jaxgtr

Uh, I just change the stem on my high end road bike the other day and it took me less than 10 mins. Or do you mean the stem bar combo that most people do not run.

I also recently changed my handlebars, and it was not that big a deal to route the brake hose through the bike and bars, they have some pretty cool little gadgets that make things pretty easy to do that these days. Took me less than 90 mins start to finish. Now I will give you rim brakes are far more simple to maintain no argument there, but we are not talking rocket science here. There is a you tube video for practically everything bike maintenance if you like to maintain your own bikes. And not all bikes are a nightmare with internal routing, some are actually thought out pretty well, some less so. Not unlike car maintenance, some are a pain, some are not.

veganbikes

For me until Cane Creek stops making the eeBrakes rim brakes are still alive. That being said I would probably build a modern road bike in disc brakes and not just for the braking really more for wider tire clearance and thru-axles which are quite nice. I like wide tires for comfort and maybe some aero benefits and lower rolling resistance and such and thru-axles for adding stiffness where you want it at the axles and making it super easy to take off and install a wheel not that a QR is hard it isn't but if things aren't aligned it can be an annoyance.

Probably my next bike which will be a fixed gear road bike is likely to have rim brakes though I am waffling now because I can get TT hydraulic disc brakes and since I wanted to go back to a Aero Base Bar set up rather than drops for this build so I figure why the heck not have more clearance, Clarence and in the end I can also convert it over to a geared bike fairly easily with some different dropouts which some of the modern sliding dropouts have should I need it. Though probably in my case I would just build another bike.

PeteHski

The video below is a good balanced watch for anyone considering disc vs rim brakes on alpine descents. It even addresses the point about some pro riders still being competitive descending on rim brakes. It's true, but only if you have the skills of Nibali or Pogacar. Most people, including a lot of pro riders, are going to be safer and faster descending on disc brakes and especially in the wet. Also good brakes tend to make you faster overall, as shown in the video. Putting crap brakes on an F1 car doesn't make it faster.


Note: The guy in the video actually bought a rim-braked Pinarello a couple of years ago because he thought the weight (for pure climbing) and cost saving (his rim-braked frame was heavily discounted) was more important than the braking performance. I wonder how he feels about that now in hindsight? It probably depends on how much steep/technical descending he does and how he feels about more limited tyre clearance.

ljsense

Thanks for posting that video -- GCN does a good job feeling out these issues in entertaining ways. They did some unnecessary handwringing in this one about a trivial difference in the Pini frames -- I wish they would have addressed whether the tires were exactly the same, with the same pressure, width, etc.

But regardless, I don't dispute that disc brakes can offer some performance gains, and with your F1 example, you get that a racing brake is supposed to help achieve speed. But in my experience, most riders don't get to that envelope -- and disc brakes are often used to just scrub off speed to reach some psychological comfort level, which rim brakes can do just as well.

GhostRider62

I have training segment with several climbs and sharp, bumpy descents that I have done hundreds of times. The very first time I did it on my then new SRAM HRD braked bike, I set a PB. Part of the improvement is going from 25mm to 30mm tires. The deciding factor for my switch to disc was midnight in rain and a tweeker ran a stop sign and my rim brakes could not stop. Hydraulic discs would have stopped. But I appreciate few ride in the rain in the USA whereas in the UK they have two types of weather, cold rain and cool rain.

Redbullet

I'm afraid I didn't really understand the core message of this movie. With rim brakes at fast speed, on flat, descent, dry or light wet (which I avoid as much as I can), I always have to be careful not to squeeze front brake too much because if I block the front wheel, I crash immediately. I also move my but back after the saddle, to allow me a stronger brake without blocking the front wheel. I never felt a limitation in braking force with rim brakes; on the contrary (as I said), I must be careful not to brake so hard until I stop the front wheel.

This is not to say that disk brakes ale lower: I have to pay them the same attention not to squeeze so much that the front wheel stops, because I crash.


I think that the real advantage of the disk brakes can be seen in conditions which are so bad that the rim is flooded in water and mod, in such a way that the rim brake pads critically lose friction - so, poor braking power. In such conditions, disks would not be flooded in water and mud, so they would perform better.

But I can't see such conditions in the movie. What prevents him to squeeze the lever stronger and have a stronger brake - either on rim brakes or disks?

GhostRider62

You are saying you can lock the front wheel on a rim braked bike?

Redbullet

Yes, if I'm not careful enough.

GhostRider62

Interesting. I have never been able to lock up the front wheel on pavement whether using rim or disc brakes. But I am a big guy. Discs are probably closer to a front lock compared to rim brakes. I do practice emergency stops. In 50+ years, I have never locked a front tire.

PeteHski

Would you have understood it better if rim brakes had been equal or better than discs in the tests he did? I thought the summary was pretty clear.

I think you are probably over-estimating the power of rim brakes when stopping from 60 kph. The initial bite at that speed is nowhere near enough to lock the front wheel. Disc brakes generate more power initially and that’s probably where most of the advantage comes from in the emergency braking tests.

With dynamic forward weight transfer under braking it is the rear wheel that is far more likely to lock up under heavy braking.

GhostRider62

I'd like to see a video of a front rim braked wheel being locked up at speed. Won't you just go endo?

PeteHski

In the video summary he said that he lost a lot of time in the wet on rim brakes from lack of confidence in braking. His psychological comfort level was clearly higher with disc brakes. That’s pretty much in line with my own experiences. If you are confident in your braking performance then you are likely to ride a bit faster. Same with tyre grip. Worst case scenario would be poor braking and poor tyre grip. That would be a white knuckle descent!

But it all depends on where you are riding. If there are no high speed or steep technical descents then braking performance is much less critical. But then again you never know when an emergency stop might be needed.

Unless cost is an issue I don’t really see a strong case for rim brakes on a new high-end road bike. It’s certainly going to restrict your options of frame, wheels and components.

Redbullet

Possibly. I didn’t say rim brakes are better than disks, I said that disks advantages appear on extreme situations which are not presented here. All the braking he did here (either on rim or disk brakes) were way below the maximum he could obtain and I think this impairs the test. There was another GCN clip 8 years ago, still on rim brakes at that time. The whole clip is interesting, but I would highlight Minute 1:05 – 1:15: “the main issue with braking hard is going over the handlebars”. Minute 1:30 – 1:40: “release the levers if you feel either wheel starts to skid” - see below link:

There was no worry that rim brakes might have poor braking power, on the contrary: As many others during braking hard, they were more preoccupied with avoiding too much braking force that leads to wheels skidding, slipping or having themselves going over the handlebars. To avoid all those, they advise modulating levers pressure to imitate “ABS” from cars and moving the body back behind the saddle, to allow using of a larger proportion of the of the rim braking power available. All true and valid for both rim and disk brakes. I can’t see any of those in the new movie. Both rim and disk brakes in the new movie had enough power reserve (and even much more) to make a shorter stop and even to throw him over the handlebars if he attempted to press the levers too much.

GhostRider62

When I was shopping road bikes last Summer and Fall, I do not recall seeing ANY rim braked new bikes. I could have bought some leftover rim braked bikes but I don't think not buying a disc braked bike was an option practically, other than building up an older Pinarello frame with rim brakes.

Redbullet

That is even "more true" today. The industry definitely moved toward scrapping rim brakes technology. I wonder how long it will take until one can't find any type of spare parts for them.

ljsense

Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?

Yeah, if I were offered two identical new road bikes and one had disc brakes and the other had (hypothetical, I know) rim brakes, I'd take the disc brake version, especially if the bike had carbon rims. New bikes with disk brakes all seem to have all-road capabilities with wide tire clearances, which is really nice. And you've got a chance to keep carbon rims in service for a longer time.

But that's not how the choice works. You can find classic handmade USA carbon frames with rim brakes pretty affordably. It is possible but not cheap to find them with disc brakes -- Allied, Enve, some other boutiques.

So, the original poster, a guy who's ridden nothing but rim brakes and wants to build up a bike, my advice is still go with rim brakes.

If the GCN presenter chose one pretty recently for his personal bike, and some guys were still riding the 2022 Tour de France with rim brakes, they're not the death-trap trash pile that some fear they are.

Redbullet

I did it 2-3 times unintentionally during brutal braking with rim brakes: for a fraction of second I heard the fizzle of the front wheel and felt a slight a change in direction, but I released the lever immediately. Sure, disk brakes could do the same, but I never test such dangerous practices with them. Soon after that period, I started to move my body behind the saddle any time I need a stronger brake - just for prevention.

PeteHski

The test in the video was of full bore emergency stops in the shortest possible distance. He was literally braking as hard as he could on both types of brake and rim brakes took significantly longer to stop. So I don’t follow your argument that he could have braked way harder.

I think the trouble here is that you really don’t want to accept their test result at face value. As soon as I posted that video I knew someone would counter it. But to me the result is much as I would have expected given my own experiences of rim vs disc brakes. I would have been way more surprised if rim brakes had come out on top.

GhostRider62

Some of Team Ineos rode rim braked Pinarello F in 2021 but I think they all switched to disc in 2022.

Like I wrote in an earlier post, I reviewed a lot of road bikes in 2022, admittedly towards the higher end, but cannot recall a single stock rim braked bike although going custom would have made it possible. Practially speaking.....not an option. Eventually new wheels will be the issue.

Redbullet

I would not.
But not because rim brakes would be bad (on the contrary, they are still 100% fit, especially for aluminum rims, they are cheaper, lighter and much easier to maintain). The real issue is that the industry ceased to produce them. To me, it is not comfortable to buy something based on a technology that was already disposed by the industry.

Redbullet

They would not come up on top. For those conditions, which had nothing really extreme, I think they would be close to equal. I would like to see mod and deep flood test, where disk brakes really have an edge over rim brakes (only for my entertainment, because I would never ride in such conditions).

In another "parallel" scenario, there is a special condition where disks have an issue: it can happen that good quality and new disk brakes to exhibit "pulsation" under hard braking (especially the front one). In such cases, the danger of loosing traction is bigger and the pulsating forces can damage the headset or steering: you can see with your eyes the fork blades flexing back and forth. That happens less with rim brakes, unless yo have a seriously bent rim.

PeteHski

I mentioned cost because that appeared to be one of the OPs main reasons for considering rim brakes. So I’m not disagreeing with you here. I’m not sure who was suggesting that rim brakes are a death trap trash pile. If that was true then I would have died decades ago. But it doesn’t change the fact that disc brakes offer better braking performance across the board.

ljsense

At the very top end, Campagnolo 12-speed Super Record is still available with rim brakes, and Shimano makes rim brakes for a bunch of their line (true, not Dura Ace at the moment). There's a SRAM AXS rim brake.

Up and down the range, rim brakes are on countless new models released to the world this year and have been pumped out by every manufacturer for many decades.

I don't think manufacturers are going to stop making rim brake cartridge pads any time soon, but even if one feared that possibility, it wouldn't be that hard to stock up a supply to last several life times.

And when is the last time you saw a properly maintained (not left in the snowplow path) caliper brake that just wore out?

They're like the closet doorknobs of an 1800s house, they just keep going. Try to find some old barn bike that doesn't still have its original working brake calipers.

PeteHski

But they weren’t close to equal in that test. So what you think and what actually happened are at odds.

msu2001la

Pretending that there's a wide range of options out there for new rim brake road bike frames in 2023 seems a bit silly. If you want a new rim brake road bike, your options are actually very limited.