Disc brakes v Rim brakes - Food for Thought

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Brakes are Brakes overall, depends on the application no?

A nice stroll on a cruzer bike through the park, hell a rear coaster brake is fine.

I prefer V-Brakes myself for overall Gravel much'n or just jamm'n around town for the simplicity and cheap parts availability.

The downfall for Disk Brakes is the cost and weight gain. I tore up a pair of XT ICE Discs on my 29er along with the pads in one summer!? $#@!@ that noise! That was costly period.

Canti's can be nice if set up right and of the higher-end quality.

If your Hardcore or a Racer fine, get Disc Brakes. I must admit they are nice, and it's nice to just flip a quick-release and jerk the wheel off

I'm with Thias, I do like my Magura HS33s.
I have early Hope Monos which seem okay, cable discs....might as well run V's or cantis.
Setting up cantis is a black art though...time consuming and frustrating.

I seem to remember losing hours in the 90s with match sticks and rubber bands, trying to toe in canti pads. After a few years it wasn't too bad but even then not as easy as parallel pull Vs. After a lot of experimenting I eventually used to run Onza HOs with yellow koolstops (I think?) and they worked really well, but even then my first set of Vs (which was only a few years ago) wiped the floor with them.

I think disks have their place - can see the logic in the article posted at the top of the thread. I guess longer term rim damage is the key - riding through gritty mud (that there's a lot of in the uk) can wear your rims out with cantis or Vs.

In terms of speed... cantis never seemed to stop the early downhillers in the 90s, and from what I can remember JMC, and others, were hitting 60mph at times.

I think the only problem I have with any braking system though is the pedants that surround them, 'oh it's got x brakes - how terrible'.

These days I have early parallel pull XT Vs on the Zaskar and I've just put modernish xt Vs on my daughter's bike. Lightweight, easy to setup, cheap, and tonnes of power. I'll be putting HOs on the Saracen, when I get round to it. That's just me though

What screwed it for cantilevers were the terribly bad 'low pro' versions that appeared in the early 90's. They had no leverage and therefore little power so when v-brakes appeared, cantis were instantly consigned top the bin of doom in the minds of users.

I only use the older wider stuff, it doesnt matter from whom either, the older wider cantilevers work very well and are easier to set up over those crappy narrow jobbies.

Discs have been paired down and down until the levers are so very fragile when compared to an early Hope of 20 years ago. My own Hope set-up didnt need servicing for nearly 10 years of constant use. A time frame Avid Juicy users could only dream about.

One big downside to discs is the easy way to accidentally contaminate the pads rendering the brakes instantly useless. Instant access to replacement pads isnt so good unless you carry a set on the ride. And if you snag a hydraulic cable...!

Canti and v pads are easy to get from a B&M, Wilco, Wilkinsons and so on if you out and far away from home or vehicle.

I think I prefer cantilevers overall despite being an early adopter of v and disc.

Hers a good mod to make cantis 'easier' to set up. Get your old wide DX models and combine them with some Tektro parts to make these:

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Creative mod lgf!
I think I agree with all, more or less, horses for course; if we all wanted the ultimate, quickest-around-a-track, measure-it-with-a-stopwatch, super scrutinised, uncompromised and over eulogised, we'd all be on modern carbon. But that's not "us".

I think I have all generation or styles of brake on some machine or other, or have done in the past. All I can say is that for modern trail-centre stuff, or for long days at ten-tenths, much as a nice CNC canti has enough power to have me over the bars at the start of the ride, my old fingers can't manage to moderate that power, or even power effectively after four hours. Where discs score for me, is I can still use them to awesome effect, when I'm tired and riding with the power of a five year old. They look after me.

If I died and had to take a brake to heaven to use for the rest of eternity though, it would still be a Critical Racing wide-pro front canti, with Real CNC pads.

Disc brakes just look waaaaaay cooler than any canti or V brake setup.

When you're riding a retrobike its really not about the last word in best anymore; just what elicits the most "that's cool" comments.

This old chestnut again

Rim brakes- very good, and v's do a lot to stop you once youve slowed down.

Simple thing about 'properly' set up is nonsense.
Watch the early racing.
There you have the best of the times cantis, set up by race mechanics and other competent users.

Watch the vids - Braking done 50m back from any corner or turn.
WATCH as they all overshoot the turn and end up in the grass/bushes. Why ?
Because their properly set up cantis couldnt stop them.

PROFESSIONAL RIDERS USED THEM ????
But then professional riders rarely use the brakes, other than to scrub off a little speed.

If you went though a set of pads in a seasons riding time, is that such a great deal ?. Im more than sure canti blocks would be replaced as frequently if not more so. Especially in the course of a season actually riding fast offroad. I cant honestly see anyone in that scenario using the same canti pads :?

And I've yet to crush a lever, despite numerous OMG A TREE/CAR !!! BARAAAAKE

Cantis, in all their forms cnc or otherwise are about adequate as stopping, with obvious weight issues concerning load/mass etc. Cantis work as the bike slows, then they stop you. But they have neither the lever power, nor the gripping strength that hydraulic systems have. Especially at speed, and likely with that extra 6 stone of takeaways.

Pads are the sacrificial part, a consumable. The point is they are there to work to stop you as you now ride considerably faster, and with more technical skills than anyone ever did on canti based bikes.
If that means you replace these parts more ofter, then that is the nature of stopping you mass/weight/speed.

Cantis are fine on a period build. A look at yesteryear.

Discs since 1997, and everything inbetween.

Had cantis in the early days, then to improve them went ceramic.
The introduction of ceramic rims was more to do with trying to improve a poor design, to make it compatible to changes in riders increasingly faster riding. More and more they tweaked it, this and that. Oddssey canti bits of titanium rod to replace stretching wires., CNC arms to maximise strength and decrease flexibility in those arms.
And on and on.

sorry, but are riding styles changed, the brakes needed to to.

And if you snag a hydraulic cable...!

Click to expand...

Same thing could be said if you snap a brake cable and the straddle wire drops onto the front tyre. But in all honestly, ive yet to either snag one, nor repair anyones who had.


Bit of a Bah-Humbug moment there :?

If you have yet to brake anything on a bike then you simply have never been riding fast enough.

Or you are so very very special.

Brakes are vastly psychological and if using a certain type of brake makes you enjoy your ride more then they are the ones for you!

Personally rim brakes are fine and can lock my wheels up whenever i want. V brakes i find harder to set up as i feel i need an extra hand and also are more grabby. I cover the brakes and over very rough terrain they are on and off whenever they feel like it. Discs for me are fine for downhill race tracks and offer predictable braking, which is what i need when flat out. I only ever use the rear and only really crashed when the front is used. I find a front disc brake overkill. I could go on for ages about differences in modulation, heat etc

A big benefit/difference between rim and disc i suppose is the rim design, discs offering more variation.

mark

Its forgotten that hydraulic disc for bicycles have been around for over 40 years with Shimano selling a hydraulic v-brake style system in the 70's too.

What I find totally baffling and have yet to have a reasonable explanation for is discs on road bikes.

Ok, carbon rims are difficult to manufacture for rim brake use so I can possibly see why there but...??

If I were cynical, I could say that it was just a big marketing ploy so companies can sell a shitload of new bikes

If I were cynical.