With road bikes on <30 mm tires, there’s very little reason to go with disc over the current crop of excellent rim brakes. The only cirumstance is riding in the rain with carbon brake tracks. Aluminum rims with 6800 calipers and nice pads outbrake any of the hydraulic brakes on tiny 140mm rotors, even in the rain. All disc brakes are doing is adding weight to your road bike
Is 140 the standard for road disc? I’m using 160 f/r, not sure why someone would go smaller.
This conversation got done to death on bike forums within a few months of the invention of bike forums, but “unless you live somewhere rainy” is a pretty massive caveat when it comes to component selection.
PNW REPRESENT
It’s not even stopping power for me in the rain. It’s that I’m tired of wearing rims out, especially because with dynamo wheels it means you need a spare wheel or fast rebuild to keep riding. FTN.
Bikes get less filthy with disc brakes, too, which is nice.
[quote=iwillbe]Is 140 the standard for road disc? I’m using 160 f/r, not sure why someone would go smaller.
This conversation got done to death on bike forums within a few months of the invention of bike forums, but “unless you live somewhere rainy” is a pretty massive caveat when it comes to component selection.[/quote]
140 is the de facto standard for road bikes it seems. Even if you live somewhere rainy I think aluminum rims are a better solution. Carbon rims + rainy are not a large percentage of road bike use cases. Rim wear can be an issue I suppose but I don’t do that much city or commuting riding on rim brake bikes. The kind of rides where I would be using a road bike with skinny tires, I’m not braking much
I’ve never built or seen a 140 front road bike, but I’m a relatively small slice of shoplife
[quote=sparksflyhigh][quote=iwillbe]Is 140 the standard for road disc? I’m using 160 f/r, not sure why someone would go smaller.
This conversation got done to death on bike forums within a few months of the invention of bike forums, but “unless you live somewhere rainy” is a pretty massive caveat when it comes to component selection.[/quote]
140 is the de facto standard for road bikes it seems. Even if you live somewhere rainy I think aluminum rims are a better solution. Carbon rims + rainy are not a large percentage of road bike use cases. Rim wear can be an issue I suppose but I don’t do that much city or commuting riding on rim brake bikes. The kind of rides where I would be using a road bike with skinny tires, I’m not braking much[/quote]
You know for some reason I was thinking about this the other day when I realized that I just rode 30 miles without touching the brakes until I hit my driveway at the end. That’s not the rule but it does illustrate the fact that disc brakes are not particularly essential for road riding. And I’m basically never going to wear a rim out fully, or if I do it’s going to take a decade or more.
Anyway I’m not really going to be a luddite and actively reject disc brakes for my bikes, they’re fine, and there’s no question that they provide better braking than rim brakes at the cost of more fuckery with hoses etc. I was just disputing CKD’s assertion that riders care about braking to the extent that, in the absence of marketing, they would care about disc vs rim.
cmon guys
you know
brakes r 4 fakes
[quote=sparksflyhigh][quote=iwillbe]Is 140 the standard for road disc? I’m using 160 f/r, not sure why someone would go smaller.
This conversation got done to death on bike forums within a few months of the invention of bike forums, but “unless you live somewhere rainy” is a pretty massive caveat when it comes to component selection.[/quote]
140 is the de facto standard for road bikes it seems. Even if you live somewhere rainy I think aluminum rims are a better solution. Carbon rims + rainy are not a large percentage of road bike use cases. Rim wear can be an issue I suppose but I don’t do that much city or commuting riding on rim brake bikes. The kind of rides where I would be using a road bike with skinny tires, I’m not braking much[/quote]
The rim wear use case I’m thinking about is East Bay road circuits in the wet season: drop down Tunnel or Wildcat with any regularity and any significant body mass and you’ll definitely burn through an alu rim pretty quickly. Lots of tight turns, short steep straitaways, and a constant incursion of really sharp gritty mud and slop from the surrounding hillsides.
by contrast, the riding around Richmond, VA is flat-ish, without any technical cornering that needs a preliminary grab of the brakes. I could 99% use some ultralight nonsense time trial braking setup that weighs ten grams and at best mildly discourages forward progress.
I take your word that 140mm rotors are standard for road bikes, but also think that it’s dumb. Why not get the extra bit of grab that a 160 gives you, I ask rhetorically
[quote=iwillbe][quote=sparksflyhigh][quote=iwillbe]Is 140 the standard for road disc? I’m using 160 f/r, not sure why someone would go smaller.
This conversation got done to death on bike forums within a few months of the invention of bike forums, but “unless you live somewhere rainy” is a pretty massive caveat when it comes to component selection.[/quote]
140 is the de facto standard for road bikes it seems. Even if you live somewhere rainy I think aluminum rims are a better solution. Carbon rims + rainy are not a large percentage of road bike use cases. Rim wear can be an issue I suppose but I don’t do that much city or commuting riding on rim brake bikes. The kind of rides where I would be using a road bike with skinny tires, I’m not braking much[/quote]
The rim wear use case I’m thinking about is East Bay road circuits in the wet season: drop down Tunnel or Wildcat with any regularity and any significant body mass and you’ll definitely burn through an alu rim pretty quickly. Lots of tight turns, short steep straitaways, and a constant incursion of really sharp gritty mud and slop from the surrounding hillsides.
by contrast, the riding around Richmond, VA is flat-ish, without any technical cornering that needs a preliminary grab of the brakes. I could 99% use some ultralight nonsense time trial braking setup that weighs ten grams and at best mildly discourages forward progress.
I take your word that 140mm rotors are standard for road bikes, but also think that it’s dumb. Why not get the extra bit of grab that a 160 gives you, I ask rhetorically[/quote]
203 or don’t talk fo me.
I’m curious what my rim wear is going to look like in the Midwest. Both wheels on the Nordavinden are just about due for new rims but the front had 3,000 miles under a fat guy in the northwest and the rear is about 6,000 of the same. Now that the bike is basically unridable 6 months a year and not particular rainy for the other 6, I’m looking forward to those getting double those numbers.
Fwiw as a midwesterner I’ve never work out a rim in my life
Including many 10k mile seasons
The first (sanctioned) mtb race i did i pre ride the course and flatted the front tire. it started to seal, the tucked up if i played with it. i agonized for an hour or two while waiting for the intermediate race to start on whether to trust the sealant or toss a tube in it. eventually i concluded that tubes worked fine for a long time, put a tube in it and got 4th in my age group. sometimes shutting the fuck up and riding works best.
that said, i prefer disc brakes and think a road bike looks classier with rim brakes. do whatever you like best.
This is some galactic brake planing.
A few companies make beautifully shaped rotors that elegantly echo the graceful form of the bicycle wheel. Then there’s Shimano, who make very functional and breathtakingly ugly rotors that are on 90% of all disc rotor bikes.
[quote=Tail Hook Lengthener]This is some galactic brake planing.
[/quote]Wow that was annoying and pointless
The dude is beyond annoying. Like smash-him-in-the-face-with-a-brick annoying.
Was gonna post that, but he’s so fuckin annoying
Re: disc brake chat, I don’t think most people (that aren’t trying to sell bikes) are arguing that rim brake bikes are now unsafe, they’re just less enjoyable in situations where you are braking a lot. If you’re buying a bike now, take advantage of the new technology.
Also, I thought we had talked extensively about why “I can lock up my wheels with my current brakes” is not the logical argument that people keep making it out to be. Like, yeah, I can lock up the wheel enough to endo on a shitty single pivot road caliper. Disc brakes, especially wet ones, give you that power with almost no physical effort required, which lets you stay loose and relaxed, which helps you ride better and more relaxed. Which is just more fun. I’ve ridden dirt on cross bikes with cantis tons of times, but my coffee grinder is way more fun than any of them. It’s not particularly better-suited for that except for the disc brakes, but that’s a big difference.