Classtime 

Problem Solvers?

smd4

They're wonderful if stopping isn't a priority!

smd4

Classy looking! You got enough excess cable there?

bamboobike4

Mongrels drive evolution.
I'd like to know who you're calling mfgers...

bamboobike4

Mongrels drive evolution.
I'd like to know who you're calling mfgers...

bamboobike4

Erector set fetish.

bamboobike4

Without sounding overly enthusiastic, Hol-Sh-- that's nice.

PS: I know it's the camera, but everything there is BioPace

bamboobike4

No justice, no NOS pieces!

seypat

Maybe I should have said bike component brands?

squirtdad

thanks,

the bio pace wheels take some time getting used to

cyccommute 

The point is that going from a rim brake to a hub mounted disc brake is a lateral move. Lots of people want to say that the difference between the two is like the difference between drum brakes and disc brakes on a car but it really isn’t. There’s also all the claims about “superior modulation” for hub mounted disc without any definition of what “modulation” is. I have a bike with disc front/linear rear brakes and don’t feel any difference in the levers nor do I use any different method to brake with a rim brake vs a hub mounted disc. They are exactly the same.

mstateglfr 

They certainly can be a lateral move, but it isnt always a lateral move. Like most topics, it isnt as simple as you claim.

My main road bike, backup road bike, and periodic road bike all have rim brakes. They work fine for me. I am usually between 30 and 45' of climb on paved road rides so there is elevation change, but no mountains. I also rarely ride in rain, probably 15% of my road rides involve rain and so I dont need disc brakes for that.
My gravel bike has hydraulic disc brakes and they perform significantly better than my old disc brake with cantilever brakes. The canti brakes are set up properly, to be clear. They work, but the hydraulic are easier to engage and easier to hold at a given pressure. I was fine for years on rim brakes with the gravel bike and could still do it just fine.

With that said...there are a ton of instances where rim brakes are inferior.
- Wet rims dont stop as well as wet disc.
- Rims wear out and its a bigger hassle to change rims than it is to change a rotor.
- To the point above, carbon rims are increasingly popular with disc brakes since the rotor is the consumable component.
- Disc wheels out of true dont rub against super close Vbrake pads like rim brakes do.
- Rim brakes perform like junk in mud/dirt and easily pick up grit that grinds lines into a rim.


There are positives and negatives to each setup. I have 0 desire to argue with you and to save a bunch of rambling on your part, allow me to pre-emptively wave the white flag and say I surrender.
Please know though that your response above doesnt actually address my quoted question. The comparison of a disc brake wheel and a rim brake wheel being the same since a rim is a giant rotor is constantly brought up and it really says nothing. Its an observation without a good point. Just because they are both 'rotors' doesnt mean they perform the same and there is no effective difference. There are a lot of differences, some minor and some major. Not everyone will notice or benefit from the differences since we all ride under different circumstances.

Ok there- have at it. Go nuts with a classic cycco response.

bikingshearer 

The one big advantage I can see for disc brakes is that you don't have heat build-up right next to the tires. When you are over 250 pounds and routinely go down two mile long (or longer) twisty descents, that is a non-trivial concern. But it is not enough to get me to go find a modern frame just to accommodate them.

Brifters and click-barcons are about as far as I intend to go, shifting-wise. At least one year of the Ford Edsel had push-button electric shifting. That isn't a great recommendation.

bamboobike4

A guy at Georgia's Six Gap not only shredded his carbon rim brake pads, he shredded his wheels, as well. Done for the day. Conversely, plenty of rim brakers didn't have a problem, so of course, he's the exception and not the rule. On Thunder Ridge, several people melted their brake pads on rim brakes on carbon wheels, my partner included. Again, the opposite: plenty of rim brakers didn't have a problem, but on a hot day, there were significantly damaged pads. Luckily, there are no thrilling descents after that one, and people can ride on in.

On both Thunder Ridge and at Six Gap, disc braked riders were much less anxious on the descents. On Thunder Ridge, I didn't see any with any issues, got passed at 40mph by a guy on a disc brake bike. While I'm trying to stay relaxed but not dead, he said he just grabbed brake whenever he needed it, had zero worries about wearing anything out. I could not share that sentiment, as I feathered the entire way down the technical section.

The higher speed of the larger circumference rim contributes to whatever friction and damaging heat affecting the pads and rims with rim brakes. Heat dissipation is acting upon the very item directly holding the tire, the rim. Get that pad too close to that tire, and you will have a flat under braking. The braking forces act on the rim, then via the spokes to the hub. The rim slows first, so there are tensional changes in the spokes under braking.

The lower speed of the smaller circumference rotor contributes to whatever friction and damaging heat affecting the pads and the rotors with disc brakes. Heat dissipation is acting upon the rotor, not directly upon the very item holding the tire. The braking forces act more directly on the hub, then via the spokes to the rim. The hub slows first, so there are still tensional changes to the spokes under braking.

My lady will not descend Thunder Ridge again on a rim brake bike. She's emphatic in that. We may try a set of ceramic-coated rims on that same bike, special pads needed, per Vittoria.

I'm moving to discs for the first time ever on two 700C to 650B conversions of modern, used, entry-level aluminum disc road bikes to gravel. (I wanted to try this on C&V steel, but it is less problematic with discs.) Getting the wider tires works better on gravel, and having discs will eliminate a lot of the problem with mud. By going with "gravel gearing," we also pick up some climbing ability, based on the 46/30 fronts, clutched RD's, and wider cassettes. Because they are disc bikes, we can take 700C wheelsets with us and go play on the road if we want. Because the 46/30 crankset is so much easier, we simply run smaller cassettes on the road wheels. Our 650B wheels are 650x38, our 700C wheels are 700x25. Our preferences, and 38's are the biggest we could fit on the road bike frames.

We are keeping the Cervelo Aspire squarely in our sights, should the trip with 2 bikes and 4 wheels turn out well. Not only can you swap wheels easily, you can move the front wheel out a bit, on the same fork, to slow down the geometry. They accommodate wider 650B tires than our conversions, also wider 700C tires, and come in a $3000 model and a $6000 model. No way will the $3000 models be "less" than we're capable of. Freeing some C&V's from captivity will be required, but being able to load 2 bikes, 4 wheels, and just take off to ride is a temptation. If our conversions work out well, we'll have more varied cycling experiences, would sell them, a couple-three C&V's each, and go Aspire to fun.

+1 Especially if something jars that pad and it touches the tire. It will go. BTDT.

I'll find out at Triple ByPass this year. Veterans of that say that you simply can't let yourself get going too fast, or you are going to ruin pads and/or wheels.

I think a lot of F1 & Indy cars have long had button/paddle shifting? I think Chrysler actually had buttons, or paddles, too. Heck, I think some of them steer by wire, too. The Edsel was so cool, but so ugly.

Trakhak

My 1960 Plymouth Golden Fury (bought in 1977 from first owner) had push-button shifting on the dashboard.

seypat

Did she have to change her shorts/bibs at the Peaks Of Otter Campground?

Tell her I've done that ride/descents with Mafac Racers......in the rain........multiple times. That roller coaster curvy part after Peaks of Otter can get scary! I almost bit it this year around mile 80-85. I was in one of those sections with endless short, steep V hills. I topped one of them barely crawling along. Next thing I know, I'm doing about 40 with a sharp curve at the bottom. I got my feet unclipped and used them as outriggers. I got through that, then lost my momentum getting to the granny because the pitch changed so quickly. Couldn't get a foot unclipped in time and fell over. Had to coast back down, turn around and start back up. Freaking roller coaster. It was a tough section.

cyccommute 

Yea, it is as simple as I claim.

My main road bike, backup road bike, and periodic road bike all have rim brakes. They work fine for me. I am usually between 30 and 45' of climb on paved road rides so there is elevation change, but no mountains. I also rarely ride in rain, probably 15% of my road rides involve rain and so I dont need disc brakes for that.
My gravel bike has hydraulic disc brakes and they perform significantly better than my old disc brake with cantilever brakes. The canti brakes are set up properly, to be clear. They work, but the hydraulic are easier to engage and easier to hold at a given pressure. I was fine for years on rim brakes with the gravel bike and could still do it just fine.[/QUOTE]

I do ride mountains on both my road bikes and mountain bikes and touring bike and even my cruiser…although my “cruiser” is more mountain bike than traditional cruiser. My bikes have mix of different brake styles from cantilever to disc. My touring bike, which carries by far the heaviest loads down mountains, has cantilever brakes. They work quite well. They have worked quite well even on a 45 mph descent in the Smoky Mountains in a driving rain.

I’ve also ridden many, many, many miles in mountains on touring bikes, mountain bikes (used as mountain bikes) and road bikes. All of them were bikes without hub mounted discs. And I’m not timid about coming down a hill. I go as fast as I can.

I’ve also ridden in lots and lots and lots of rain, snow, and ice, again, without hub mounted discs. I’ve never had an experience where I thought my brakes wouldn’t work.

The limitation isn’t the brakes. Just like in a car, the limitation to stopping is the wet or ice is tire adhesion, not the brake mechanism. Rim brakes can have a slight lag but it pales in comparison to the tire adhesion.

Rims wear out after thousands and thousands of miles. Yes, it happens but it’s not all that common.

Kind of got me there. But while carbon rims are increasingly available, the vast majority of wheels are still going to have aluminum rims. The price of carbon is still far outside the reach of most people.

While true, a wheel rubbing on the brakes tells you that something is wrong. A wheel that is out of true has a problem that needs to be fixed. Other problems will raise their head if you ignore a wheel with uneven tension.


You aren’t any fun.

You are missing the point. Yes, they are exactly the same down to the mechanism that squeezes the rotor in each case. As a very experienced mountain (and mountain bike) rider, I can tell no effective difference between either systems. I’ve used both. I don’t find one to be vastly superior to the other. Nor do I find them to act any differently in either function or application.

cyccommute 

Although I’m not quite over 250 lb, I’m close enough. I also load up a bike that weighs about 30 lbs with 40 lbs of gear (total weight dragging 300 lbs) and send it hurtling down mountains. The key to riding down a two mile long or longer twisty descent is to know how to use the brakes properly. That means not dragging them from the top to the bottom. Even hub mounted disc will over heat and fad…and are likely more of a problem them rim brakes because they can’t shed heat like a much larger surface area rotor can.

Additionally, the whole “rims heating enough to blow the tires off the rims” thing is mostly a myth. The amount of heat needed to raise the pressure in a bicycle tire to blow off levels is much higher than most people think. The rule of thumb is about a 1psi increase for each 10°F increase in temperature. Basically that means that it takes an awful lot of heat to get significant rise in pressure. A 100°F increase (70°F to 170°F, for example), will only add 10 psi.

Feldman

Funny how Shimano gets tech to such a high level before stopping production; my wife has a new bike with Di2 and Ultegra rim brakes--so powerful they are almost scary. I can give other examples from the past.

Soody

the craziest thing to me is that Dura Ace cassettes are now only 11-30 and 11-34

I wonder whether the shift towards wider gears from Shimano is them being sensible, or an inadvertent consequence of mindlessly adding to the number of cogs.

52telecaster

I can't see them doing single tooth jumps through the entire cassette. I never raced so I really don't care but I hope 8 speed stays around in some form.

gugie 

Anything new Shimano is dead to me.

smd4

Only??!! I’m debating whether I should swap my 12-23 for a 12-25 to help a little with the hills!

P!N20

I caught myself having thoughts of getting a 13-28 cassette the other day. I polished my hubs as punishment.

bulgie 

"I didn't abandon Shimano, they abandoned me". But they'll do just fine without me, as they have since I stopped buying new bike parts, about 1990 I think. Since then I've been content with mostly used or NOS "obsolete" parts. Not a conscious decision or strict rule, no ideology, I just lost interest in the new stuff.

Oh I did buy a full-sus MTB maybe 15 years ago, but I kinda regret it, don't ride that bike much, can't get excited about it.

All my friends are full-carbon, wireless shifting etc. I can't keep up with them, but mostly because they also have electric motor assist. Oh yeah, also because I am slow.

Total retro-grouch. I hope here in C&V I don't have to defend that!

Mark B