Rim brakes on roadbikes are awesome, but they are awesome because the calipers don't have to go far around the tire. If you try to build them for wider tires you suffer far more flex and flex means that you can't pull a high lever transmission ratio before running out of lever movement. Remember "brake boosters" on cantilever brakes? Same problem, the requirement to transfer the counterforce far around the tire. I'm a rim brake die-hard, but for anything wider than 28 go disc.

I'd had just about every cable actuated brakes. Old school cantilevers, various flavors, u-brakes, v-brakes, cable-discs etc. etc. etc.

Didn't realize what I was missing till I tried a nice set of hydraulic discs, I'll never go back.

That list is looking suspiciously void of brakes that would have trouble fitting a 28 mm tire. Yes, disc brakes can be very good, but the gap is much smaller than must people would expect.

Heh, I've had my fair share that would hit the limit in the 25-28mm. In particular the shimano SLR/dual action/dual lever or whatever they are called.

I don't agree with the "gap is much smaller than people would expect". Have you tried a decent hydraulic brake? I raced on and off road, was a bike messenger, designed and built (from tubes) a mtb frame, and bike commuted nearly every workday of my life. Disc brakes have significant advantages over any rim brake.

Don't knock them till you try them, I was dubious myself.

Heh, I don't doubt that they are powerful and I sure won't bend over backwards to still get rim brakes next time I want/need a bike, but the "want" isn't exactly strengthened by the switch. And yes, even aluminium wheels aren't really a joy decelerating in the rain (and yes, I've been to that group ride where one guy could show off his nice new aero carbon toy while my nice new aero carbon toy had to stay at home because for a dozen hours of mostly rain as a rim rider your choice will definitely fall on the one with the aluminium wheels. I guess I just can't warm up to the idea of front wheels with twentysomething spokes. It's confusing enough already that carbon front wheels (for rim) almost universally come with 18 instead of 16, what's up with that?

Er, not sure on the spokes. Why not use 18? Is 16 better somehow? I'm over 200 pounds and am hard on wheels, I've been pretty happy with Santa Cruz carbons, which in the road flavor are 24 spokes.

The only caveat is carbon wheels. I hate rim brakes on carbon wheels,they legitimately suck and disc is way better for that application.

I actually just sold my carbon wheels and downgraded back to aluminium until I buy a disc bike for the long term.

Rim breaking on deep dish tempo wheels sounds horrifying.

They are certainly not the kind of wheels you'd want to use on steep roads with unpredictable weather (e.g. because the trip was planned months in advance and the bike), anybody into that kind of toy usually keeps a set of low section wheels for those occasions (or bike/bikes, if the looks just don't match). Disc brake doesn't change that by the way, because crosswinds can be brutal in the mountains.

Discs solve my issue because 40mm deep is enough to not suffer from terrible crosswinds, if the wheels are made well.

The worst problem is after a few minutes of constant breaking, which you have to do if you're descending a mountain carefully and care for your life, the rim brakes on carbon start to squeal and you lose a lot of braking power. You also used to risk delamination but that isn't that big of an issue on the newer wheels.

Yeah, my gravel bike was $1000 new three years ago, and comes with "Spyre 2.0" cable disc brakes. Hydraulic brakes feel 1000% better, but I'd still rather have disc than rim. And mine are double caliper.

One thing I love about my brakes is having a second set of brake levers inline on the top of the bar - I believe the Shimano GX (gravel) series has that now for hydraulic. If I ever have to buy another gravel bike, it will have this feature.

Indeed! In the same series: Myth: disc brakes work better than rim brakes[0]. The rim is the rotor of a bit disc brake rotor that cools better and doesn't add any weight. But the wider tires make disc brakes a necessary choice.

[0] https://www.renehersecycles.com/myth-12-disc-brakes-work-bet...

Heh, rene makes a business out of being different, and has some good ideas, but they do push it to far sometimes.

Sure I get it, a stoppie shows that the brakes are not a bottleneck, it's the traction. So sure, sometimes, on some bikes, with some riders, under some conditions you get perfect braking.

However in the real world there's various rim surfaces (aluminum, steel, carbon fiber), with a variation of water, grit, sand, snow, ice to complicate things. Cable have friction and slack. Rims sometimes are not perfectly round/true in both horizontal and vertical directions. Brake pads are rarely perfectly aligned (the alignment changes as the pads wear), rarely nice soft rubber (they glaze over with heat and/or age), and are rarely braking on perfectly clean rims.

So yes, I've done a stoppie with rim brakes, but the average performance of average hydraulic disc brakes greatly exceeds the average performance of rim brakes. Their other complaint about being grabby is highly brand specific, plenty offer great modulation. Not only to discs brake better, modulate better, and tolerate temp changes better better, but they also tend to apply more even pressure. Even small differences in trueness tend to create spots on the wheel that brake less or brake more.

I didn't realize how big the difference was, or the habits I had with rim brakes. Took me awhile to unlearn dragging my brakes when ever I hit a puddle, waiting for them to catch again.

Sure if you have a pro mechanic realign your pads before every ride you'll rarely run into an issue that rim brakes handle well. However if you spend more time riding than maintenance discs will serve you well.

There's a reason even the road racers, the most conservative of the bicyclist, are switching to discs.

Agreed on everything except the road racers. Maybe some want discs but the pros don't. Discs are more likely to rub for them because pro cyclists generate enough power to twist the wheel. If you are trying to gain seconds over a few hours then the sound of rubbing must be torture. Chris Froome spoke out about it recently. Team Ineos just won the Giro and they don't use rim brakes because their sponsor does not oblige them to. It looks like the reason pro racers have discs is because the bike industry makes them. This is so that they can sell new bikes to people who already have a perfectly good one. It makes no sense for pro riders to have disc brakes. Their high end rim brakes are looked after by mechanics, they are lighter, they don't rub, wheel changes are easier and pros don't do a lot of braking anyway.

This is something that I think a lot of people at overlooking even they reference pro racing: they ride the bikes their sponsors make them ride. And the sponsors have incentives that are not strictly limited to winning.

> and pros don't do a lot of braking anyway.

That's just not true, there's plenty of braking in the mountain stages. I sincerely doubt that going 90-100Km/h into a hairpin is easier with rim brakes.

Ineos had two accidents this season on descents, first with Moscon in the Giro and then with Thomas in Criterium du Dauphine and even if they might have been just flukes, I'm sure the team is asking themselves questions.

The industry can sell MTBs and gravel bikes where disc brakes have benefits. And now e-bikes, that's a huge market.

When I was a city rider to commute, pads alignment was a real PITA and the main reason that made me switch to disc brakes. I was always feeling braked and spending more effort than really needed because one pad was touching the rim. With disc brakes that feeling disappeared and never came back, although you still need to do some maintenance from time to time.

Heh, yes, less maintenance, but also less finicky.

Brake pads on rim brakes are a nightmare. They follow a 3-d arc as they approach the rim, which is itself a very complicated 3d surface. Ideally the front edge of the brake pad hits slightly before the rear edge, to avoid squeal... but not too much or it will engage too softly. Even minor wear changes the engagement point. Cables need maintenance, they wear, get kinked, require lubrication, and it's easy to get the tension wrong.

It's all a mess, and even when perfect, and it's dry, not too cool, not to hot, not dusty... they still get worse with every use.

On discs it's more like replace the pads when worn (no adjustments, just remove the pin, pull the old pads, push the cyclinders in, put in the new pads, and put the pin back in). Sure there's occasionally a need for replacing brake fluid and/or bleeding. But generally way less maintenance, and you get like 90% of perfect braking all the time instead of 10-90% depending on temp, wetness, ice, grit, state of tune, etc.

What about cable over fluid disc brakes for a commute bicycle?

I personally think that mountain bikes with slicks make for a great commuting bike. Fast, stable, low maintenance, and shrug off curbs, steps, and potholes. They also tend to be (on average) more upright for better visibility of the road. Also the brakes are available in the up right position, unlike some road bikes. Never know when a car is going to want the piece of road you are on, it's nice to be able to hop onto a curb.

Also MTB's generally accommodate the widest tires, except for fat tire bikes and generally wider tires can be very helpful when commuting for comfort and making things like a random rock or walnut much less exciting when you hit them.

Commuting with rim brakes inevitably destroys the rims, try commuting for 3-5 years then closely inspect your rims, little micro cracks are not uncommon, and will get worse right up until you have a rim failure.

It's also really nice if you do hit something hard enough to knock a wheel out of true, that you still have two working brakes.

Once you've used hydraulics, you never want to go back to cable. They are so much better on all counts that the tiny weight gain pales into insignificance.

While I don't dispute this, and I have both kinds of bikes, when I talk to "casual" cyclists who have tried disc brakes, they almost unanimously describe the difference as being like night and day. Perhaps the issue is that they are comparing new disc brakes on good bikes, to old crappy neglected rim brakes on cheap bikes. Still, the difference in popularity is unmistakable.

Myself, I'm not getting rid of my rim brake bikes any time soon, but it's interesting to observe how different people experience cycling.

I've had top of the line campy brakes, top of the line shimano (dura-ace), and quite a few of the other options.

Do yourself a favor and try out some decent hydraulic brakes. Now only are they pretty amazing, but amazingly consistent. Even in rain, heat, cold, etc. Also it's MUCH rarer to have to undo a brake, just because your wheel went out of true.

Try to track your use, going downhill and hit a puddle, do you drag your brakes? Why? Wait till they grip again? I had no idea I had such habits.

Yup, definitely. Agreed about wet riding. The weirdest one was coming out of my cold garage into a hot humid day, and the water condensing on my rims. That's why I say I wouldn't get rid of the rim brakes, but appreciate why they might be in decline.

I've tried hydraulics on friends bikes, definitely nicer, but again not enough to motivate me to switch.

That's how it is with all of these improvements. Someone will always have newer, slicker gear than me, but I keep riding. ;-)

Yeah, I guess component quality matters, the condiditions matter, rider style and goals matter. It seems like there are plenty of reasons to prefer disc brakes (especially hydraulic), but plenty of others to prefer rim brakes, depending on all of these factors.

For pure road bikes rim brakes are ok IMHO only under certain conditions.e.g. no carbon rims and not much dirt and try conditions. These are not the conditions you will find off-road. Also the difference in wet conditions is IMHo still night and day.

Heh, have you ridden on road? I find it at least as dirty as offroad. If anything more grit in the winter, any moisture and everything (bike, shoes, legs, socks, etc).

Roads are far from clean, and if anything the debris is more abrasive than you'll find off road. I'd rather have normal dirt than tire and disc dust you'll find on the road.

While in absolute terms rim brakes are probably just as good as disc brakes. The difference lies in the feeling and modulation of the forces.

Also, the disc is a consumable on both types. I have worn down rims to the point where I was scared to use the wheels.

The initial setup can be a bit annoying with hydro discs, but it's a tradeoff I'm happy with.

Ha! I only figured it out after buying Kona Rove NRB, which is not even an entry-level bike, but it turned out to have disk brakes and extremely fragile paintwork.

It served me well, but I am still somewhat cautious when descending since then.

I’m glad to see another Rove owner mention the paint. I swear wiping sweat off the top tube scrapes through the paint.

Mechanical disk brakes, I mean.

Rim brakes cannot fit around a wide tyre. Mechanical disc brakes with good pads (this is key, swap them out if necessary) are much more powerful than road rim brakes.

Cable-pull disc brakes are still a huge improvement over rim brakes in the ways that matter, especially in the wet.

Depends. Many make pretty ugly compromises. Poor pads, not much leverage, and even being single sided which often drags and requires the disc to bend for good braking.

So cable-pull disc vs rim brakes is less clear, more susceptible to case by case differences.

However hydraulic discs are always (AFAIK), double sided, and almost always better than even the highest end rim brakes.

Not to mention who wants to destroy their nice rims by dragging brakes on them, leading to relatively short lives as the rim walls get ever thinner, right up till they start cracking. I'd rather replace a disc than a rim after 5-10k miles.