You think rim brake, direct mount will return?
#151
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That may be true, but if they work as advertised, why do they need to continue to evolve? What is fundamentally insufficient about rim brakes? They worked perfectly for decades at the highest levels of competition and are simple enough to put on cheap bikes of all varieties. 10 years ago there used to be threads like this but everyone was on the side of rim brakes. Nobody felt rim brakes were a problem. The only reason they might not be competitive in the market is because the same companies that make rim brakes also make disk brakes, and the new rage is disk brakes. You don't even have an option any more on new bikes. They all seem to have disks. That's what the OEMs are pushing now.
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I have no idea. I'm just some middle-aged white guy from the suburbs. Froome is the only one I've seen publicly complain about it recently. There were a lot a few years ago when the transition was just getting started. Apparently someone on team Israel forgot to tell Froome to keep his opinions about disks to himself after coming from Ineos who still ride rim brake Pinarellos. I notice the issue has since been corrected.
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#154
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I wouldn't say there's much fat to trim.
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It's not hard to imagine why the bike manufacturers really didn't want to keep having to maintain two production lines for every model frame and wheelset. In year 1 of discs being available, did they outsell rim brakes? Probably not. But they continued to be offered moreso in year 2, and so on.
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Yup, Big Bike collusion.
Shimano does not publicly share sales numbers, but road product manager Dave Lawrence says disc brakes are certainly overtaking rim brakes this year.“It is across the board, not just high- or low-end bikes or groups,” Lawrence says. “It really ramped up in the second half of 2017, both OE [meaning original equipment sold to bike brands] and aftermarket. We have not been able to meet demand for Dura-Ace and Ultegra hydraulics. There is a good chance we will see disc eclipse rim brake in total sales in 2018.”
#158
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You might be right, but that period was pretty brief. I bought a bike with road BB7's in 2012, which was fairly early on for road disks. Nearly all road bikes had rim brakes at that time. Pretty sure hydraulic road disks were a year or two later. I didn't love the mechanical disks, and thought the hydraulic levers were hideous looking, so the next couple of bikes I built for myself had rim brakes. In 2017 I was shopping for an entry level road bike for my wife, and everything at the 105 level was mechanical disk. She would have preferred rim brakes for the type of riding she does, but it was simply not available as a complete bike. We would have had to either build a bike or gone down to super low entry-level. It seemed more like marketing than consumer demand to me, but I'm not in the bike business so I don't really know. Probably some combination of both which is how fashion works.
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You might be right, but that period was pretty brief. I bought a bike with road BB7's in 2012, which was fairly early on for road disks. Nearly all road bikes had rim brakes at that time. Pretty sure hydraulic road disks were a year or two later. I didn't love the mechanical disks, and thought the hydraulic levers were hideous looking, so the next couple of bikes I built for myself had rim brakes. In 2017 I was shopping for an entry level road bike for my wife, and everything at the 105 level was mechanical disk. She would have preferred rim brakes for the type of riding she does, but it was simply not available as a complete bike. We would have had to either build a bike or gone down to super low entry-level. It seemed more like marketing than consumer demand to me, but I'm not in the bike business so I don't really know. Probably some combination of both which is how fashion works.
#160
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As a side note, my wife only rides a few hundred miles a year and never in the rain so her BB7s have been 100% maintenance free, which I suspect is the case with a lot of people who like their disk brakes.
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It is interesting that in a fairly short amount of time disk brakes went from hell-no, heavy, clunky and complicated to hell-yes, absolutely essential. I've never tried disk brakes so I can not compare them to my current Tektro rim brakes, but I do not feel the desire to change. My basic rim brakes stop my bike just fine.
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Well, the OEMs who don't even make bikes without them any more. Then every rider on the TdF has them. It is definitely part of the standard kit now. It's not a criticism of the product, but they are fairly ubiquitous now and rim brakes are virtually non-existent. 10 years ago the road cycling community absolutely hated them.
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Well, the OEMs who don't even make bikes without them any more. Then every rider on the TdF has them. It is definitely part of the standard kit now. It's not a criticism of the product, but they are fairly ubiquitous now and rim brakes are virtually non-existent. 10 years ago the road cycling community absolutely hated them.
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#166
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But to reiterate: rim brakes will always be available and bikes that accept them will continue to be made, just like with coaster brakes, 26" wheels, and quill stems. They probably won't be the bikes you want to buy, however.
Could be. And different pad materials, electronics, heat dissipation, etc. Point is, that's where the R&D budgets are being spent; not on rim brakes.
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For downhill mountain bikes, bigger rotors and 4 piston calipers are the way to better stopping power.
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The OEMs are saying it's essential because that's pretty much all they offer now. Bikes must have brakes. At some point they all switched from rim brakes to disk brakes. You can hardly find bikes with rim brakes any more. The OEMs clearly believe it is a superior, essential product. Maybe they are just following the public demand....but not long ago the cycling community was strongly against them. Somehow opinion changed. Was it marketing, real-world performance, something else? I don't know, but they have become an essential component on a modern road bike.
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The OEMs are saying it's essential because that's pretty much all they offer now. Bikes must have brakes. At some point they all switched from rim brakes to disk brakes. You can hardly find bikes with rim brakes any more. The OEMs clearly believe it is a superior, essential product. Maybe they are just following the public demand....but not long ago the cycling community was strongly against them. Somehow opinion changed. Was it marketing, real-world performance, something else? I don't know, but they have become an essential component on a modern road bike.
#171
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Are we seeing a similar movement by the industry to tubeless? For road cycles, were they naturally selling that much more, that now it's already very difficult to get a non-TLR rim/wheelset?
#174
That's right, just hang on to Froome's every word and totally ignore the positive attributes he also mentioned - like their actual braking performance. The important thing for me is that MY disc brakes don't rub or squeal. So Froome's problem isn't MY problem. It's pretty simple really.
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2. The people on this forum are not representative of the general bike-buying population. Many are very set in their ways, and they are very vocal about it.
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