On 12/3/2019 6:09 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
On Monday, December 2, 2019 at 2:52:43 PM UTC, Dieter Britz wrote:
My son has put together a very fancy bike and (of course)
put in disk brakes. But he is disappointed by them. We are
not sure why they don't brake very well. I feel that good
caliper brakes are the best.

Is that true? Or should disk brakes be equally good?

--
Dieter Britz

In every braking instance, whatever the brakes, the limit of braking is determined by the maximum friction between the tarmac of the road and the rubber of the tyre.

So, in theory, all brakes currently in use should brake equally well, since all are capable of exerting more than the force required at the limit of available tarmac/rubber friction. Vintage brakes like spoon brakes and even older roller brakes didn't in fact have enough clamping force though today's roller brakes will send you over the handlebars just like discs if you're careless.

I fancy Magura's hydraulic rim brakes for their progressivity. I also have bikes with roller brakes and disc brakes, and of course in the mists of history had bikes with standard rim brakes. All stop the bike but the manner of their stopping it differs greatly.

Progressive brakes have another advantage besides not face-planting the rider for very slip in concentration: they actually brake better because they are locked for less of the distance that the brakes are applied in every stop.

BTW, the standard Magura blocks on my bike with the rim hydraulics lasted over 5000m, and the rim looks good. I've never had disc brakes that didn't wear through their pads in 1000m.

Andre Jute
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, would roll over in his grave at the prices of bikes today


No, he would not.

Diversity is a desirable quality of any market.
(Manufacturers stop making whatever doesn't sell profitably,
in short order!) A healthy market with constant innovation
and/or improvement is NOT the G.U.M Store.

Meanwhile your basic go-to-work lightweight from 1971 at
$95[1] is equivalent in cost to $603.65 today[2] but for
half that, $299, you get a clearly superior, lighter, longer
lasting machine[3]. Any LBS bike at $600[4] in 2019 wipes
the floor with the best professional machines of that era
(which were $300 to $400 then, mostly)

[1] Basic 'ten speeder'; British 3-speeds were $30 to $40 then
[2] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
[3] Not a Famous Name Italian race bike but improved in
every way from a Gitane Gran Sport and so on.
[4] Better service and prep than 50 years ago generally.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971