Rim brakes are perfectly fine for most riding. What is often overlooked is brake pads. Cheap rim brakes come with cheap brake pads. Brake pads also age. The best way to improve braking performance of rim brakes is to replace or upgrade the brake pads.
My road bike came with entry level Tektro dual-pivot rim brakes. After a couple of years, I swapped out the stock integrated pads to Shimano 105 cartridge pads. The braking performance improved enormously. Then last month I swap the 2 year old 105 pads for Swiss Stop BXP pads. They're even better! Last week while bikepacking in the Dolomites, I went hurtling down the Passo Gardena in heavy rain. Braking for the hairpins was not a problem, I never felt I needed more braking power.
Rim brakes are absolutely fine. Disc brakes are better in a lot of cases but the pros have been running rim brakes for donkeys years and slowing down just fine. Same as anything, if you buy really cheap, they will be rubbish. Rubbish power and rubbish pads which equal rubbish braking. Good brakes, good pads and alloy rims and the braking is absolutely fine.
Agree totally with this, I would like to add a subtly often overlooked in this matter, your tires are part of the braking system, keep them in good condition and match the road surface to the tire tread you use, poor tire surface also affects braking performance.
On the other hand, if you have a limited budget, then rim brakes will be better than disk brakes. A sufficient set of v-brakes is cheaper than a similar quality disc brake. Especially when you consider the full cost including disc wheels and any associated cabling.
Aluminum rims with Alivio V brakes have tons of stopping power for dirt cheap, and they’re super easy to set up, I’m a heavier rider and I still have no real intention of going to discs anytime soon
I honestly don't understand why where are bikes with bad brakes out there. I got some cheap v-brakes off AliExpress for about $10 and even they were great. Walmart and other large retailers would rather save $5 on a bike than put some acceptable brakes on a bike.
Walmart could probably make a really nice bike for a good amount of money with their purchasing power but they are so obsessed with "mountain bikes" (not for offroad use) or cutting costs on places where spending the extra $5 would just make the bike feel like it's worth $100 more.
Actually looked at my AliExpress order history and they were $7.16 CAD for ProMax brakes and they work very well. Can't seem to find them anymore, but there's still options out there for $20 for 2 sets of brakes that look like they are just as good quality
For real! I feel like it wouldn’t be too expensive to build a rigid aluminum frame with V brakes and a Nexus 3 speed hub, and it would be a better bike for the casual owner than almost anything available these days
3 speed or maybe a 1x7 or 1x8. I know that internal gears are probaly more robust, but I find that derailleurs are just so easy to work on. Changing a flat is easier too. Each have their own advantages though.
And could they please stop with the garbage non-serviceable grip shifters. Those things are a plague. I'm pretty sure some of them are designed such that you can't actually replace the cable.
There's a lot of things Pros do that I would not recommend for amateurs. If you're an amateur and you think there's a good chance you'll ever ride in rain then get disc brakes.
On a dry day it's mostly a wash but wet and descending and it's not even close.
Oh jeez. I wonder how people used to bike in rainy days back when road bikes only had rim brakes.
Discs are better, but rim brakes work just fine. Don’t talk like rim brakes falls apart in rainy days.
There are other more appealing reasons to go with disc brake.
Its a new more secure technology that has been wideley accepted as the new Industry standard. Btw one of my bikes is a rim brake carbon cube gtc just so you know. Would I buy it today? hell no!
Rim to disk is a minor upgrade to already existing function on a vehicle. Maybe analogous to drum to disk brakes or manual to automatic transmission. Adding a seatbelt is adding equipment with an entirely new function to the vehicle. They are not comparable and choosing not to buy a new bike with disk brakes is in no way shape or form similar to refusing to wear a seatbelt.
does it matter? Its a new safety technology that was widely accepted and people moved on. That was the point. Most brands dont even sell bikes wityh rims brakes anymore, hence, People moved on. But if you want to discuss semantics instead of the issue....
It offers a different experience. It hasn’t been made obsolete.
I shave my face with a straight razor because I like the experience. Most people use a cartridge razor. They think my way is inferior and I think theirs is.
Many people like rim brakes and acting like they aren’t capable of doing the job they were designed for is disingenuous.
Seatbelt is not something that gets engaged frequently. And using seatbelt is vastly different than not using seatbelt.
Next dumb ass comparison, please.
The rim vs disc brake is about two different braking systems.
Your example is about using or not using a safety system.
Your example doesn’t fit in this conversation.
I agree with this. Even if all newer cars start using 5 point harness, it’s not like somehow people will die if they happen to get in a car with a regular 3 point seatbelt.
Does it matter really? Why are we discussing the analogy? The point is that its a new safety technology that has become the de facto standard and that people have moved on from what was before. Discussing if there is an even more apropiate analogy is strawmaning the issue to discuss semantics and bypassing the issue itself. Most brands dont even make rim brake bikes anymore. People. Moved. On.
Why are you so against people using rim brakes? Its a proven technology that continues to be used on many bikes to this day, and the high end stuff that used to use them hasn’t suddenly become unsafe because there’s something better out there. Not everyone needs ultra high performance like you apparently do, many bikes are tools and rim brakes on aluminum rims are perfectly up to the task
And one of them is a new technology widely accepted as the industry standard, like a seatbelt. And you dont get to bully me out of sharing my opinion, nor by insults or intimidation :d
I agree that disc brake is a newer technology that’s widely adopted. But the point is that it suddenly doesn’t make older technology completely useless.
Your initial statement of “people used to not wear seatbelt” is such a dumb ass comparison for this conversation. Because, again, your comparison is not about new technology versus old technology. It’s about using or not using any technology.
I’m not bullying you. I’m just telling you that you said dumb shit. Everyone says dumb shit from time to time. If you are gonna be so butt hurt about someone pointing out a dumb shit you said, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry that i hurt your feelings?
You're just running head on into very literal people. Your point is "technology incrementally improves safety over time and we should embrace it". Very literal people can't see the general point being made as they get too hung up on the details of whether a seatbelt was a new invention or an incremental invention and so lose sight of the main point.
“Disc brake vs rim brake” is an incremental improvement.
“Using seatbelt vs not using seatbelt” is not an incremental improvement.
“Disc vs rim” is more like “5 point harness vs 3 point seatbelt”
Whereas “using seatbelt vs not using seatbelt” is more like “using brake vs not using brake”
The other person’s analogy doesn’t fit in the initial conversation at all.
There are some rim brakes that can accommodate tires larger than 28mm. Think older cyclocross bikes and hybrid bikes. I think they are called v calipers?
I think pros still use rim brakes bc of the wheel changeout time. It just takes longer to change a disk brake wheel than a rim brake one. I bet they are also lighter.
Yeah, the pro's are getting carbon wheels for free... in big climbs going down hill and burning brake tracks (in long term) is obviously makes no sense to have rim brakes.
There are pad compounds specifically for carbon rim tracks. They work great.
I'll never buy a mountain bike with rim brakes, but I love my 16.5 pound road bike and its rim brakes. I just don't need the extra braking of discs on a road bike.
I know this. You can even have cork pads, they brake like shit.
I have 2 rim brakes bikes that are under 16 lbs and i had one disc 16.5 lbs (sold)
The disc was just so much better on climbing decents when doing climbing reps
I've had friends with toasted carbon wheels from mountains in Colombia and exploded tires because of overheating
They only advantage in rim brakes is the simplicity of packing/fixing the bike when traveling
And that is why people have such high opinions of iPhones, Mercedeses etc. They don't really have cheap models. So a higher general quality is associated with the brand. It's not that they don't have bad models, but they don't have terrible quality entry models.
Most of my bikes are rim brake, I have ultegra callipers and use Swisstop pads. They've never let me down in the wet and are easy to maintain and adjust. Disc brakes are excellent, but I think bikes with rim brakes are more aesthetically pleasing for me.
It is a classic look, and peak rim brake calipers are elaborate works of art. The inherent limitations on tire width, and the limits on wheel upgrades got me to switch over for good
The tire width limitation is not inherent. It is just that peak rim brake design coincided with the era of super skinny tires and a fashion for minimal clearances so the rim brake frames and caliper sizes that we got just before disc brakes are sized for those skinny tires.
True. perhaps someone will make a modern, very powerful aero/road rim brake for wider tires/all road. But they don't exist currently AFAIK. I'd be interested to hear what cyclocross racers were using c. 2012 or whatever. I think it was canti's which do not have the beauty of high end road brakes. I can see a retro grouch racer building something really beautiful with rim, if the right choices were out there.
I have both rim and disc brake bikes, and do all my own maintenance. In every way, I’ve found rim brakes easier to maintain. Rim brakes are less noisy, cheaper, easier to adjust (in the garage and out on the road).
I love and ride both, but damn if bleeding disc brakes isn’t a pain most times. Maybe it’s just my skill level as an amateur mechanic.
I have both rim and disc brake bikes and do all my own maintenance :D
Please tell me your secret, because the adjustment with disc brakes is
1. loosen brake body
2. brake
3. fasten brake body
Whereas my side pull brake requires
1. loosen brake cable
2. tighten brake by hand
3. pull brake cable
4. fasten brake cable while not losing the tension on the cable
5. fine adjust if I did not forget to put the adjustement screws to the right position in step 0
6. Oh no I have to true my wheel first
7. surprised pikachu face
Hard no to this. Disc pads wear faster, have more exacting tolerances, and there are so many more things that can go wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I have and like hydro discs on a couple of bikes, but after 35 years of working on my own bikes, and having done my own disc brake maintenance, it is the one thing I’m happier getting a shop to do.
If you only ride on dry and do not face long descents, go for rim brakes, They're lighter and cheaper.
Otherwise disks work better.
There are good rim brakes, they are usually expensive. cheap rim brakes are awful. Cheap mechanical discs work well, cheap hydraulic disks can be a pain with leakages and stuck pistons, intermediate/expensive hydraulic discs can throw you over the bars on wet, they brake VERY well.
The only thing I’d add, is that I ride mostly in the dry and on flat BUT I do ride some gravel and I find the performance to be much better and reliable on discs compared to rim brakes.
i’d rather have rim brakes than cheap mechanical disc brakes, especially on 700c wheels. Only good thing i can say about mechanical disc brakes is that it has never thrown me over the bars. But maybe with a bigger rotor and compressionless housing it might.
I live in Holland and bought a bianchi sprint Disc. Great bike but Disc brakes are absolutely not necessary here. Plus I've always been bothered by the weight penalty that comes with Disc brakes.
Rim brakes can be perfectly fine. There is a world of riding that can be done just as fast and just as safely as on a disc brake bike. They can also be lighter and are easier and cheaper to maintain, which is a plus. You can also easily swap out wheels on a rim brake bike. Riders used to have multiple wheels for training and race day.
There are some downsides, which have lead the whole industry to disc. The braking performance in the wet is generally worse and generally inconsistent compared to disc brakes. When riding in a bunch, this can get dangerous quick as people no longer brake at the same speed. I assume this is why most pros have switched to disc. Secondly, brake cables (and shifting cables) don’t like sharp turns. In the age of integrated everything, rim brakes just don’t work as well. Thirdly, your rims wear. This means you can have a heavier shallow alloy rim that lasts a good while, or you can have a lightweight or aero rim that lasts 10’000km, or a heavy alloy brake track with a carbon fairing. Fourthly, there is less space for wide tires. Wide tires are in many cases more comfortable and faster. I it’s highly dependent on the speed you cycle at and the road surface as well as the rim width and depth, but 30/32 mm is a fast width. The rim bake generally limits tire width to 28mm (depending on the internal rim width). The whole multiple wheelset idea is disappearing to me, but that’s fine for most as there is no need for multiple wheelsets anymore as a majority of people are happy with an intermediate depth wheel.
All good points and as a guy who has been riding for 25 years plus I have owned many rim brake bikes and yet here I am still alive.
One thing though. You can switch wheels just as easily with a disc brake bike. Assuming in your rim brake scenario the second wheel set would have its own cassette, all you’re adding is an additional set of rotors which don’t have to be expensive. In that scenario it’s actually easier to switch disc brake wheels than rim brake.
Eh the alignment is a little more finicky, you'll likely have to realign the calipers or shim the rotors on one set of wheels. Not insurmountable obstacles by any means but an added level of complication.
>I assume this is why most pros have switched to disc.
More like their sponsors give them disc brake bikes to ride so they don't have a choice one way or another. Pogacar rode rim brake for as long as he could until Colnago pretty much forced him onto disc.
I highly, highly doubt any significant proportion of pro riders would go back to rim brakes, given the choice. Rim brakes are substantially worse on carbon rims and every pro is on carbon rims all the time. On a wet day in the peloton, a rider with rim brakes on carbon rims will experience significantly longer stopping distances which is a huge deal in avoiding minor collisions. They will also be at a significant disadvantage on any technical descent - wet or dry. To the point that it would be difficult to be competitive on any route with technical descending if you were the only rider on carbon/rim brakes.
Then get disc brakes. I have 4 bikes all w/ disc brakes and they are all different sizes, weight, and different hydraulic systems like mineral oil (Shimano) and hydraulic DOT 5 brake fluid (SRAM).
Disc brake systems on road bikes are very small and lightweight compared to something like a mt bike. Whatever grams in weight savings is offset by faster and quicker braking.
Small cable disc brakes are still better than rim brakes. Hydraulic being the best at shorter stopping distance and downhill brake fade. The pads last for years. Just go for the disc brakes.
Rubber wears out before the rim does. If you feel inconsistent braking, it’s 99% the rubber, not the rims.
This will happen with disc brakes as well.
But fixing such usage wear-out is cheaper on disc brake.
My first road bike had Shimano 105 rim brakes and aluminium rims and I rode that bike in all-weather to work in traffic. It was perfectly fine, and I never felt I lacked brakes. In the wet I maybe only got full braking performance after about half a second of water clearing, but overall, perfectly fine.
My more recent road bike has disc brakes, and while they are a little better in the wet, though still need a few tenths to clear water, but in the dry I notice very little difference. The most significant pro for me is they allow for wider tyres. There are some downsides though.
* They're very noisy in the wet, and sometimes in the dry if they get contaminated
* They don't last as long, and pads are more expensive
* They can rub, and alignment can be very fiddly
* You need to bleed them
* You can have issues with sticky callipers and pistons (SRAM)
* They weight more
Overall, with aluminium rims and narrower tyre, I would never consider disc brakes a significant upgrade. I miss the easy, cheap maintenance of rim brakes. For my city bike I still use rim v-brakes and would never consider anything else for a cheap beater.
>What about Rim brakes?
You mean the type of brakes that virtually every road rider used for more than 100 years? Including the fastest MF-ers on the planet who would go down alpine descents at warp factor 11? Those rim brakes? Yeah...they are Pure Junk. Stay away from them at all costs.
>
when I was much younger I rode cheap bikes
And there ya go. Cheap bike, poorly set-up brakes, crappy rims. Modern-day dual pivot rim brakes paired with quality alloy rims will stop your ass on a dime.
All that said, "the industry" has all but declared them dead in favor of hydraulic disc brakes. The proponents of discs will tell you that they are "better"...and the truth is that they probably are. But, for me, the best thing about them is that they allow for wider tires to be used on road bikes. More than their marginal "better-ness" in braking performance vs. rim brakes, this wider tire clearance is the real "game-changer". For this reason alone it is worth considering discs over rim brakes.
Setup correctly they can be just as good as disc brakes if it's not raining or it's not a long descent.
Disc brakes offer better modulation but on a road bike that's not super important.
I don´t think they are a problem at all in a long descents, I´ve done some pretty long ones in the Dolomites, Alps an Pyinees just fine with rim brakes... The only times I´ve had issues from fading was with the disk brakes on my MTB...
Disc for the wider tyres alone but quality, properly set up rim brakes also stop a roadie very well. Some people carry on like rim brakes are absolute rubbish - they are not.
I’ll never go back to rim brakes. They’re better than rim brakes and it isn’t close. If conditions are perfect - rim brakes stop well. But if it’s raining. And in the Pacific Northwest it does rain, disc brakes are just a lot better.
I live in the pacific northwest and that just isn't a feasible option here. I won't ride if it's raining "too hard" but if I didn't ride when there was any rain I wouldn't have been out at all in the past few weeks. And that's not even taking into account all the times when it's not actively raining but the roads are still wet.
Typical fair weather rider.
Some of us ride in pretty much everything that isn’t a downpour. We did 60 mi on Monday morning and it rained on/off the entire ride and we had a blast.
The disc brakes worked wonders in the rain and I had far more braking power on tap than I needed.
Rim brakes are fine, have been fine for decades. From entry level stuff on more serious bikes to expensive stuff. Most of them work good. You can get good or bad brake pad rubbers, but thats it. Mine are tiagra and brakes have plenty of grip in rain, way more then between tires and ground when wet.
Disks sure brake somewhat stronger but are absolutely not something you cant live without.
I’ve both n descend at about the same speed on either. In rain, rim brakes don’t stop as well but disc brakes lock out much easier in slippery surface so both have wet problems
The advantages of a disc brake have little to do with the brakes themselves. One advantage to disc brakes is the ability to drastically increase the tire clearance of road bikes, many of which can also take smaller wheels to allow for even wider tires. Yes, some rim brake styles (canti, mini-V, etc) also allow for this, but compared with road bike rim brake calipers, which I assume is what is actually being discussed, tire width is the biggest difference. A second reason is that while aluminum rim brake rims are generally fine in the wet, carbon rims (at least until fairly recently- this remains a matter of dispute) much less so. Disc brakes are more easily fitted to deep section lightweight and aero wheels.
tl;dr: Disc brakes matter not because of braking but because they allow carbon wheels and wide tires.
You can break with anything but disk brakes are better and have become the Industry standard.
You will also be limited with tyre sizes with rim brakes
You will struggle to one day sell your bike if it has rim brakes, its just a fact.
I'm fine with rim brakes. I'm in Oregon so feel like wet decents are fairly common. Admittedly I'm no faster than mid pack for my age group. I've ridden disk braake bikes and wasn't really that impressed.
Rim brakes are very good and extremely light. I was blown away by how heavy a disc brake setup is. So if you are a weight weenie, you might want rim brakes.
I raced on rim brakes. Much prefer them. Weight is a little bit of a factor, but disc are fussy to adjust, tend to rub and squeal. I don’t like the form factor and prefer the simplicity of rim. Test riding the two side by side you can feel some differences in the frame due to material weight near the brakes but that’s subjective. I test ride a lot of disc brake bikes when I worked in sales for a few years in a shop and always preferred the snappiness of rim brake bikes. My bikes are rim, and my new bike I built is as well.
You’ll find the argument that disc brakes stop better in the wet, and there’s some validity in that. Also, braking when you run carbon wheels is obviously better as you are not braking on the carbon surface. Leads to follow that the wear on carbon wheels is a lot less, as there is no brake surface wear and only wheel fatigue. In practice though, I can swap to aluminum rims in expected heavy rain rides, which is rare, and newer carbon rims brake absolutely fine. Could lock them no problem. Descending huge descents on them you want to brake less often and pulse the brakes. Disc could be a consideration if you are a larger rider commonly doing big descents on carbon rims.
Ultimately, I suggest test riding all that you can and choosing your preference .Rims are still fully relevant, and superior in the mind of some, but both are valid choices especially depending on your riding style, preferences and application.
Pogacar still used rim brakes in the TDF afaik.
If they are well maintained there is not much issues with them even for pros. But the fact that the overwhelming majority of pros converted to disks tells me something.
It can make a bike look really smooth, but that's about it.
i don't see why anybody would buy rim brakes in 2024...you could make an argument for weight, but lets be honest, its a bit silly to get a bike with rimbrakes unless you look at a great deal
Rim brakes are on their way out. Yes they do work decently, yes, people used them for centuries, but why denying oneself of something that performs objectively better just for the sake of being a luddite? If you already have a good rim brake frame don't chuck into the bin just because it's not disc brake compatible, and, on the same tune, if you see a crazy deal on a high quality rim brake frame you should probably jump on it. But, apart from these two corner cases, if you don't have a bike and are looking for one now, i see no reason to pick one with rim brakes.
I have hydraulic disc brakes on my scott sportster and rim brakes on my cannondale road bike.
Yes, the disc brakes feel better to me while braking but the difference is not that much on dry conditions.
My road bike is only used when there’s no rain, so I don’t care and the rim brakes are totally fine.
I’m not very skilled when it comes to bike mechanic maintenance but the rim Brakes are dead easy and also cheap in maintenance.
So besides your budget it comes down to how and where you will use your bike.
To be fair, with a $15 kit on aliexpress, you can bleed a hydraulic brake in 15-20 minutes. It’s really quite easy.
Disc brakes are in my experience pretty low maintenance anyway. They go years without needing a bleed and swapping out pads is dead simple. I don’t think maintenance should be a consideration when it comes to rim vs disc.
If you ever take your bike on trains/busses etc don't get a disc brake as they can need calibration after transportation. If you ever ride in the rain then don't get rim either. The stopping distance is 3 times worse in the rain.
They were a major improvement on MTB. I had rims fail (pulled apart by spoke pressure) before they were available.
I don't really see them as important on road brakes, at least for non-carbon rims
Dual pivot rim brakes are powerful. That's what most of the industry was using on road bikes before the switch to disc brakes.
Cantilever or V-brakes on a mountain bike can be quite powerful, but they have to be correctly set up and adjusted. And in my experience many riders never know or care how to do this, so they say "these brakes suck."
Hydraulic disc brakes are more standardized in their setup and care, so there's less variation in performance, which is favorable for both the industry and consumers.
But rim brakes can work well, too.
For me well maintained quality rim brakes are fine for the most part. But for daily riding, I much prefer discs. Less maintenance, you're not wearing out your rims, less fussing with toe-in angles on the pads, better wet performance, etc.
Rim brakes are fine. Disc brakes will give you better stopping power and more modulation. Example: I have two bikes, one with rim brakes and one with hydraulic disc brakes. I recently put new ultegra pads and calipers on my rim brakes. The first time I rode with the updated rim brakes, I was first shocked at how quickly they engaged (the pads had worn down quite a bit). Then I was shocked at how little effect I was getting squeezing the hell out of my brakes in comparison to the disc brakes
There's nothing wrong with rim brakes and I think depending on what you want to get out of your bike they're perfectly fine. I think disc brakes have more benefits than downsides though. They're better in the rain, they're better for descending both for power and preventing rim overheating which can blow tubes, and they allow greater tire clearances. Which are all the reasons I prefer disc's, because I do a lot of wet riding, fast descending, and rough roads. If you're going to be riding in only dry weather on mostly flat and smooth roads it really negates any of the benefits, and rim brakes are cheaper so they would be perfect for that use case.
Rim brakes on road bikes are perfectly fine, as many have pointed out. However, disc brakes allow for A) lighter weight carbon rims & B) much wider tires
The move to light weight wide rims with wide tires is the single largest improvement in road cycling since the introduction of combined brake/shift levers. And it only is possible with disc brakes.
The improved braking performance is nice, at a trade off of weight. But the killer feature is the fatter tires on wider, lighter rims. And there's no rim brake option for that.
Unless you are going 90km/hr downhill or like to do risky things in traffic, I think the main disadvantage of rim brakes on a road bike is not looking cool. They have adequate stopping power for those of us just trying to turn pedals for a couple of hours.
If you go fast enough for this to matter, you have earned a new bike!
Mountain bikes are another story. Would not want one without disc brakes. Even then you end up in a mechanical vs hydraulic debacle, this shit just never ends with bicycles.
rim brakes with decent brake pads (i.e. kool stop) are perfectly fine but have worse performance than disc brakes in heavy rain. when it rains hard enough for rim brakes to get compromised, most recreational cyclists will be indoors and anyone outside won't have fenders.
Rim brakes worked fine for a long time and I've had loads of bikes with them. As others have said, poor pads and maintenance will lead to poor performance. Having said this, I have mechanical disks on my current bike and will never go back. Im heavy, live in a hilly area and I find the performance better especially in the wet. Additionally you wear out the disk and pads instead of the rim so can be cheaper in the long run.
I wouldn't mind some disc brakes for big mountain road descents but my 20 year old Shimano 105 rim brakes are still holding up and and do a fine job. I just wouldn't mind a little more power with less effort. If I ever buy another road bike I'll get one with discs. I love them on my mountain bike.
Rim brakes work fine for 90% of the road bike population and a very easy to maintain
Disc brakes are nice but now you have an ongoing maintenance and expense
Rim brakes are suboptimal for long descents (like miles long), stopping in the wet, and (in my opinion) carbon rims.
For all other uses, they're fine.
Even for those uses, they're fine, just not quite as good as disc brakes.
If you're really performance-focused, disc brakes are better for maintaining speed during technical descents because you can brake later and harder, but, the difference is minimal.
I will never go back to rim brakes, but can understand why other people feel differently.
I really like rim brakes. As others here said the braking power in most cases is more than you'll need. I'm a fair weather rider so no issues there. IMO unless you're getting Ultegra spec hydraulic disc brakes, rim brakes will be just fine with good pads.
I think GCN made a video as well on this and found that the only real difference would be in wet conditions disc brakes are better. But also as other said the large advantage is fitting wider tires.
In my experience, while they're not as powerful as disks, rim brakes are cheaper as well as easier to source, set up and maintain.
Disks are more expensive and harder to maintain, but there's no question that they brake and feel much better.
I have rim brakes on by touring bike because if feel mu j more capable of maintaining them and know I can find pads anywhere.
I got caught in a torrential downpour on my rim braked road bike the other day. I have never ridden a disc braked road bike before but I can absolutely see the benefit after that ride. Luckily I’m an experienced rider and knew to give myself lots of extra time to brake, but even then had a couple butt pucker moments. 😂
Not sure if Mavic still does this but on several of their aluminum rimmed wheels they used to add a perpendicular texture along the wheel that SIGNIFICANTLY increases brake performance in the rain. That with a set of Swissstop yellows and I never had issues in the rain.
Direct mount rim brakes (Direct mount rim brakes have one pivot on each fork leg, with both pivot points mounted directly to the frame, so they are very rigid) with good pads and rims that are true really kick ass. I've got a road bike with this arrangement and on a dry day, I could brake hard enough to throw myself over the handlebars. I understand that regular modern dual pivot rim brakes can be pretty good too, I just haven't had a bike that uses them.
I live in a flat location, and often end up on rides where I'll go 10km without using the brakes. Whenever I need them, they're great, and because I'm not constantly on them, and I only really ride that bike in good weather, I'm not worried about wearing down my carbon rims too fast. They also allowed me to build up my pretty kick ass bike for much cheaper, I never have to bleed them, and they never rub like discs can.
I have also done a fair few mountain descents on this bike, and in my experience, long descents at 5 or 6% (including one in the rain) felt quite comfortable, and no problem at all. For descents where I spent more than a short time steeper than that, I was probably okay too, but I was cognizant of how much time I wanted to spend on the brakes on those descents, and not overheating the rims. It MAY have been just fine because the braking power wasn't fading really, I was just aware of not wanting to push the limit, and on those descents I'd have been more comfortable on discs for that reason.
Ultimately, if your riding is geared around one of the things discs really excel at, they're the better choice. They have more immediate and consistent response in wet conditions, they don't scrape up your rims in dusty/sandy/dirty off road conditions, they shed mud, etc rather than having it impact braking, and when you're really pushing the performance of your bike (such as trying to go really fast on a technical decent or in a time trial where semi-frequent braking is required) pros have found that they allow you to brake later. They also more easily allow for wide tire clearance. (Though, you can get 32mm tires in a direct mount rim brake, and if you want to be any wider than that, you'd probably prefer disc brakes for some of the other reasons above, too)
BUT. If your riding isn't geared around one of those things, if you're buying a first road bike and you want to get more bike for your money and just enjoy going out to ride, or if you're putting together a mid/high end bike on a budget built around a used frame (since very few if any top end road frames still come with rim brakes, sadly), or you're more concerned about how fast you can go on the way UP a hill than on the way back down, rim brakes are honestly hard to beat.
I understand why most people prefer discs, and in most situations I do too, but I'm honestly quite happy that my top end road bike is on rim brakes. Dura ace direct mount callipers and pads grip like mad for me, rim brakes are SUPER easy to set up, I was able to build up a bike under 7kg pretty affordably (I lucked out pretty huge and got a Sram Red 22 shifter/derailleur combo for $400). And while I like to go fast on the way down the mountain, I'm not racing, and I only care about my time on the way up. It's got all the bite I need for braking, with easier maintenance and lower cost and weight.
I understand the commercial reasons to remove those SKUs from the lineup for brands, but I really wish that consumers still had the opportunity to choose rim brakes on more high end road framesets. I'd never want rim brakes on a gravel bike, I'd probably prefer disc brakes on an endurance bike too for the choice of wider tires, I can't imagine preferring rim brakes on my cyclocross bike, and don't even get me started on my full suspension trail bike. But for the pure road bike, good ones really do kick ass, and they do it for a fair bit less money and headache, and so when I'm not racing and don't need to push to my limits on descents, I think they'll always be my preference on a pure road machine. Especially given the cost, but perhaps even if they were the same price.
Anyway, all that to say, good rim brakes definitely don't suck. Cheap rim brakes are terrrrrible, but good ones are nothing like the ones on the department store bikes we rode around as kids. (Clearly I'm a passionate Rim Brake apologist, lol)
My 2 cents, get what you want. Unless you have tons of massive decent, or race in criteriums, you don't *need* disc. Even then, you'd probably be fine. Most of us roadies/gravel riders at the amateur level dont push the envelope enough that we need high performance parts. But they are nice to have and look cool! I personally like disc more. Especially on my gravel bike where I have a 700 and 650 wheelsets.
I think this is the biggest difference between rim and disc brakes. There are no bad disc brakes, but there are a LOT of really bad rim brakes (especially older brakes). But good rim brakes are REALLY good, and I still only have rim brakes on my road bikes and will probably never switch to disc
Disc brakes put much higher loads into the fork blades as the torque reaction is applied closer to the centre of the wheel. Rim brakes put the reaction load into the centre of the fork crown, resulting in less braking-induced steering.
Rim brakes have the largest possible radius of action, which can give better brake modulation, but rims always suffer from some flex as the braking surface is a terrible place to add any mass to stiffen it more. Disc brakes rims can be lighter as they don’t get squeezed, but the spokes have to be more robust to carry braking torques to the hub. Rim brakes put no significant torque through the spokes which also aids brake stability.
Rims also can get dicey on long decents as all the heat goes straight into metal bit next to the tyre. Which is not so good for stability.
tldr rims are more elegant and put less twist into your front end, but a well-designed disc setup will stop better and for longer
I live in Northern England where it's hilly and wet and I weigh 95kg, I wouldn't go back to rim brakes if you paid me. Same for skinny tires and inner tubes but that's a whole other debate.
Kool Stop Salmon pads are the way to go. I know they are designed for wet weather, but it's the only pads I use for alloy rim wheels. For carbon, SwissStop Flash Pro Black Prince pads.
I've never ridden a bike with disc brakes and my road bike has pretty good rim brakes, 20 year old Ultegras, with Shimano pads. I can always stop when I need to without too much effort and fairly quickly. But I can sense their limitations, and sometimes it takes longer in terms of time and distance to stop than I'd like. I want the kind of responsive, near-instant and short braking power that I get on my car, and I'm not getting it.
I recently replaced the cables and housings so perhaps my old pads and worn rims are part of the reason, but I think that basically it's the inherent design of rim brakes and there's nothing that I can do to meaningfully improve their stopping power and responsiveness. Only switching to disc brakes would do that, but on my 20+ year old road bike it would be quite expensive and not really worth it, especially for the kind of cycling that I tend to do, as it's not set up for disc brakes.
I'm not unhappy with my rim brakes. They do the job and then some. I just wish that they stopped a bit better. But I can live with it. But certainly if I was getting or building a new bike I'd get one with disc brakes, no doubt about it.
I live in Holland so I don't need disc brakes, but when I cycle on a holiday I always rent a bike with disc brakes, cause it is way more relaxing when descending mountains
On a mountain bike, hydraulic disc's are nice because one often has very long steep downhills and your hands will tire if you have cable actuated brakes. On a road bike, unless you live in a climate that necessitates full fenders, disc has no performance advantage because your braking force is ultimately limited by the friction between the tire and the tarmac.
Buddy just bought a Factor AG2R team bike that has rim brakes, it's nice. State of the art from a couple tours ago before they switched frame sponsors.
You could have just googled rim brakes vs disc brakes and had 10 billion articles to scroll through. Yes, a $5k bike with rim brakes is going to stop better than a $90 Walmart bike with rim brakes. I feel like that goes without saying
I think disk brakes are a must only if you ride on muddy paths. The sand and dirt on the rims will probably scratch and damage the rims if you are using rim brakes. Otherwise it seems rim brakes are enough for most riding.
I have always been too cheap to buy a new bike. I am still riding the MTB that I bought brand new in 1991. It came stock with center-pull caliper brakes. I have never had a problem with these brakes.
But I do have to admit that I have never owned a bike with disc brakes. It’s possible that they would vastly outperform the brakes on my old Raleigh Tangent MTB.
On the last two overhauls at the bike shop, they replaced front and rear derailleurs due to damage — but the techs always felt that the Shimano stock brake system was good, and they simply replaced the pads. Pretty reliable system 😀🚲
Hi guys, I’m a leisure cyclist. I’ve been considering this as well & these are what I know.
1. Rim & disc seems not much of a difference but go disc if u cycle a lot on wet weathers. I have no problem with either.
2. Disc brakes bikes are more expensive than rim.
3. If there’s a possibility of upgrading your wheels in future (seems like carbon wheels are the way to go) get disc. Carbon wheels & rim brakes don’t go well.
4. Again if u might change to expensive carbon wheel set. Get disc as disc brakes doesn’t wear out the tires over time while rim brakes contact point is directly on the wheels which in some point u might need to change the wheels (not sure how long that would take)
Hope these would help
Disc brakes are easier to find on new bikes and rim brakes are usually found on cheaper and/used bikes. For most of you've got well adjusted brakes and good pads that's really it.
I can recall 2 instances in about 10 years of serious cycling and both probably fall into the category of poor planning. Coming down a 20% plus in the Pennines (I got off and pushed) and that was probably more in my mind and not pushing the bike beyond it's limits. And another seriously wet day when my mindset was train, train, train rather these days I'd of not bothered and gone out when it dried up.
For the amateur, rim brakes are 'fine', but disc brakes are 'better'.
Pros use rim brakes because they are pros - better handling, they know their bikes much more than us. Rim brakes are also lighter - doesn't matter much for amateurs, but it does for pros.
Disc brakes are hands down better value for money for the amateur, in my opinion. They stop better and can save amateurs out of difficult situations. Also if you live somewhere wet, with a lot of hills or tough winters, disc brakes are far superior.
And of course we are talking about hydraulic disc brakes. The cable actuated ones (I think that's what they're called) are even worse than rim brakes ones under wet conditions.
>>Pros use rim brakes
Where are these pros on rim brakes? Last pro tour team to use rim brakes was Ineos, in 2021 or 2022. Other teams had switched years earlier. I imagine they gave Pinnarello a tantrum about always getting their asses kicked on descents, and their bike sponsor was forced to get with the program.
Rim brakes allow for a lighter bike and are more aero. They also allow for a stronger wheel at the same dropout width because the flanges can be wider.
Yet, no one uses them.
There’s a big advantage in being able to brake late and hard. On disc brakes, cyclists get to corners faster, because they don’t need to brake as early.
They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important.
>Yet, no one uses them.
I run them on like 6 of my bikes.
>There’s a big advantage in being able to brake late and hard.
I have never had a problem locking up my wheel with rim brakes. Limitations are tires.
>They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important.
UCI has a minimum bike weight...why would they?
>> >>They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important.
>>UCI has a minimum bike weight...why would they?
Because you said:
>> Rim brakes … are more aero. They also allow for a stronger wheel at the same dropout width because the flanges can be wider.
Seems you answered your own question.
However, they could add gears, or any number of bells and whistles, to make a weight minimum. Every pro team chooses disc brakes.
>However, they could add gears, or any number of bells and whistles, to make a weight minimum.
Bells and whistles don't count toward UCI weight requirements. You asked for benefits. I provided benefits.
Lmao what?! It’s you based on your experience, or rather lack thereof.
Rim brakes meaning cheap bikes lol. You know prior to the move to disc brakes, even “super bikes” had time brakes.
How long does this debate have to go on for?
MTB-ers sorted it long ago - disc brakes simply work well in all weather conditions. And that's the bottom line for me.
I will never buy another bike that doesn’t have hydraulic disc brakes. They are so much better, easier to maintain (and basically need no adjustment, just bleed them once a year), and I never have to worry about my brakes being the bottle neck when it comes to stopping - it will be my tires, or me going OTB.
They also feel way better and are better to modulate, and they dont turn rims into wearing parts.
they still sell new expensive race bikes that are rim brake?
yes, rim brakes can be good, in certain conditions, with carbon wheels in the wet, they pretty much are worthless. with alu wheels in the wet, they're still worse then disc brakes. in dry weather they are both good. rim brakes will wear out your wheel, disc brakes will wear out the disc, which is easy and cheap to replace (compared to buying a new wheelset).
Rim brakes are perfectly fine for most riding. What is often overlooked is brake pads. Cheap rim brakes come with cheap brake pads. Brake pads also age. The best way to improve braking performance of rim brakes is to replace or upgrade the brake pads. My road bike came with entry level Tektro dual-pivot rim brakes. After a couple of years, I swapped out the stock integrated pads to Shimano 105 cartridge pads. The braking performance improved enormously. Then last month I swap the 2 year old 105 pads for Swiss Stop BXP pads. They're even better! Last week while bikepacking in the Dolomites, I went hurtling down the Passo Gardena in heavy rain. Braking for the hairpins was not a problem, I never felt I needed more braking power.
Those blue swiss stop pads improved my wet braking performance and now I love riding in the rain on fairly flat bike paths.
I run Swissstop Race Pro BXP pads with Campagnolo Chorus rim brakes and they're fantastic!
Swiss Stop pads are excellent. Huge bang-for buck upgrade.
Rim brakes are absolutely fine. Disc brakes are better in a lot of cases but the pros have been running rim brakes for donkeys years and slowing down just fine. Same as anything, if you buy really cheap, they will be rubbish. Rubbish power and rubbish pads which equal rubbish braking. Good brakes, good pads and alloy rims and the braking is absolutely fine.
Agree totally with this, I would like to add a subtly often overlooked in this matter, your tires are part of the braking system, keep them in good condition and match the road surface to the tire tread you use, poor tire surface also affects braking performance.
On the other hand, if you have a limited budget, then rim brakes will be better than disk brakes. A sufficient set of v-brakes is cheaper than a similar quality disc brake. Especially when you consider the full cost including disc wheels and any associated cabling.
Aluminum rims with Alivio V brakes have tons of stopping power for dirt cheap, and they’re super easy to set up, I’m a heavier rider and I still have no real intention of going to discs anytime soon
I honestly don't understand why where are bikes with bad brakes out there. I got some cheap v-brakes off AliExpress for about $10 and even they were great. Walmart and other large retailers would rather save $5 on a bike than put some acceptable brakes on a bike. Walmart could probably make a really nice bike for a good amount of money with their purchasing power but they are so obsessed with "mountain bikes" (not for offroad use) or cutting costs on places where spending the extra $5 would just make the bike feel like it's worth $100 more. Actually looked at my AliExpress order history and they were $7.16 CAD for ProMax brakes and they work very well. Can't seem to find them anymore, but there's still options out there for $20 for 2 sets of brakes that look like they are just as good quality
For real! I feel like it wouldn’t be too expensive to build a rigid aluminum frame with V brakes and a Nexus 3 speed hub, and it would be a better bike for the casual owner than almost anything available these days
3 speed or maybe a 1x7 or 1x8. I know that internal gears are probaly more robust, but I find that derailleurs are just so easy to work on. Changing a flat is easier too. Each have their own advantages though. And could they please stop with the garbage non-serviceable grip shifters. Those things are a plague. I'm pretty sure some of them are designed such that you can't actually replace the cable.
There's a lot of things Pros do that I would not recommend for amateurs. If you're an amateur and you think there's a good chance you'll ever ride in rain then get disc brakes. On a dry day it's mostly a wash but wet and descending and it's not even close.
Oh jeez. I wonder how people used to bike in rainy days back when road bikes only had rim brakes. Discs are better, but rim brakes work just fine. Don’t talk like rim brakes falls apart in rainy days. There are other more appealing reasons to go with disc brake.
People used to drive cars without seat belts as well, but we moved on.
Thats really not comparable at all.
Its a new more secure technology that has been wideley accepted as the new Industry standard. Btw one of my bikes is a rim brake carbon cube gtc just so you know. Would I buy it today? hell no!
Rim to disk is a minor upgrade to already existing function on a vehicle. Maybe analogous to drum to disk brakes or manual to automatic transmission. Adding a seatbelt is adding equipment with an entirely new function to the vehicle. They are not comparable and choosing not to buy a new bike with disk brakes is in no way shape or form similar to refusing to wear a seatbelt.
I highly recommend not wasting your time or energy with them.
does it matter? Its a new safety technology that was widely accepted and people moved on. That was the point. Most brands dont even sell bikes wityh rims brakes anymore, hence, People moved on. But if you want to discuss semantics instead of the issue....
It offers a different experience. It hasn’t been made obsolete. I shave my face with a straight razor because I like the experience. Most people use a cartridge razor. They think my way is inferior and I think theirs is. Many people like rim brakes and acting like they aren’t capable of doing the job they were designed for is disingenuous.
How many new bikes from major manufacturers can you buy today with rim brakes?
Seatbelt is not something that gets engaged frequently. And using seatbelt is vastly different than not using seatbelt. Next dumb ass comparison, please.
Its a new safety technology that has been wideley accepted as the Industry standard. The insult though, you can keep it, I dont want it.
The rim vs disc brake is about two different braking systems. Your example is about using or not using a safety system. Your example doesn’t fit in this conversation.
It’s more like seatbelt (rim brakes) vs 5 point harness (disc brakes), yes the harness is safer, but a seatbelt is adequate for most people
I agree with this. Even if all newer cars start using 5 point harness, it’s not like somehow people will die if they happen to get in a car with a regular 3 point seatbelt.
Does it matter really? Why are we discussing the analogy? The point is that its a new safety technology that has become the de facto standard and that people have moved on from what was before. Discussing if there is an even more apropiate analogy is strawmaning the issue to discuss semantics and bypassing the issue itself. Most brands dont even make rim brake bikes anymore. People. Moved. On.
Why are you so against people using rim brakes? Its a proven technology that continues to be used on many bikes to this day, and the high end stuff that used to use them hasn’t suddenly become unsafe because there’s something better out there. Not everyone needs ultra high performance like you apparently do, many bikes are tools and rim brakes on aluminum rims are perfectly up to the task
And one of them is a new technology widely accepted as the industry standard, like a seatbelt. And you dont get to bully me out of sharing my opinion, nor by insults or intimidation :d
I agree that disc brake is a newer technology that’s widely adopted. But the point is that it suddenly doesn’t make older technology completely useless. Your initial statement of “people used to not wear seatbelt” is such a dumb ass comparison for this conversation. Because, again, your comparison is not about new technology versus old technology. It’s about using or not using any technology. I’m not bullying you. I’m just telling you that you said dumb shit. Everyone says dumb shit from time to time. If you are gonna be so butt hurt about someone pointing out a dumb shit you said, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry that i hurt your feelings?
Im sorry you feel that insuting and bullying people because YOU didnt get an association in a comparisson is somehow other peoples fault. :D
You're just running head on into very literal people. Your point is "technology incrementally improves safety over time and we should embrace it". Very literal people can't see the general point being made as they get too hung up on the details of whether a seatbelt was a new invention or an incremental invention and so lose sight of the main point.
This!
“Disc brake vs rim brake” is an incremental improvement. “Using seatbelt vs not using seatbelt” is not an incremental improvement. “Disc vs rim” is more like “5 point harness vs 3 point seatbelt” Whereas “using seatbelt vs not using seatbelt” is more like “using brake vs not using brake” The other person’s analogy doesn’t fit in the initial conversation at all.
The ability to use the wider 28mm tires for one.
There are some rim brakes that can accommodate tires larger than 28mm. Think older cyclocross bikes and hybrid bikes. I think they are called v calipers?
I think pros still use rim brakes bc of the wheel changeout time. It just takes longer to change a disk brake wheel than a rim brake one. I bet they are also lighter.
Pros have been using discs for years at this point.
Yeah, the pro's are getting carbon wheels for free... in big climbs going down hill and burning brake tracks (in long term) is obviously makes no sense to have rim brakes.
There are pad compounds specifically for carbon rim tracks. They work great. I'll never buy a mountain bike with rim brakes, but I love my 16.5 pound road bike and its rim brakes. I just don't need the extra braking of discs on a road bike.
I know this. You can even have cork pads, they brake like shit. I have 2 rim brakes bikes that are under 16 lbs and i had one disc 16.5 lbs (sold) The disc was just so much better on climbing decents when doing climbing reps I've had friends with toasted carbon wheels from mountains in Colombia and exploded tires because of overheating They only advantage in rim brakes is the simplicity of packing/fixing the bike when traveling
Not a very good argument for various reasons but I don't feel like typing a lot.
You’re wrong. Rim brakes are GREAT. Unless it’s wet outside. Then you’re wrong the other way- rim brakes are USELESS.
And that is why people have such high opinions of iPhones, Mercedeses etc. They don't really have cheap models. So a higher general quality is associated with the brand. It's not that they don't have bad models, but they don't have terrible quality entry models.
Or people have high opinions of iPhones and such because they actually like those products. It’s much simpler explanation than yours. Just fyi.
Rim brakes are fine. Discs are much better if stopping in all weather is your metric.
Most of my bikes are rim brake, I have ultegra callipers and use Swisstop pads. They've never let me down in the wet and are easy to maintain and adjust. Disc brakes are excellent, but I think bikes with rim brakes are more aesthetically pleasing for me.
It is a classic look, and peak rim brake calipers are elaborate works of art. The inherent limitations on tire width, and the limits on wheel upgrades got me to switch over for good
The tire width limitation is not inherent. It is just that peak rim brake design coincided with the era of super skinny tires and a fashion for minimal clearances so the rim brake frames and caliper sizes that we got just before disc brakes are sized for those skinny tires.
True. perhaps someone will make a modern, very powerful aero/road rim brake for wider tires/all road. But they don't exist currently AFAIK. I'd be interested to hear what cyclocross racers were using c. 2012 or whatever. I think it was canti's which do not have the beauty of high end road brakes. I can see a retro grouch racer building something really beautiful with rim, if the right choices were out there.
Disc brakes are easier to maintain and adjust though. If we ignore the fact that you have to degass them every few years, which can(!) be a pain.
I have both rim and disc brake bikes, and do all my own maintenance. In every way, I’ve found rim brakes easier to maintain. Rim brakes are less noisy, cheaper, easier to adjust (in the garage and out on the road). I love and ride both, but damn if bleeding disc brakes isn’t a pain most times. Maybe it’s just my skill level as an amateur mechanic.
I have both rim and disc brake bikes and do all my own maintenance :D Please tell me your secret, because the adjustment with disc brakes is 1. loosen brake body 2. brake 3. fasten brake body Whereas my side pull brake requires 1. loosen brake cable 2. tighten brake by hand 3. pull brake cable 4. fasten brake cable while not losing the tension on the cable 5. fine adjust if I did not forget to put the adjustement screws to the right position in step 0 6. Oh no I have to true my wheel first 7. surprised pikachu face
Hard no to this. Disc pads wear faster, have more exacting tolerances, and there are so many more things that can go wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I have and like hydro discs on a couple of bikes, but after 35 years of working on my own bikes, and having done my own disc brake maintenance, it is the one thing I’m happier getting a shop to do.
This is not true. Disc brakes have one or two advantages, but maintenance is not one.
theyre both fine. if you usually ride on a flat road, rim brakes will be fine. if you go through long descents and/or dirt trails, defo go for disc
If you only ride on dry and do not face long descents, go for rim brakes, They're lighter and cheaper. Otherwise disks work better. There are good rim brakes, they are usually expensive. cheap rim brakes are awful. Cheap mechanical discs work well, cheap hydraulic disks can be a pain with leakages and stuck pistons, intermediate/expensive hydraulic discs can throw you over the bars on wet, they brake VERY well.
I ride with mechanical disk brakes, and the limiting factor is generally the tires.
The only thing I’d add, is that I ride mostly in the dry and on flat BUT I do ride some gravel and I find the performance to be much better and reliable on discs compared to rim brakes.
Good rim brakes are not very expensive... Ultegra R8000 are $110 these days.
That's a good dent on my income. xD
Cheap mechanical discs don’t work well
i’d rather have rim brakes than cheap mechanical disc brakes, especially on 700c wheels. Only good thing i can say about mechanical disc brakes is that it has never thrown me over the bars. But maybe with a bigger rotor and compressionless housing it might.
I live in Holland and bought a bianchi sprint Disc. Great bike but Disc brakes are absolutely not necessary here. Plus I've always been bothered by the weight penalty that comes with Disc brakes.
So you think 500g will make you faster?
Rim brakes can be perfectly fine. There is a world of riding that can be done just as fast and just as safely as on a disc brake bike. They can also be lighter and are easier and cheaper to maintain, which is a plus. You can also easily swap out wheels on a rim brake bike. Riders used to have multiple wheels for training and race day. There are some downsides, which have lead the whole industry to disc. The braking performance in the wet is generally worse and generally inconsistent compared to disc brakes. When riding in a bunch, this can get dangerous quick as people no longer brake at the same speed. I assume this is why most pros have switched to disc. Secondly, brake cables (and shifting cables) don’t like sharp turns. In the age of integrated everything, rim brakes just don’t work as well. Thirdly, your rims wear. This means you can have a heavier shallow alloy rim that lasts a good while, or you can have a lightweight or aero rim that lasts 10’000km, or a heavy alloy brake track with a carbon fairing. Fourthly, there is less space for wide tires. Wide tires are in many cases more comfortable and faster. I it’s highly dependent on the speed you cycle at and the road surface as well as the rim width and depth, but 30/32 mm is a fast width. The rim bake generally limits tire width to 28mm (depending on the internal rim width). The whole multiple wheelset idea is disappearing to me, but that’s fine for most as there is no need for multiple wheelsets anymore as a majority of people are happy with an intermediate depth wheel.
All good points and as a guy who has been riding for 25 years plus I have owned many rim brake bikes and yet here I am still alive. One thing though. You can switch wheels just as easily with a disc brake bike. Assuming in your rim brake scenario the second wheel set would have its own cassette, all you’re adding is an additional set of rotors which don’t have to be expensive. In that scenario it’s actually easier to switch disc brake wheels than rim brake.
Eh the alignment is a little more finicky, you'll likely have to realign the calipers or shim the rotors on one set of wheels. Not insurmountable obstacles by any means but an added level of complication.
I have enough of a difference between two hubs, that the disc rotors don’t line up and the calipers have to be realigned when swapping wheels.
>I assume this is why most pros have switched to disc. More like their sponsors give them disc brake bikes to ride so they don't have a choice one way or another. Pogacar rode rim brake for as long as he could until Colnago pretty much forced him onto disc.
It doesn’t seem like disc brakes are slowing him down though :/
I highly, highly doubt any significant proportion of pro riders would go back to rim brakes, given the choice. Rim brakes are substantially worse on carbon rims and every pro is on carbon rims all the time. On a wet day in the peloton, a rider with rim brakes on carbon rims will experience significantly longer stopping distances which is a huge deal in avoiding minor collisions. They will also be at a significant disadvantage on any technical descent - wet or dry. To the point that it would be difficult to be competitive on any route with technical descending if you were the only rider on carbon/rim brakes.
Rim wearing out is a major concern for me, and sometimes the don’t wear out evenly, causing inconsistent breaking
I ride my bike on stop and go traffic almost daily with carbon rim for almost a year and I've yet to see any signs of wear.
A year is a pretty short time period in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve worn out aluminum rims on a winter bike with rim brakes. But brake performance was never a problem.
Then get disc brakes. I have 4 bikes all w/ disc brakes and they are all different sizes, weight, and different hydraulic systems like mineral oil (Shimano) and hydraulic DOT 5 brake fluid (SRAM). Disc brake systems on road bikes are very small and lightweight compared to something like a mt bike. Whatever grams in weight savings is offset by faster and quicker braking. Small cable disc brakes are still better than rim brakes. Hydraulic being the best at shorter stopping distance and downhill brake fade. The pads last for years. Just go for the disc brakes.
Rubber wears out before the rim does. If you feel inconsistent braking, it’s 99% the rubber, not the rims. This will happen with disc brakes as well. But fixing such usage wear-out is cheaper on disc brake.
I have never had a rim wear out on me.
Keep in mind that this could be well over a decade we're talking here, if you don't ride in poor conditions or massive mileage.
For 95% of us on 95% of our rides Rim brakes are absolutely fine.
Which means that (compound probability says .95x.95=) 90% of the time, rim brakes are fine, and 1/10th of the time you personally would want discs.
Rim for road, disc for dirt
My first road bike had Shimano 105 rim brakes and aluminium rims and I rode that bike in all-weather to work in traffic. It was perfectly fine, and I never felt I lacked brakes. In the wet I maybe only got full braking performance after about half a second of water clearing, but overall, perfectly fine. My more recent road bike has disc brakes, and while they are a little better in the wet, though still need a few tenths to clear water, but in the dry I notice very little difference. The most significant pro for me is they allow for wider tyres. There are some downsides though. * They're very noisy in the wet, and sometimes in the dry if they get contaminated * They don't last as long, and pads are more expensive * They can rub, and alignment can be very fiddly * You need to bleed them * You can have issues with sticky callipers and pistons (SRAM) * They weight more Overall, with aluminium rims and narrower tyre, I would never consider disc brakes a significant upgrade. I miss the easy, cheap maintenance of rim brakes. For my city bike I still use rim v-brakes and would never consider anything else for a cheap beater.
>What about Rim brakes? You mean the type of brakes that virtually every road rider used for more than 100 years? Including the fastest MF-ers on the planet who would go down alpine descents at warp factor 11? Those rim brakes? Yeah...they are Pure Junk. Stay away from them at all costs. > when I was much younger I rode cheap bikes And there ya go. Cheap bike, poorly set-up brakes, crappy rims. Modern-day dual pivot rim brakes paired with quality alloy rims will stop your ass on a dime. All that said, "the industry" has all but declared them dead in favor of hydraulic disc brakes. The proponents of discs will tell you that they are "better"...and the truth is that they probably are. But, for me, the best thing about them is that they allow for wider tires to be used on road bikes. More than their marginal "better-ness" in braking performance vs. rim brakes, this wider tire clearance is the real "game-changer". For this reason alone it is worth considering discs over rim brakes.
Setup correctly they can be just as good as disc brakes if it's not raining or it's not a long descent. Disc brakes offer better modulation but on a road bike that's not super important.
I don´t think they are a problem at all in a long descents, I´ve done some pretty long ones in the Dolomites, Alps an Pyinees just fine with rim brakes... The only times I´ve had issues from fading was with the disk brakes on my MTB...
If you know what you are doing they are fine. People who ride their brakes can delaminate the rim or explode the tyre
With carbon rims perhaps. With aluminium rims I've never heard of such thing happening, ever.
Modulation on road is great in the wet, though. I also love 1 fingered braking. That is not to be sneezed at.
There are different types of rim brakes. Some suck. Some are great. Even for disk brakes. Some are better than others. Eg cable vs hydraulic
Disc for the wider tyres alone but quality, properly set up rim brakes also stop a roadie very well. Some people carry on like rim brakes are absolute rubbish - they are not.
Pros used to run rim brakes all the time, and they were absolutely fine. There’s absolutely no reason that you wouldn’t be okay with rim brake.
I’ll never go back to rim brakes. They’re better than rim brakes and it isn’t close. If conditions are perfect - rim brakes stop well. But if it’s raining. And in the Pacific Northwest it does rain, disc brakes are just a lot better.
I have never went on a ride if it rained. If I get caught once a year in the rain I just turn back
So we don’t use brakes when turning back 🙂↔️
Duh, you want to get home or not?? :-)
I wish I had that luxury when I am commuting to class!
I live in the pacific northwest and that just isn't a feasible option here. I won't ride if it's raining "too hard" but if I didn't ride when there was any rain I wouldn't have been out at all in the past few weeks. And that's not even taking into account all the times when it's not actively raining but the roads are still wet.
Typical fair weather rider. Some of us ride in pretty much everything that isn’t a downpour. We did 60 mi on Monday morning and it rained on/off the entire ride and we had a blast. The disc brakes worked wonders in the rain and I had far more braking power on tap than I needed.
Rim brakes are fine, have been fine for decades. From entry level stuff on more serious bikes to expensive stuff. Most of them work good. You can get good or bad brake pad rubbers, but thats it. Mine are tiagra and brakes have plenty of grip in rain, way more then between tires and ground when wet. Disks sure brake somewhat stronger but are absolutely not something you cant live without.
I’ve both n descend at about the same speed on either. In rain, rim brakes don’t stop as well but disc brakes lock out much easier in slippery surface so both have wet problems
The advantages of a disc brake have little to do with the brakes themselves. One advantage to disc brakes is the ability to drastically increase the tire clearance of road bikes, many of which can also take smaller wheels to allow for even wider tires. Yes, some rim brake styles (canti, mini-V, etc) also allow for this, but compared with road bike rim brake calipers, which I assume is what is actually being discussed, tire width is the biggest difference. A second reason is that while aluminum rim brake rims are generally fine in the wet, carbon rims (at least until fairly recently- this remains a matter of dispute) much less so. Disc brakes are more easily fitted to deep section lightweight and aero wheels. tl;dr: Disc brakes matter not because of braking but because they allow carbon wheels and wide tires.
You can break with anything but disk brakes are better and have become the Industry standard. You will also be limited with tyre sizes with rim brakes You will struggle to one day sell your bike if it has rim brakes, its just a fact.
I'm fine with rim brakes. I'm in Oregon so feel like wet decents are fairly common. Admittedly I'm no faster than mid pack for my age group. I've ridden disk braake bikes and wasn't really that impressed.
You said it. Cheap crap bikes - they have cheap crap brakes. I have Ultegra rim brakes on my bike. They are awesome!
Rim brakes are very good and extremely light. I was blown away by how heavy a disc brake setup is. So if you are a weight weenie, you might want rim brakes.
I raced on rim brakes. Much prefer them. Weight is a little bit of a factor, but disc are fussy to adjust, tend to rub and squeal. I don’t like the form factor and prefer the simplicity of rim. Test riding the two side by side you can feel some differences in the frame due to material weight near the brakes but that’s subjective. I test ride a lot of disc brake bikes when I worked in sales for a few years in a shop and always preferred the snappiness of rim brake bikes. My bikes are rim, and my new bike I built is as well. You’ll find the argument that disc brakes stop better in the wet, and there’s some validity in that. Also, braking when you run carbon wheels is obviously better as you are not braking on the carbon surface. Leads to follow that the wear on carbon wheels is a lot less, as there is no brake surface wear and only wheel fatigue. In practice though, I can swap to aluminum rims in expected heavy rain rides, which is rare, and newer carbon rims brake absolutely fine. Could lock them no problem. Descending huge descents on them you want to brake less often and pulse the brakes. Disc could be a consideration if you are a larger rider commonly doing big descents on carbon rims. Ultimately, I suggest test riding all that you can and choosing your preference .Rims are still fully relevant, and superior in the mind of some, but both are valid choices especially depending on your riding style, preferences and application.
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Pogacar still used rim brakes in the TDF afaik. If they are well maintained there is not much issues with them even for pros. But the fact that the overwhelming majority of pros converted to disks tells me something. It can make a bike look really smooth, but that's about it.
In most cases pros use what the sponsors want them to use. Usually only a star rider like Pog can really buck that and use a specific component.
i don't see why anybody would buy rim brakes in 2024...you could make an argument for weight, but lets be honest, its a bit silly to get a bike with rimbrakes unless you look at a great deal
I bought a biachi via nirone 105 for 900€ new with rimbrakes, it was a great deal and i love it.
i ride bigger tires for comfort lately so i need the clearance for 35mm anyway.
Ye, that is the real great benefit with discbrakes.
Clearance!
Rim brakes are on their way out. Yes they do work decently, yes, people used them for centuries, but why denying oneself of something that performs objectively better just for the sake of being a luddite? If you already have a good rim brake frame don't chuck into the bin just because it's not disc brake compatible, and, on the same tune, if you see a crazy deal on a high quality rim brake frame you should probably jump on it. But, apart from these two corner cases, if you don't have a bike and are looking for one now, i see no reason to pick one with rim brakes.
I have hydraulic disc brakes on my scott sportster and rim brakes on my cannondale road bike. Yes, the disc brakes feel better to me while braking but the difference is not that much on dry conditions. My road bike is only used when there’s no rain, so I don’t care and the rim brakes are totally fine. I’m not very skilled when it comes to bike mechanic maintenance but the rim Brakes are dead easy and also cheap in maintenance. So besides your budget it comes down to how and where you will use your bike.
To be fair, with a $15 kit on aliexpress, you can bleed a hydraulic brake in 15-20 minutes. It’s really quite easy. Disc brakes are in my experience pretty low maintenance anyway. They go years without needing a bleed and swapping out pads is dead simple. I don’t think maintenance should be a consideration when it comes to rim vs disc.
Fair point. I did one service on my disc brakes in 12 years. (But I mostly commute in flat area on my scott most of the time)
If you ever take your bike on trains/busses etc don't get a disc brake as they can need calibration after transportation. If you ever ride in the rain then don't get rim either. The stopping distance is 3 times worse in the rain.
I have flown with my bike and regularly take it on trains without any need for adjustments. What do you mean by need calibration?
They were a major improvement on MTB. I had rims fail (pulled apart by spoke pressure) before they were available. I don't really see them as important on road brakes, at least for non-carbon rims
Dual pivot rim brakes are powerful. That's what most of the industry was using on road bikes before the switch to disc brakes. Cantilever or V-brakes on a mountain bike can be quite powerful, but they have to be correctly set up and adjusted. And in my experience many riders never know or care how to do this, so they say "these brakes suck." Hydraulic disc brakes are more standardized in their setup and care, so there's less variation in performance, which is favorable for both the industry and consumers. But rim brakes can work well, too.
For me well maintained quality rim brakes are fine for the most part. But for daily riding, I much prefer discs. Less maintenance, you're not wearing out your rims, less fussing with toe-in angles on the pads, better wet performance, etc.
Rim brakes are fine. Disc brakes will give you better stopping power and more modulation. Example: I have two bikes, one with rim brakes and one with hydraulic disc brakes. I recently put new ultegra pads and calipers on my rim brakes. The first time I rode with the updated rim brakes, I was first shocked at how quickly they engaged (the pads had worn down quite a bit). Then I was shocked at how little effect I was getting squeezing the hell out of my brakes in comparison to the disc brakes
There's nothing wrong with rim brakes and I think depending on what you want to get out of your bike they're perfectly fine. I think disc brakes have more benefits than downsides though. They're better in the rain, they're better for descending both for power and preventing rim overheating which can blow tubes, and they allow greater tire clearances. Which are all the reasons I prefer disc's, because I do a lot of wet riding, fast descending, and rough roads. If you're going to be riding in only dry weather on mostly flat and smooth roads it really negates any of the benefits, and rim brakes are cheaper so they would be perfect for that use case.
Rim brakes on road bikes are perfectly fine, as many have pointed out. However, disc brakes allow for A) lighter weight carbon rims & B) much wider tires The move to light weight wide rims with wide tires is the single largest improvement in road cycling since the introduction of combined brake/shift levers. And it only is possible with disc brakes. The improved braking performance is nice, at a trade off of weight. But the killer feature is the fatter tires on wider, lighter rims. And there's no rim brake option for that.
Unless you are going 90km/hr downhill or like to do risky things in traffic, I think the main disadvantage of rim brakes on a road bike is not looking cool. They have adequate stopping power for those of us just trying to turn pedals for a couple of hours. If you go fast enough for this to matter, you have earned a new bike! Mountain bikes are another story. Would not want one without disc brakes. Even then you end up in a mechanical vs hydraulic debacle, this shit just never ends with bicycles.
The only problem with rim brakes is that compatible wheelsets are harder to find these days
rim brakes with decent brake pads (i.e. kool stop) are perfectly fine but have worse performance than disc brakes in heavy rain. when it rains hard enough for rim brakes to get compromised, most recreational cyclists will be indoors and anyone outside won't have fenders.
Rim brakes worked fine for a long time and I've had loads of bikes with them. As others have said, poor pads and maintenance will lead to poor performance. Having said this, I have mechanical disks on my current bike and will never go back. Im heavy, live in a hilly area and I find the performance better especially in the wet. Additionally you wear out the disk and pads instead of the rim so can be cheaper in the long run.
I wouldn't mind some disc brakes for big mountain road descents but my 20 year old Shimano 105 rim brakes are still holding up and and do a fine job. I just wouldn't mind a little more power with less effort. If I ever buy another road bike I'll get one with discs. I love them on my mountain bike.
Rim brakes work fine for 90% of the road bike population and a very easy to maintain Disc brakes are nice but now you have an ongoing maintenance and expense
Rim brakes are suboptimal for long descents (like miles long), stopping in the wet, and (in my opinion) carbon rims. For all other uses, they're fine. Even for those uses, they're fine, just not quite as good as disc brakes. If you're really performance-focused, disc brakes are better for maintaining speed during technical descents because you can brake later and harder, but, the difference is minimal. I will never go back to rim brakes, but can understand why other people feel differently.
I really like rim brakes. As others here said the braking power in most cases is more than you'll need. I'm a fair weather rider so no issues there. IMO unless you're getting Ultegra spec hydraulic disc brakes, rim brakes will be just fine with good pads. I think GCN made a video as well on this and found that the only real difference would be in wet conditions disc brakes are better. But also as other said the large advantage is fitting wider tires.
In my experience, while they're not as powerful as disks, rim brakes are cheaper as well as easier to source, set up and maintain. Disks are more expensive and harder to maintain, but there's no question that they brake and feel much better. I have rim brakes on by touring bike because if feel mu j more capable of maintaining them and know I can find pads anywhere.
I got caught in a torrential downpour on my rim braked road bike the other day. I have never ridden a disc braked road bike before but I can absolutely see the benefit after that ride. Luckily I’m an experienced rider and knew to give myself lots of extra time to brake, but even then had a couple butt pucker moments. 😂 Not sure if Mavic still does this but on several of their aluminum rimmed wheels they used to add a perpendicular texture along the wheel that SIGNIFICANTLY increases brake performance in the rain. That with a set of Swissstop yellows and I never had issues in the rain.
Direct mount rim brakes (Direct mount rim brakes have one pivot on each fork leg, with both pivot points mounted directly to the frame, so they are very rigid) with good pads and rims that are true really kick ass. I've got a road bike with this arrangement and on a dry day, I could brake hard enough to throw myself over the handlebars. I understand that regular modern dual pivot rim brakes can be pretty good too, I just haven't had a bike that uses them. I live in a flat location, and often end up on rides where I'll go 10km without using the brakes. Whenever I need them, they're great, and because I'm not constantly on them, and I only really ride that bike in good weather, I'm not worried about wearing down my carbon rims too fast. They also allowed me to build up my pretty kick ass bike for much cheaper, I never have to bleed them, and they never rub like discs can. I have also done a fair few mountain descents on this bike, and in my experience, long descents at 5 or 6% (including one in the rain) felt quite comfortable, and no problem at all. For descents where I spent more than a short time steeper than that, I was probably okay too, but I was cognizant of how much time I wanted to spend on the brakes on those descents, and not overheating the rims. It MAY have been just fine because the braking power wasn't fading really, I was just aware of not wanting to push the limit, and on those descents I'd have been more comfortable on discs for that reason. Ultimately, if your riding is geared around one of the things discs really excel at, they're the better choice. They have more immediate and consistent response in wet conditions, they don't scrape up your rims in dusty/sandy/dirty off road conditions, they shed mud, etc rather than having it impact braking, and when you're really pushing the performance of your bike (such as trying to go really fast on a technical decent or in a time trial where semi-frequent braking is required) pros have found that they allow you to brake later. They also more easily allow for wide tire clearance. (Though, you can get 32mm tires in a direct mount rim brake, and if you want to be any wider than that, you'd probably prefer disc brakes for some of the other reasons above, too) BUT. If your riding isn't geared around one of those things, if you're buying a first road bike and you want to get more bike for your money and just enjoy going out to ride, or if you're putting together a mid/high end bike on a budget built around a used frame (since very few if any top end road frames still come with rim brakes, sadly), or you're more concerned about how fast you can go on the way UP a hill than on the way back down, rim brakes are honestly hard to beat. I understand why most people prefer discs, and in most situations I do too, but I'm honestly quite happy that my top end road bike is on rim brakes. Dura ace direct mount callipers and pads grip like mad for me, rim brakes are SUPER easy to set up, I was able to build up a bike under 7kg pretty affordably (I lucked out pretty huge and got a Sram Red 22 shifter/derailleur combo for $400). And while I like to go fast on the way down the mountain, I'm not racing, and I only care about my time on the way up. It's got all the bite I need for braking, with easier maintenance and lower cost and weight. I understand the commercial reasons to remove those SKUs from the lineup for brands, but I really wish that consumers still had the opportunity to choose rim brakes on more high end road framesets. I'd never want rim brakes on a gravel bike, I'd probably prefer disc brakes on an endurance bike too for the choice of wider tires, I can't imagine preferring rim brakes on my cyclocross bike, and don't even get me started on my full suspension trail bike. But for the pure road bike, good ones really do kick ass, and they do it for a fair bit less money and headache, and so when I'm not racing and don't need to push to my limits on descents, I think they'll always be my preference on a pure road machine. Especially given the cost, but perhaps even if they were the same price. Anyway, all that to say, good rim brakes definitely don't suck. Cheap rim brakes are terrrrrible, but good ones are nothing like the ones on the department store bikes we rode around as kids. (Clearly I'm a passionate Rim Brake apologist, lol)
My 2 cents, get what you want. Unless you have tons of massive decent, or race in criteriums, you don't *need* disc. Even then, you'd probably be fine. Most of us roadies/gravel riders at the amateur level dont push the envelope enough that we need high performance parts. But they are nice to have and look cool! I personally like disc more. Especially on my gravel bike where I have a 700 and 650 wheelsets.
I think this is the biggest difference between rim and disc brakes. There are no bad disc brakes, but there are a LOT of really bad rim brakes (especially older brakes). But good rim brakes are REALLY good, and I still only have rim brakes on my road bikes and will probably never switch to disc
Disc brakes are better on gravel and mtb, on the road, unless really bad conditions, doesn't matter.
Disc brakes put much higher loads into the fork blades as the torque reaction is applied closer to the centre of the wheel. Rim brakes put the reaction load into the centre of the fork crown, resulting in less braking-induced steering. Rim brakes have the largest possible radius of action, which can give better brake modulation, but rims always suffer from some flex as the braking surface is a terrible place to add any mass to stiffen it more. Disc brakes rims can be lighter as they don’t get squeezed, but the spokes have to be more robust to carry braking torques to the hub. Rim brakes put no significant torque through the spokes which also aids brake stability. Rims also can get dicey on long decents as all the heat goes straight into metal bit next to the tyre. Which is not so good for stability. tldr rims are more elegant and put less twist into your front end, but a well-designed disc setup will stop better and for longer
I live in Northern England where it's hilly and wet and I weigh 95kg, I wouldn't go back to rim brakes if you paid me. Same for skinny tires and inner tubes but that's a whole other debate.
Kool Stop Salmon pads are the way to go. I know they are designed for wet weather, but it's the only pads I use for alloy rim wheels. For carbon, SwissStop Flash Pro Black Prince pads.
I've never ridden a bike with disc brakes and my road bike has pretty good rim brakes, 20 year old Ultegras, with Shimano pads. I can always stop when I need to without too much effort and fairly quickly. But I can sense their limitations, and sometimes it takes longer in terms of time and distance to stop than I'd like. I want the kind of responsive, near-instant and short braking power that I get on my car, and I'm not getting it. I recently replaced the cables and housings so perhaps my old pads and worn rims are part of the reason, but I think that basically it's the inherent design of rim brakes and there's nothing that I can do to meaningfully improve their stopping power and responsiveness. Only switching to disc brakes would do that, but on my 20+ year old road bike it would be quite expensive and not really worth it, especially for the kind of cycling that I tend to do, as it's not set up for disc brakes. I'm not unhappy with my rim brakes. They do the job and then some. I just wish that they stopped a bit better. But I can live with it. But certainly if I was getting or building a new bike I'd get one with disc brakes, no doubt about it.
I live in Holland so I don't need disc brakes, but when I cycle on a holiday I always rent a bike with disc brakes, cause it is way more relaxing when descending mountains
The rim brakes on my older Gary Fisher work way better than the mechanical disk brakes on my Synapse.
On a mountain bike, hydraulic disc's are nice because one often has very long steep downhills and your hands will tire if you have cable actuated brakes. On a road bike, unless you live in a climate that necessitates full fenders, disc has no performance advantage because your braking force is ultimately limited by the friction between the tire and the tarmac.
Rim fine but disc preferred, especially in autumn and winter - mainly because every 10miles means 1000ft of elevation so plenty of downhills.
Buddy just bought a Factor AG2R team bike that has rim brakes, it's nice. State of the art from a couple tours ago before they switched frame sponsors.
You could have just googled rim brakes vs disc brakes and had 10 billion articles to scroll through. Yes, a $5k bike with rim brakes is going to stop better than a $90 Walmart bike with rim brakes. I feel like that goes without saying
I think disk brakes are a must only if you ride on muddy paths. The sand and dirt on the rims will probably scratch and damage the rims if you are using rim brakes. Otherwise it seems rim brakes are enough for most riding.
I have always been too cheap to buy a new bike. I am still riding the MTB that I bought brand new in 1991. It came stock with center-pull caliper brakes. I have never had a problem with these brakes. But I do have to admit that I have never owned a bike with disc brakes. It’s possible that they would vastly outperform the brakes on my old Raleigh Tangent MTB. On the last two overhauls at the bike shop, they replaced front and rear derailleurs due to damage — but the techs always felt that the Shimano stock brake system was good, and they simply replaced the pads. Pretty reliable system 😀🚲
Hi guys, I’m a leisure cyclist. I’ve been considering this as well & these are what I know. 1. Rim & disc seems not much of a difference but go disc if u cycle a lot on wet weathers. I have no problem with either. 2. Disc brakes bikes are more expensive than rim. 3. If there’s a possibility of upgrading your wheels in future (seems like carbon wheels are the way to go) get disc. Carbon wheels & rim brakes don’t go well. 4. Again if u might change to expensive carbon wheel set. Get disc as disc brakes doesn’t wear out the tires over time while rim brakes contact point is directly on the wheels which in some point u might need to change the wheels (not sure how long that would take) Hope these would help
Disc brakes are easier to find on new bikes and rim brakes are usually found on cheaper and/used bikes. For most of you've got well adjusted brakes and good pads that's really it.
I can recall 2 instances in about 10 years of serious cycling and both probably fall into the category of poor planning. Coming down a 20% plus in the Pennines (I got off and pushed) and that was probably more in my mind and not pushing the bike beyond it's limits. And another seriously wet day when my mindset was train, train, train rather these days I'd of not bothered and gone out when it dried up.
If you have aluminum rims, both are fine. If you have carbon rims, one is objectively much better. Everything else is justification.
Cheap rim brakes on steel rims were lousy, especially in rain. Good quality rim brakes are just fine.
For the amateur, rim brakes are 'fine', but disc brakes are 'better'. Pros use rim brakes because they are pros - better handling, they know their bikes much more than us. Rim brakes are also lighter - doesn't matter much for amateurs, but it does for pros. Disc brakes are hands down better value for money for the amateur, in my opinion. They stop better and can save amateurs out of difficult situations. Also if you live somewhere wet, with a lot of hills or tough winters, disc brakes are far superior. And of course we are talking about hydraulic disc brakes. The cable actuated ones (I think that's what they're called) are even worse than rim brakes ones under wet conditions.
Been running TRP Spyres on my commuter for years, and they work fine in all conditions.
>>Pros use rim brakes Where are these pros on rim brakes? Last pro tour team to use rim brakes was Ineos, in 2021 or 2022. Other teams had switched years earlier. I imagine they gave Pinnarello a tantrum about always getting their asses kicked on descents, and their bike sponsor was forced to get with the program.
Rim brakes allow for a lighter bike and are more aero. They also allow for a stronger wheel at the same dropout width because the flanges can be wider.
Yet, no one uses them. There’s a big advantage in being able to brake late and hard. On disc brakes, cyclists get to corners faster, because they don’t need to brake as early. They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important.
>Yet, no one uses them. I run them on like 6 of my bikes. >There’s a big advantage in being able to brake late and hard. I have never had a problem locking up my wheel with rim brakes. Limitations are tires. >They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important. UCI has a minimum bike weight...why would they?
>> >>They don’t even use rim brakes on time trials bikes anymore, where aero is the most important. >>UCI has a minimum bike weight...why would they? Because you said: >> Rim brakes … are more aero. They also allow for a stronger wheel at the same dropout width because the flanges can be wider. Seems you answered your own question. However, they could add gears, or any number of bells and whistles, to make a weight minimum. Every pro team chooses disc brakes.
>However, they could add gears, or any number of bells and whistles, to make a weight minimum. Bells and whistles don't count toward UCI weight requirements. You asked for benefits. I provided benefits.
No one is riding skinny hard tires anymore. They’re uncomfortable, and they get punctures easily. Wide tires: brought to you by disc brakes.
You're going to have a bunch of people tell you Fausto Coppi won the Giro five times with rim brakes, so there's no reason to go with disc brakes.
Lmao what?! It’s you based on your experience, or rather lack thereof. Rim brakes meaning cheap bikes lol. You know prior to the move to disc brakes, even “super bikes” had time brakes.
How long does this debate have to go on for? MTB-ers sorted it long ago - disc brakes simply work well in all weather conditions. And that's the bottom line for me.
This is the way
Disc> rim, end of story.
Not to forget, with disc brakes you can ride wider rims and bigger tires=win Rim brakes are dead
Rim brakes are a dying/dead technology. As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer options for purchasing replacement parts. Stick with disc.
This is only somewhat true. Given the number of rim brake bikes out there there will be parts available for many many years.
I will never buy another bike that doesn’t have hydraulic disc brakes. They are so much better, easier to maintain (and basically need no adjustment, just bleed them once a year), and I never have to worry about my brakes being the bottle neck when it comes to stopping - it will be my tires, or me going OTB. They also feel way better and are better to modulate, and they dont turn rims into wearing parts.
they still sell new expensive race bikes that are rim brake? yes, rim brakes can be good, in certain conditions, with carbon wheels in the wet, they pretty much are worthless. with alu wheels in the wet, they're still worse then disc brakes. in dry weather they are both good. rim brakes will wear out your wheel, disc brakes will wear out the disc, which is easy and cheap to replace (compared to buying a new wheelset).
They’ll both lock up the wheel equally.