Jeff Neese

And just as a reminder, rim brakes ARE disk brakes. There are very few bicycles with drum brakes.

mtbikerjohn 

They still run the 473 engine..

mtbikerjohn 

Would have definitely taken out the down town area of town...and the depot,roundhouse,car shop,museum..my old house..yikes!

tomato coupe

Everyone knows what rim brakes are. Everyone knows what disc brakes are. Good luck with your campaign to re-define the terms that everyone presently uses and understands.

tomato coupe

Still not reality.

smd4

Not really.

tomato coupe

The blast radius of the Hiroshima bomb was about 1 mile, i.e the bomb leveled about 3 square miles of the city. The town of Durango is about 17 square miles. Do the math.

Jeff Neese

I'm not sure that's actually true. A lot of people talk about disk brakes as though they're a completely different type of brakes, and are somehow "better". In their mind they are comparing disk brakes to drum brakes (like on a car). In fact, rim brakes are disk brakes that simply use the rim as the rotor.

smd4

I misunderstood what you wrote, which seemed to suggest a boiler explosion would be bigger than the Hiroshima blast. You are correct. A boiler explosion would not be nearly as large.

PeteHski

I don't think people are thinking what you think they are thinking.

tomato coupe

I don't know why this pointless statement gets repeated so often. People understand that "rim brakes" refer to one type of brake, and "disc brakes" referent to another type of brake. No one ever points to rim brakes and says "those are disc brakes." What purpose does it serve to call them both disc brakes, when everyone uses and understands the present terminology?

PeteHski

You learn something new every day. Today I learnt that a boiler explosion would not be nearly as large as a nuclear bomb blast. Amazing!

smd4

From now on I’m calling my rim a “rotor!”

smd4

You’d be surprised at what people think about boiler explosions.

In fact, it’s been said that the energy stored as steam is second only to nuclear energy.

PeteHski

I'd certainly be surprised if they considered them in the same league as a nuclear blast. But having been on these forums for a while.....

tomato coupe

It's a little known fact that the U.S. originally planned to drop a steam locomotive on Nagasaki.

PeteHski

There goes my coffee! Class post

_ForceD_

This isn’t meant to be derogatory, but when you (and/or other disc brake users) state that “disc brakes are superior”…how exactly do you mean they’re superior? What makes them better? My rim brakes are perfectly capable of stopping my bike. I can lock up my wheels, at which point my bike’s ability to come to a complete stop resides in the amount of tire that is in contact with the ground. That ground contact would be the same with disc brakes. A locked up wheel with disc brakes isn’t going to come to a stop any quicker than one with rim brakes. I mean I’ve thought about it a lot, and the only conditions I can think of where disc brakes would be better are: regular long mountainous descents where that brakes have to be applied for long periods; extreme wet conditions; any sort of off-road cycling (mountain bike, cyclocross) where conditions are wet and muddy, or snow and ice.

Dan

PeteHski

Better and more consistent modulation and one finger operation.

smd4

I’ve got “one finger operation” from my rim brakes. Even from the hoods.

t2p

I like rim brakes - more than capable / sufficient for many if not majority of bikes / applications

rim brakes are simple - less hassle - and can weigh less

however - a top quality disc brake system is superior to a rim brake system

Jeff Neese

It may not be pointless to everyone. It highlights the fact that what we call disk brakes are not inherently better than what we call rim brakes, because in fact they're the same thing. One of them just has a much smaller diameter rotor (less mechanical advantage), and also weighs more. The tradeoff for those limitations are that you can use carbon rims, and also avoid overheating the rims under long hard braking. A lot of people mention other things like mud, or fender clearance. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and people should choose based on their actual requirements. It's definitely not a "newer is better" thing.

cyccommute 

People throw the term “modulation” around with regard to bicycle all the time and don’t define it. From the dictionary definition

Another definition

How, exactly, does a hub mounted disc brake give better “modulation” than a rim brake (i.e. a spoke mounted disc brake)? In my experience, I can pull on either a little or a lot and get the bike to slow a little or lock the rear wheel or, in extreme situations, spin me around the center of gravity. The only brake that I’ve ever used that didn’t have “modulation” was a hydraulic hub mounted disc. That one was full on or full off with no intermediate control…i.e. the opposite of well modulated.

I’ve seen people on line who claim that linear brakes are either on or off. I’ve never experienced anything like that in 30 year of using linear brakes.

cyccommute 

Several good points. Bicycles braking isn’t limited by the power of the brake. It’s limited by the rider spinning around the center of gravity of the bicycle system during braking. Lock the front wheel and you are going to take a trip over the bars. Bicycle front wheels don’t skid like a car does, with the exception of tandems because the center of gravity is too far back for the system to lift the rear wheel high enough to put the riders over the bars. You can learn a lot about physics as applied to bicycles by reading Bicycling Scienc by David Wilson.

As for hub mounted discs being superior in rain, the limitation isn’t the braking system. It is the contact patch. The lack of road adhesion is the limiting factor, not the kind of brake.
As long as the bike isn’t using coaster brakes or drum brakes, the kind of brake is seldom a problem in stopping the bike.

Atlas Shrugged

It’s always interesting watching the debates devolve as a new technology becomes accepted. For acceptance to succeed it is because the product or technology is superior overall than what is being replaced. The luddites crawl out of the woodwork hanging on by whatever tenuous threads of logic to defend the obviously dated and inferior equipment. Clipless pedals, Index shifting, Brifters, 700C Clinchers, Carbon, Low spoke count wheels, Tubeless, Electronic Shifting, GPS Bike computers, 2X drive systems and now disc brakes. Anyone who has spent any extended time on an quality disc brake bike especially in the mountains or in adverse conditions knows they function better and are nicer to use than rim brakes. This is the reason a vast majority of passionate cyclists prefer and enjoy disc brake bicycles. To each their own however defending a rim brake bike as just a larger disc but not taking into account the inherently flexible calipers and cable system is laughable. The advantages of hydraulic actuation and a rock solid caliper design is overwhelming.