
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02-14-24, 09:41 AM
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02-14-24, 09:50 AM
#94
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fwiw, I bought an S-10 Blazer with 66K miles and replaced pads and rear shoes, including rebuilding the rear wheel cylinders. Around 200K I did it again and there was still pad life left but the rear cylinders were sticking.
Bought a Trailblazer with 110K and put front pads, rear were still ok. Just checked them Friday @205K and fronts look good but rears are getting close. It has a lot to do with how I drive. I've never replaced a rotor on any car I've had.
Bought a Trailblazer with 110K and put front pads, rear were still ok. Just checked them Friday @205K and fronts look good but rears are getting close. It has a lot to do with how I drive. I've never replaced a rotor on any car I've had.
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02-14-24, 10:03 AM
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There's been a lot of argument about disc brakes lately, and it feels like both sides talk past each other a bit -- maybe one side more so than the other. 
... any of you naysayers think my reasons for running disc brakes (on two of my five bikes) are stupid, ill-informed, whatever, let's hear it right here. I'm eager to process your logic.
... any of you naysayers think my reasons for running disc brakes (on two of my five bikes) are stupid, ill-informed, whatever, let's hear it right here. I'm eager to process your logic.
...this actually took longer than I thought it would.
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02-14-24, 10:22 AM
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...I think I was talking about adding fluid to the reservoirs, as the pads work down farther into their positions into the slave cylinders. And the difficulty with pushing the pistons back out to a position where you can then replace the pads. Maybe I'm missing something, but that was much more easily done by removing he reservoir cap on the master cylinder...no ?
...I'm the last person to argue any sort of universal use case for brake wear. I just found the mileage claim quite remarkable, in this case of "my car brakes lasted this long, so I'm not at all worried about bicycle disc brakes." NOthing much to see here, I think.
...I'm the last person to argue any sort of universal use case for brake wear. I just found the mileage claim quite remarkable, in this case of "my car brakes lasted this long, so I'm not at all worried about bicycle disc brakes." NOthing much to see here, I think.
And I would not equate brake wear on a car to brake wear on bikes. I am very easy on my car brakes but I go through bicycle brakes quickly, depending on how much mountain riding I do. The last rear rim I replaced on my road bike (rim brakes) was bent by a pothole before the brake track got too thin but the one before that had a low spot from brake track wear. I was going through a set of rear pads a couple times per year.
I've been on 2 rides when riders had the brake track blow off of a rim brake road bike.
When I rode my rim brake mtb in the mountains the front rim would start thumping after months of wet, sandy rides. Replaced a few rims in those days. I remember doing a long ride with 1000s of feet of descending and many water crossings and the lever was at the grip by the time I got to the bottom.
I bought my current disc brake mtb in 2018. When I was doing a lot of descending I put new pads on more than once per year. I've replace the rear rotor twice and the front once.
02-14-24, 11:25 AM
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By the way, define “superior modulation”. Everyone and his brother goes throwing that term around but I seriously have no idea what they mean. Every brake I own…every brake!…is easy to control with my being able to put in a little or a lot of effort or anything in between. The only brake I ever owned that was difficult to control the amount of force while braking was the only set of hydraulics I ever owned. A little bit of squeeze or a lot of squeeze gave the same result…a lurching, fork diving, warbling stop right now! They were impossible to control and I’m no neophyte when it comes to using brakes.
Edit: If you're diligent, rim brakes can feel like this; just have to periodically clean the rims with rubbing alcohol (without getting it on the tires,) and lightly scuff the brake pads with fine-grit sandpaper. Ain't nobody got time for dat.
Last edited by calamarichris; 02-14-24 at 05:14 PM.
02-14-24, 11:51 AM
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02-14-24, 11:53 AM
#99
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Seems pretty easy to define. You wont like how it is defined or used though because it is feel driven and not data driven. Subjectivity seems to be your kryptonite.
