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Old March 15th 19, 03:08 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default The death of rim brakes?

On Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 6:36:52 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
On 15/3/19 2:17 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
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.



For a while, the trend for road bikes was very narrow tyres pumped up to
very high pressure. 18 mm of tyre is pretty skinny.

Gradually the tyre width had become standard at 23 mm for road bikes.

Now there is an emerging trend to ride wider tyres, with some claiming
much wider tyres are not only as fast but faster! I suspect there is a
diminishing return with wind resistance.

Now I use a 25 mm rear tyre (that measures 27 mm), and to remove the
wheel I must release the brake lever (Campagnolo) or deflate the tyre.
With a 23 mm tyre I don't need to do that. With a disc brake I don't
need to fiddle with the brakes regardless of tyre width. That's a benefit.

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