The death of rim brakes?
On 2019-03-13 16:11, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 15:32:49 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-12 11:13, AMuzi wrote: On 3/12/2019 10:07 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-10 06:34, wrote: I keep reading see all the bikes coming out and basically all disc brakes. I cannot believe rim brakes are going to be gone but maybe I am just kidding myself. I frankly hate the disc brake look and certainly for a long time parts will be around but are these rim brakes a dead deal. Disc brakes are simply better. Take a look around around automotive and motorcycles. How many new cars and motorcycles are there that still have drum brakes in front? On Sunday I experienced the umpteenth reminder why rim brakes are inferior. We had to cross some unpaved area on the road bikes and it had rained. Muddy. Afterwards a descent on pavement, I reached in and after the usual and expected one-second of zero brake action the rim brakes came on. There was an awful grinding noise, you could literally hear aluminum being eaten. If I ever need a new road bike it will have disc brakes or I won't buy. How many new bicycles have drum brakes? Vanishingly few. This was just meant as an example. Bicycles have largely remained in the stone age, like chuck wagons where a chunk of wood pressed against the steel ring of the wheels to brake. So bicycles kind of skipped a technology. Supposedly there are bikes used for a long downhill ride in Hawaii that all have large drum brakes because anything else would overheat. There is something wrong here as disk brakes were originally built to avoid the problem of drum brakes' failure when heated by long descents. In fact I remember seeing logging trucks in the mountains of California using water cooled drum brakes. Both can overheat. Water spritzing is something that MTB riders occasionally also use when on long descents and with a load. An overheated brake is no fun. A friend had that. I saw him skid through the last curve, foot out, rear wheel locked, bike partially sideways, dust plumes wafting off. His front brake had faded. Luckily he is a good dirt bike rider with the correct instincts about what to do. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
The death of rim brakes?
On 2019-03-13 17:32, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/13/2019 5:32 PM, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-12 11:13, AMuzi wrote: On 3/12/2019 10:07 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-10 06:34, wrote: I keep reading see all the bikes coming out and basically all disc brakes. I cannot believe rim brakes are going to be gone but maybe I am just kidding myself. I frankly hate the disc brake look and certainly for a long time parts will be around but are these rim brakes a dead deal. Disc brakes are simply better. Take a look around around automotive and motorcycles. How many new cars and motorcycles are there that still have drum brakes in front? On Sunday I experienced the umpteenth reminder why rim brakes are inferior. We had to cross some unpaved area on the road bikes and it had rained. Muddy. Afterwards a descent on pavement, I reached in and after the usual and expected one-second of zero brake action the rim brakes came on. There was an awful grinding noise, you could literally hear aluminum being eaten. If I ever need a new road bike it will have disc brakes or I won't buy. How many new bicycles have drum brakes? Vanishingly few. This was just meant as an example. Bicycles have largely remained in the stone age, like chuck wagons where a chunk of wood pressed against the steel ring of the wheels to brake. So bicycles kind of skipped a technology. Supposedly there are bikes used for a long downhill ride in Hawaii that all have large drum brakes because anything else would overheat. Well, technically not as efficient as a larger disc though. IIRC they were really big drum brakes, not the usual standard fare. More like what you'd see on older mopeds. p.s. My fixed gear bike with single SP caliper up front would attract no attention on the street 100~120 years ago and works (goes & stops) fine for me. Maybe not for you. I had one of those as a kid. It's ok for city riding. However, despite promising my mom never to do that I took it out onto clandestine motocross tracks in the forest and there it wasn't performing so great. On a rainy day it could be scary. Currently I have hydraulics and 8" rotors front and back on my MTB. Best bicycle brake system I ever had. Works all the time regardless of weather. Even on pavement it has saved me from a crash into the side of a Porsche when its %^@#!! driver cut me off. That was due to the absence of the usual 1-2sec "free-fall" of rim brakes during rain. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
The death of rim brakes?
On 3/13/2019 6:32 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-03-12 11:13, AMuzi wrote: How many new bicycles have drum brakes? Vanishingly few. This was just meant as an example. Bicycles have largely remained in the stone age, like chuck wagons where a chunk of wood pressed against the steel ring of the wheels to brake. So bicycles kind of skipped a technology. Bikes didn't skip drum brake technology because bikes are primitive. Only a very few bikes adopted drum brakes because that technology wasn't optimum for bikes. It's simplistic at best to pretend what's best for one application is best for all applications. Every design choice comes with benefits and detriments, and those are not the same for a 4000 pound car as for a 20 pound bike. Bicycle rim brakes have worked fine for over 99.999% users for the past 100+ years. When mountain bikes came into fashion, some off-roaders found a different set of benefits vs. detriments, and discs made sense for them. But then fashion and marketing took over, pushing discs toward road bikes. Yes, we'll get a few testimonials here claiming discs are "better." We get very few details on benefits vs. detriments. -- - Frank Krygowski |
The death of rim brakes?
John B. Slocomb writes:
On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:53:33 +1100, James wrote: On 14/3/19 9:36 am, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-12 18:33, James wrote: On 13/3/19 2:07 am, Joerg wrote: On 2019-03-10 06:34, wrote: I keep reading see all the bikes coming out and basically all disc brakes. I cannot believe rim brakes are going to be gone but maybe I am just kidding myself. I frankly hate the disc brake look and certainly for a long time parts will be around but are these rim brakes a dead deal. Disc brakes are simply better. Take a look around around automotive and motorcycles. How many new cars and motorcycles are there that still have drum brakes in front? On Sunday I experienced the umpteenth reminder why rim brakes are inferior. We had to cross some unpaved area on the road bikes and it had rained. Muddy. Afterwards a descent on pavement, I reached in and after the usual and expected one-second of zero brake action the rim brakes came on. There was an awful grinding noise, you could literally hear aluminum being eaten. If I ever need a new road bike it will have disc brakes or I won't buy. A bit of wet mud isn't the end of rim brakes.Â* Hose them off and they'll be fine. We have lot of bits of wet mud. The rims of my first MTB looked horribly grooved after the first 1000mi. Trails here are really muddy in winter. The other advantage of disc brakes is that they can be cooled off on long descents with a quick spritz from the bottle. Phssst ... HISSSS ... and on you go. No need for a lenghty cool-off period. I don't know how my rims survived, MTB riding the wet and muddy forests tracks in Winter. Furthermore, how did I survive inferior rim brakes without the chance to spritz from my bottle and "Phssst ... HISSSS ..."... I shall commence counting my lucky stars. Move to California and you will be able to ride with the Mountain Lions :-) Those are pussycats compared to the drop bears in Oz. |
The death of rim brakes?
On 3/14/2019 12:18 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
One time I saw a lot of black bears t my right as they were eating berries that had grown in an area that'd been burnt over a number of years ago. There was no forest there. It's kind of neat to be able to see the bears from a nice safe distance. VBEG LOL For many years I hoped to be able to spot a bear while riding my bike. My chance finally came while riding in Glacier National Park. Saw the mother and two cubs. Much closer to home, I've spotted a coyote and a bobcat while riding, as well as almost any other mammal one might mention. Bald eagles, once rare, are now so common here that they barely count. But so far, no wolves. We have Bobcats and Lynxes up there and I understand that cougars are becoming more common too. No cougars yet either. My only lynx spotting was decades ago, hiking in the Canadian Rockies. I was amazed. -- - Frank Krygowski |
The death of rim brakes?
On 3/14/2019 3:43 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 12:54:41 AM UTC-4, John B. Slocomb wrote: I read something to that effect the other day. Some sort of environmentalist site I think. I wonder what the tree huggers do when a cougar eats their pet dog :-) I'm not against environmental issues at all, just those who propose some "solution" without any thought at all. People that protest fox hunting while eating a McDonalds hamburger, for instance :-) Probably the same thing they think when their dog or cat gets attacked by a coyote, coydog or hawk. I'm actually hoping for something to take the tiny yappy dog next door. The neighbors are lovely people except for a total inability to understand how much their dog irritates others, especially after 11:30 PM or before 7:30 AM. The dog barks whenever it sees something interesting. But it is interested in everything. And the bark is piercing. Another neighbor says he can no longer sleep with his windows open. It's a tiny Yorkie. A cougar or coyote would be overkill. A Great Horned Owl would do nicely. -- - Frank Krygowski |
The death of rim brakes?
On 3/13/2019 4:36 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 16:07:48 -0700, "Mark J." wrote: On 3/13/2019 3:40 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:54:18 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 3:17:05 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote: Snipped I don't get the obsession of reusing spokes. If that turns you on, fine. IMHO 'best rim for this rider/usage' can be severely limited by adding 'within poorly supported ERD'. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 I don't think it's an obsession to use the old spokes. I think it's because many of us just like to tape the new rim to the old rim and then move the spokes to the new rim without having to unlace t he old wheel. Plus it saves a fair bit of money. Where I am shops cut spokes to length and t hen thread them. My understanding is that those cut threads make a weaker spoke than do spokes with rolled threads. I have a couple of extra wheels here that have tubular rims on t hem but the hubs and spokes are in excellent condition. If I could get a clincher rim to match the tubular rim so I could use the old spokes by taping the new rim to the old and transferring the spokes to the new rim I would. YMMV Cheers I see 14 gauge spokes with nipples listed on Amazon for $0.10 each in lots of 36. Please point me there! The lowest I can find on Amazon are ~$0.27 (US) each. I looked on Ebay and couldn't get anywhere near that price point. If they look reliable I'll use them to build wheels at a local non-profit / pro-bono community bike shop. Mark J. I couldn't find the site I originally quoted :-( But there were a number of sites offering spokes in sets of 36 for $10.00 or less. Given that the TREK bikes I see listed range from $11,799, with disc's, to $849, with conventional brakes, a measly ten bucks is chicken feed. For high-end Treks, sure. For functional recycled utility bikes that will be sold on a sliding scale or given away, not so much. The shop is sitting on a bunch of new donated rims, and it harvests hubs, many decent ones, from otherwise dead donated wheels. My goal is to turn those resources into working wheels through donated labor. Put it all together, and it's marginally competitive with complete wholesale wheels due to the cost of spokes. (And it's a fair question whether wheel building is an efficient use of donated skilled time.) My conjecture is that the rise of the boxed-wheels market has raised the price of spokes dramatically, as spokes' drop in wholesale/retail volume requires a much higher price to be worth stocking. I remember getting basic but name-brand spokes for 20 cents each, now it's closer to a dollar. Andy M., did I guess right about the market? Mark J. |
The death of rim brakes?
On Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 12:59:35 PM UTC-4, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/13/2019 4:36 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 16:07:48 -0700, "Mark J." wrote: On 3/13/2019 3:40 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:54:18 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 3:17:05 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote: Snipped I don't get the obsession of reusing spokes. If that turns you on, fine. IMHO 'best rim for this rider/usage' can be severely limited by adding 'within poorly supported ERD'. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 I don't think it's an obsession to use the old spokes. I think it's because many of us just like to tape the new rim to the old rim and then move the spokes to the new rim without having to unlace t he old wheel. Plus it saves a fair bit of money. Where I am shops cut spokes to length and t hen thread them. My understanding is that those cut threads make a weaker spoke than do spokes with rolled threads. I have a couple of extra wheels here that have tubular rims on t hem but the hubs and spokes are in excellent condition. If I could get a clincher rim to match the tubular rim so I could use the old spokes by taping the new rim to the old and transferring the spokes to the new rim I would. YMMV Cheers I see 14 gauge spokes with nipples listed on Amazon for $0.10 each in lots of 36. Please point me there! The lowest I can find on Amazon are ~$0.27 (US) each. I looked on Ebay and couldn't get anywhere near that price point. |
The death of rim brakes?
Frank Krygowski writes:
On 3/14/2019 3:43 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 12:54:41 AM UTC-4, John B. Slocomb wrote: I read something to that effect the other day. Some sort of environmentalist site I think. I wonder what the tree huggers do when a cougar eats their pet dog :-) I'm not against environmental issues at all, just those who propose some "solution" without any thought at all. People that protest fox hunting while eating a McDonalds hamburger, for instance :-) Probably the same thing they think when their dog or cat gets attacked by a coyote, coydog or hawk. I'm actually hoping for something to take the tiny yappy dog next door. The neighbors are lovely people except for a total inability to understand how much their dog irritates others, especially after 11:30 PM or before 7:30 AM. The dog barks whenever it sees something interesting. But it is interested in everything. And the bark is piercing. Another neighbor says he can no longer sleep with his windows open. It's a tiny Yorkie. A cougar or coyote would be overkill. A Great Horned Owl would do nicely. I'll bet a great blue heron would do as well. Amazing what they can choke down. -- |
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