Why I'm going back to rim brakes for road.....
 

moving this out of a classified discussion, per Josh's suggestion, wherein I was asked the above question and I responded:

1. I think discs are overkill for road riding and tires up to 32mm because:

2. As someone who switches around wheelsets, they are a PITA, unless you spend a bunch of time carefully shimming wheels so that each set works without having to realign the calipers, and even then ....

3. the noise, the grinding of road grit, the occasional sqawking, the inevitable pinging when the rotors get hot descending...

4. the additional complexity - bleeding, cable routing, careful how you position the bike when storing or transporting less gravity screws with the hydro fluid and you find yourself squeezing the levers to the bars and then having to (at best) stand there pumping the levers until pressure comes back...

5. the gargantuan, bulbous and to me, uncomfortable, hoods necessary to accomodate the hydraulic elements...

6. the necessarily overbuilt, overstiff forks to withstand the braking forces...

7. the added weight ....

8. most importantly I don't need them to stop and I'm a big rider at 215 +/- and have plenty of steep hills (note: the coated rims like HED Black are phenomenal)

Now despite this I will still have a couple as they are great if...

1. you want to use both 650b and 700c wheels on the same bike...

2. you need alot of clearance for really wide tires - so decent application for 'gravel bikes' and if you want....

3. you can mitigate some of the annoying characteristics by using mech discs like Paul's Klampers and the new Growtac (to be tested soon - we'll see) or even TRP Spyres.

well stated

+1


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Agreed. I got two rim brake bikes setup this year and have loved the lack of maintenance, low weight, and low hassle factor when things go out of adjustment. Textured brake tracks are really, really great.

For aggressively riding hilly, steep terrain, especially where there are idiot drivers involved and blind drive ways, I still like my disc road bike.

Road discs in 10 years I think will be much better. Hopefully they've figured out a way to get much more distance between the pad and the rotors for more flexibility on wheel swaps, less rubbing, less annoying griding in wet, debris filled riding.

I'm with you, kind of sick of the brake bleeds, contaminated pads, poorly faced mount points which makes caliper adjustment impossible etc. Routing hydro lines and bleeding, dealing with nasty fluids has killed a lot of the zen in bike wrenching for me. Long day at work, kids in bed, last thing I want to do at 10pm is deal with a brake bleed.

Yep.

As a lifelong MTB’er I started road biking pretty late (in 2015). All of the bikes i have owned from the start have been disc.

My first custom road frame which i hope to have soon will have rim brakes. Fingers crossed…

Already there for me. Also kinda using my carbon wheels less and fine w/good alloy with Blue Flash Swiss Stop pads which I find superb 28" rotors/stoppers..

And why I woulda grabbed Clean's Super duper ti rim brake frame if i did not get beat to it..


My #1 now is the Green RSL/SLR Domane the was PSAed here in Oct. Direct mount rim brakes and 32mm tirz, as big as I've gone road, previously 28-30mm.

With the 32s made now that are way fast, and my size... perecto!

agree 100%. the way I see it, road disc was pushed because the industry had a problem with rim brakes and carbon rims.

Mechanical disc brakes are the worst of the options, in need of constant adjustment and have horrible feel and modulation. Also the Spyres are unsafe with pad adjusters that are known to back themselves out midride, leaving the rider with no braking power

I would get serious about using them if I did a lot of long alpine descents. Otherwise, I can stop.

~Dario Pegoretti

RIP, the master.

100% on all your points. To be fair the latest hydro groups have come a long way in mitigating the hood shape /size concern but the other cons are still relevant. Id even state that the GRX di2 levers have the best ever shape for riding in the hoods. Like all things it’s just a matter of weighing priorities, and for road riding a lot of the negatives aren’t balanced out when going with disc braking.

Now if only more rim brake frames were designed for fitting large rubber with center mount brakes. Either that or if anyone wanted to take a crack at hydraulic rim brakes so people could still use the latest and greatest shifters with non disc frames.

I've run Spyres a few times, I had issues with the SLCs, the normal non SLC ones been fine. Especially after putting Swiss Stop Organic Green pads, which IMO improve braking and modulation 3 fold.

I don't do enough climbing/descending anymore, so rim heat elimination with discs a non factor for me, not the case for lot of folks I recognize..

true about the BB7s i rode for a while, but my juin-tech GTs work great -- none of these issues whatsoever.

Kirk007: could not have said it better. IMHO chief benefit for road bikes is interchangeable wheel sets. One good thing to have come from discs is all the great bargains on high quality rim brake bikes as the newest and greatest crowd transitions.