speyfitter

I hope we can use this thread to query the retro grouch community on border issues pertaining to equipment, cycling performance, expectations, etc.

So here is my question/point of discussion:

If disc brakes had come before rim brakes, would RGs still love rim brakes as much as they do?

I mean imagine if disc brakes were there first and then the idea of rim brakes came along? A brake that sacrifices the rim you say? I’m sticking with my tried and true sacrificial rotor to protect the wheel!

70sSanO

It is not controversial. Classic car retro grouches convert from drum to disc because there are good conversion kits available. If discs brakes preceded drum brakes in the car world, drum brakes would not exist.

The same with bikes. Rim brakes would not exist if disc brakes preceded them. And for road bikes rim wear is pretty non-existent, especially hard anodized.

Retro grouch is a fluid term as it is generational; even index shifting is turning 40 this year.

John

cyccommute 

You are making the mistake of assuming that rim brakes are not disc brakes. Converting drum brakes on cars to disc brakes was a great improvement. Hub mounted disc brakes are just making the “disc” smaller. A rim brake works exactly the same way as a hub mounted disc brake…they just have a much larger rotor.

As to rim wearing out, yes, it happens. It’s not a big a problem as many people make it out to be. I’ve had many more rims crack at the spoke holes than I’ve had wear out due to brake wear.

cb400bill

I just had to correct the spelling of grouches in the thread title.

3alarmer 

.
...I thought the retro grouches were supposed to remain within the confines of the C+V forum ? Why would you start this thread in General Cycling ?

shelbyfv

Isn't there a section called Trollheim?

Rick

Hydraulic rim brakes came before disk brakes. The reasons they were not as popular is the weight was undesirable to the racing crowd and people didn't like the idea of bleeding them. I have them on my Tandem and they are superior to hydraulic disk brakes in many ways. The drop bar lever versions are no longer made. If I had not needed frame couplers on my current bicycle I would use the Magura HS33s. Disk brakes are more costly and complicated. cyccommute is correct about the rim being a larger disk. The effect of rain on rim brakes is mostly diminished when using hydraulic rim brakes.

speyfitter

Your answer sounds like a reluctant revisionist RG who has lost faith in the rim brake, acknowledges the superiority of disc brakes, yet is stubbornly clinging to not want to admit it “on paper” by attempting to assert through some convoluted logic that they are the same.

zandoval 

Are Rim/Caliper Brakes easier to repair and adjust than Disk Brakes?

Do Rim/Caliper Brakes cost more than Disk Brakes?

Do you need special modifications to wheel sets to use Disk Brakes?

Can you use Rim/Caliper Brakes on Carbon Rims?

Oddly I find the use of Disk-Brakes kinda like Indexed Shifting. Seems like everybody is converting over but me...

CroMo Mike 

Hydraulic and/or mechanical disc brakes were being used on cars, trucks, busses, subway trains, airplanes, motorcycles, go karts, lawn mowers, etc. years before they became common on bicycles. So why did it take so long?

I decline to debate which is better. I have vintage bikes, they have rim brakes, they stop fine and still have anodizing on their rims after 40-50 years. Discs might be better, but they are just bikes fercrissakes,

tomato coupe

A: No.

Q: Do you need special modifications to wheel sets to use rim brakes?
A: Yes, you need to add brake tracks.

shelbyfv

Bummer OP wasn't around 10-15 years ago when this "discussion" was relevant, or at least not

CAT7RDR

Funny. I'm not that mechanically inclined but understood the concept. He has given me good advice in the past so I'm biased that way.

kcjc

You're assuming one is better than the other while insulting those who don't care or have a different perspective. I have yet to destroy my rims due to wear or see anything other than user error (see what I'm doing here?!). If you want to limit and conform to manufacturers' latest money grab, it's your money, but don't dress it up as if it's the next sliced bread. It works better or not, depending on the environment, use case and skill level. Nothing more, nothing less.

PeteHski

Reluctance to change and obsession with weight (still both lingering). Maybe cost too at the lower end of the market. Mountain bikes really paved the way for bicycle disc brakes and it was inevitable that they would eventually find their way onto all other types of bike.

Frkl

Your premise is completely wrong. I run disc brakes with 559 and 622 mm rotors. The brakes work grate. Or the breaks work great. Whatever.

The fact is that disc brakes did not come first on bikes and there is a reason for that: they purport to solve a problem that didn't exist. So posing the counterfactual question makes little sense and isn't worth answering.

But i will: the fact that disc rotor diameter slowly approaches rim diameter over time suggests that eventually rim brakes will be back.

Frkl

But Y? Isn't the misspleling teling?

Moderation should stop abuse, not save idiots form thereselfs.

3alarmer 

...in a very dark period in forum history, it got closed. It's a lot like when they closed down all the asylums, and put the inmates out on the street.

Frkl

If it were posed in cv, where people might actually know something to constructively respond, the thread would die because all the curmudgeons would ignore it. Since we are busy polishing our silver rim brakes. In General, it will turn into a multi page thread filled with the standard stuff

Frkl

I'm going to go adjust my friction shifters. Oh wait, they don't ever need to be adjusted. So i guess i'll just move on.

PeteHski

This seems highly improbable.

Frkl

Not that it will make a difference in changing your mind, but disc brakes on cars, and especially high performance cars, have gotten progressively larger in diameter until they are limited by the rim. But the rim on a bike doesn't limit in the way a car rim does.

either one goes for disc brakes or not, no one really cares any more , the arguments are all out there, and none are conclusive or convincing in either direction

Dave Mayer

Disc brakes were ported over to road bikes because our latest gen of road riders grew up on mountain bikes and are too young to know that there are a lot of so-called recent innovations that don't belong on road bikes. That is, these 'innovations' are heavy, fussy, expensive and unnecessary, and actually detract from performance road riding. But, what the hell, newer is always better, as it creates sales churn. Always sell the customer what he wants, not what he needs. So if he expects a suspension fork, dropper post, a huge pie-plate cassette, a 1 x drivetrain, and hydraulic discs with big rotors on a bike for just pavement: just let him have it. While the sales staff snicker on his way out the door.

Discs are the perfect example, along with tubeless and now hookless tubeless. Appropriate tech on a MTB, all sub-optimal on a high-end road bike.

You want the ultimate performance on a road bike, as in highest speed on pavement over a sustained period of time? Then you'll want a full carbon everything, rim brakes, tubulars, electronic shifting from circa 2015. No 2024 road bike can match this spec, no matter how much you spend.

cyccommute 

No. I’m not reluctant nor a revisionist. I am a retro grouch that fails to see the supposed “superiority” of disc brakes having ridden mountain bikes from the early 80s onward and never having found any of the brakes on mountain bikes to be lacking. That includes cantilever, of which I have at 3 cantilever equipped bikes in my current stable of 9 bikes. That includes one that I load up with 40 to 50 lbs of extra gear and throw it down mountains at high rates of speed.

As to the mechanism, hub mounted discs and rim brakes are exactly the same. Rim brake calipers push brake pads into a spinning disc of metal using friction to slow and stop the bicycle…just as disc calipers push brake pads into a smaller spinning disc of metal. Any differences are in details only. The principle, however, is the same.

cyccommute 

Well you kind of answered your own question

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