On Monday, March 18, 2019 at 2:47:37 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, March 18, 2019 at 1:57:04 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, March 18, 2019 at 3:32:49 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
Snipped

I was sold on disc brakes after about five seconds of use. When I almost
flew over the handlebar of my new MTB during a test ride in the LBS
parking lot, despite having pulled the handle with just two fingers. The
rear of the MTB actually bucked upwards. It felt like having
power-assist brakes. Woohoo!

Snipped

I do. Should I ever need a new road bike it will have discs or I won't buy.


--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Back around 1982 I bought a Velo Sport Columbus SL Dura Ace AX equipped bicycle and on the ride home was getting squeezed into parked cars by a streetcar because the road was narrowing quite a bit. I hit the brakes and the rear wheel lifted quite a bit before I released the front brake lever and hit the brakes again. That was with the AX caliper brake. I've always loved the braking of those brakes.

I rode rim brakes over the weekend and hydraulic discs to work -- on two dry and lovely days, and the difference between the two is/was negligible. My rim brakes are direct mount and very powerful.

On Saturday, I rode with my son who has rim brakes and CF wheels. He stopped fine but made a lot of noise. He's going to buy some aluminum wheels. If I had CF wheels, I'd definitely go for discs on my race bike just to avoid the issues with CF and rim brakes.

Discs certainly are not all upside. I have one caliper with a leak at the fill port. I've already replaced the internal seals and the seal on the port stopper screw and can't figure out why it continues to leak. I'll throw on a replacement and then see if I can figure it out. Never hurts to have a spare.

A bleed kit is reasonably cheap off eBay. With the Shimano brakes, though, the mineral oil is ridiculously expensive in small quantities but pretty reasonable if you buy in bulk-ish liter amounts. Pads are expensive for OE finned models but cheaper un-finned knock-offs are available. Bleeding/installing discs is a bit of a plumbing job but nowhere near as irritating as running any cable/wire through a modern "everything's inside" frame. It is more work than a cable rim brake.

Discs are totally unnecessary for a dry weather road bike, and although I feel like I made a mistake buying a rim brake "racing" bike, it is only because of marketing shame -- I didn't get the latest and greatest. I love the bike and don't ride it in the rain. All my rain bikes have discs. They just stop better in the rain and avoid the rim-lathe effect. I ended up with discs because I was in a position to buy a new bike(s). I didn't run out and buy them just because.

-- Jay Beattie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87MsGZ8fP9k