pillows_

Im right with you here. Now I mostly buy cheap or used frames and build the bikes myself with the exact components I want

Being from the Midwest, I'm not ripping down a hill at 30-40mph too often. Im also not chasing KOMs to the point that I wait til the very last second to apply the brakes. Maybe its just me, but when I bought my first road bike I never thought to myself "I wish I had more braking power" (with properly adjusted brakes)

Hydros are great. They will definitely slow you down quicker than old school brakes. If you work on your own bikes and dont mind spending the extra time, or if you dont mind spending the extra money to take em in to your LBS, good for you. But they are overkill for most people.

The first time I went in to my LBS (looking like a obvious noob rider), I told the guy I was looking for a new saddle and he handed me a $150 carbon seat and $120 padded shorts. Thats the vibe I get from the bike industry, constant up-selling.

wolfchild

Some frames/forks have canti-studs and disc brake mounts, which gives you an option to run v-brakes or cantis or discs.

Maelochs

I think you missed the name on the upper left, an ancient Indian words which translates, loosely, to "notaseriousposter."

jefnvk

Huh. Never made the connection

DowneasTTer

While riding on the Western Maryland Rail Trial last week I broke a spoke nipple going over a bad set of root bumps. Now if I had rim brakes it would have been a long walk back to the car or not have front brakes as the rim was out of true. However, with my disc brakes I had no problem with the rims rubbing on the brake pads.

wolfchild

That's why I carry a spoke wrench on all my rides.

jefnvk

That's why I ride a minimum of 32h wheels. Broke two spokes in my life, neither was an issue riding broken with rim brakes.

aclinjury

If the disc brakes are of the mechanical type, then they're junk. You're much better off with rim brakes.
I'm guessing that at your price point, any disc brakes are gonna be mechanical type.

Gresp15C

What failure modes should I expect on my mechanical disc brakes? They're entry level Tektro. To be honest, they seem perfectly straightforward, and they work fine.

wsteve464

None.

Once they were set up correctly the only thing I had to do to my mechanical discs was adjust the pads for wear every couple of rides. Mechanical take more effort to stop than hydro disc brakes other than that they work fine, at least mine did.

wolfchild

Some mechanicals are junk...but I wouldn't call BB7s junk, when set up correctly with 185mm rotors they are great brakes with plenty of stopping power.

raja_mastana

My bike has rim brakes - but I think disc brakes are the future. Rim braking was a solution a two decade ago. But bikes have advanced so much overtime, more faster, more uses.
Discs are more suited to do the job. Also, technical advancements in disc braking will improve over time making it even better.
Only few special cases would continue rim braking , majority will move to discs in the future.

Gresp15C

My bike has Tektro "Aries" mechanical discs. I'm assuming that they're entry level based on the overall price of the bike. At the time that I was trying bikes, some of them had hydro's, and the difference seemed marginal to me. I've had the bike for 2.5 years, and have taken it on many long rides, though not as much as expected due to the arrival of another bike, a single-speed that I really enjoy.

I haven't had a reason to service them yet, save for pad adjustments, which have so far been rare. They certainly don't lack stopping power. I can get as much braking force as I could possibly want with two fingers on the levers. I can confidently say that I don't need more braking power than I can get from either disc or caliper brakes. I hate vee-brakes because I think they're a maintenance headache, but others have had good results with them.

Honestly, claims of night-and-day differences between components have always left me rather skeptical. I talk to a lot of cyclists, ranging from casual to bad-ass, and their opinions and experiences tend to be much less extreme than the passions that are vented in a web forum. Had disc brakes never come along, we'd be debating bottom brackets. Or chain lube.

aclinjury

Not so much failure mode, but adjustments and maintenance. I have the BB7 mechanical and while they're ok, I have to keep adjusting the pads as they wear. It's not hard to do, but it's something I consider a bit of a nuisance compared to hydro disc. The cable will get dirty and rusty and then it eats up the housing, then lever action no longer becomes smooth. While I can adjust everything, it's just a bit of a chore. My philosophy is that if my riding environment does not call for disc brakes, and disc brakes demand more maintenance time, then I'd rather stick to the simple rim brakes. Now before anyone say "but my disc brakes work fine, zero maintenance", they only need to head to Mtbr.com to see a whole subforum dedicated to disc brakes and their issues, no need to take my words.

Mr IGH

Too funny! It's called "Brake Time", nothing about disc brakes in the title. The reason why you incorrectly think it's dedicated to disc brakes is because no serious mountain biker is using rim brakes these day. This thread is priceless BF drama. OP rides a Walmart bike, wonders about Walmart disc brakes and now disc brakes are nothing but trouble...I can't stop laughing.....

phughes

Some may be able to but I see no point. If the bike you want has disc brakes, I would simply use them. Disc brakes work, cantis work, v-brakes work. Setup of all is important. I chose a Surly that at the time didn't have the option of disc brakes. Now they offer the bike with disc brakes as well. I would probably still choose the cantis for my purpose, I still prefer them, for my purposes, but if all they offered were disc brakes, okay. Rim brakes will not fade as much on long descents, generally speaking, since they are less apt to heat up as much as a disc, the heat dissipates. That being said, the proper sized disc for the application, will dissipate the heat properly as well, so once again, disc or rim brakes, both work.

As for hydraulics, I have concerns about damaging a brake line on a tour, but even that is not a huge issue, since you can carry what you need to fix it, just as you can carry an extra cable.

Gresp15C

But rim brakes also have cables, and pad wear, so they should suffer from the same issues, right?

Most of my riding is on pavement or bike paths, so my bikes are only exposed to those conditions, including rain, grit, and road salt during the winter. I've been using cable operated brakes for decades. Properly installed cables tend to be maintenance free for years. Maybe you're doing something wrong.

DrIsotope

Again, time as a metric for component life is at best inconclusive. I never seem to get cables to last more than a year-- so at most 10,000 miles.

The frame on my KHS CX100 died a month after it's second birthday-- by which point I had already changed the rear shifter cable 4 times. 20k miles.

Point

Maelochs

Without BF to tel people the proper way to ride the proper equipment while wearing the proper clothing and waving the proper amount ... what a terrible world this would be.

Gresp15C

Good point. But cables are cables, whether on a per-mile or per-year basis.

aclinjury

aclinjury

Canker

Well duh. That is what that section of MTBR is for. If mtn bikes still used rim brakes and that was a rim brake section it would be people wanting help with their rim brakes. And the suspension forum has people with problems with their suspension, and the bleh forum is people having problems with their bleh. The main reasons people post to forums are to argue like this thread, ask about some product/recommendations, and I'm having a problem with whatever.

wsteve464

This should end the disc brake debate, proof they are extremely dangerous, they burst into flames. LOL

Watch a disc brake burst into flames, tested to destruction! - Chain Reaction Cycles


and for Point I have worn through 2 rims using rim brakes.