I just stick to mechanical shifting. It works great, costs less and can't be hacked. And yes to rim brakes on road bikes for this fair weather cyclist. I own bikes with both rim and hydraulic brakes and both work well.
When was the last time you rode a race in the rain? I did plenty of rides that ended raining. But I wasn't going riding if it was raining at the start. Disc's put immense additional loading on forks and rear stays. What does it take to make a rim brake bike? You drill a hole. You don't need enclosed dropouts that are custom length for every bike. Complaining that rim brakes don't work in the rain is silly. It only makes a difference in emergency stops, and you shouldn't be doing that anyway.
I am bike mechanic and like everyone moved to disc brakes. However in the last year I have gone back and have just completed my fifth top spec rim brake bike in my collection. So happy everyone is selling their top spec rim bikes for me to snap up. I am definitely back in love with rim brakes.
I changed my front brake pads on my 12 year old rim brake bike last night. Took me 10 minutes (and I’m thoroughly technically incompetent 😅). It’s so easy to check the wear and change the pads. No bleeding needed either! Get decent pads, on alu rims (mavic open pro for me) too and they work just fine
I used LTWOO R2 brifters with 105 rim brake shoes - and they were plenty sufficient in absolute downpour down the mountain descents in Japan. I do get the love for the disk brakes if you're competitive cyclist, ride lots of gravel or want carbon wheels. But many of us cycle for fitness, and don't care that much about ultimate efficiency. Clean chain, clean aluminium rim, quality tyres, TPU tubes, good brake shoes - that's all I care for. I want aero - I get lower. Cheap, efficient, easy to maintain - I don't see reason to go disks anytime soon.
If you are a fair weather cyclist then a bike that has rum brakes, external cables, standard parts that fit all bikes make sense. If you cycle in all weathers then a bike that has disk brakes, external cables, standard parts that fit all bikes makes sense. Bikes have become over complicated with design features that make them more time consuming to o fix for the home and professional mechanic.
@gcntech author of the wireless attack here. You can get a signal on a target bike in multiple ways. For example, imagine a mechanic working on the target's bike cycling thru the gears in a hotel parking lot. Attacker just has to sit within 30 feet (say in a car) and collect any one upshift and any one downshift. This signal collection is valid for as long as the shifters remain paired with the same derailleurs.
SRAM still support all their rim brake groupsets, all the way back to 10 speed. Shimano still make DuraAce, Ultegra and all their lower tier groupsets in rim brake. Campagnolo still support rim brakes, Microshift just released a rim brake compatible groupset, Wheeltop just released a rim brake groupset. Where is the problem here GCN?
@@DBen-k5m This gave me a good chuckle and is so true! I do run Manjaro and love building the old-school 90s hybrid bikes with v-brakes and cantis and have a lot of pride in that :)
@@buckeyecyclist They heat up and grab the pad causing front end wobble that results in a crash. They heat up causing disc brake fade, they can cut you in a crash. The adapters people use to convert off of centerlock rotors to save money are dangerous and fail under load, hydraulic line is less reliable than a mountain bike cable.
I watch both the GCN and GCN Tech shows and absolutely love them!! However, I've noticed there's often quite a bit of overlap in the topics. It would be great to see them explore more varied subjects to keep things fresh and distinct between the two.
I know that GCN Tech is normally the domain of Alex & Ollie, But it's great to see and hear other GCN presenters dipping there toe in now and again. It adds variety to the spot. A bit like 'pick & mix'.😉
Chain wax isn't just about saving watts and gaining speed... I'm not using wax for performance at all. I just want my expensive components to last a very long time!
Rim brakes are simple; bicycles should be simple. If you don't intentionally ride in the rain or wet conditions; if you don't do downhill mountain biking, disc brakes are too complex. They require through-axle wheels rather than quick release; their hydraulic systems need periodic bleeding. I don't ride in the rain or wet conditions; I don't do downhill mtb; I don't ride down Alpine descents. I prefer rim brakes for most of my riding.
Waxing isn't just about marginal gains--it's about reducing maintenance, keeping things clean, and saving money. That said, I suppose that waxing in a really wet climate may take more effort than it does in a dry climate--although keeping an oiled chain clean in a wet climate is also a PITA.
You probably never oiled your chain correctly. I live in a quite rainy area and need to oil my chain every third or fourth ride, about once a week. You just wipe the chain with a with an old, but clean cloth, then drip on some low-viscosity chain oil on, wait a little, then wipe off excess oil - chain looks as good as new. The bottle of chain oil is about 15 bucks/quid and lasts about a year. Waxing a chain takes hours, cleaning the involved equipment is a huge mess, and if you actually use dedicated equipment, that's gonna be shit-expensive. So I wonder where you get the "reducing maintenance, saving money" from.
So happy that I have my Litespeed with rim brakes! Just as when it's raining, icey, windy when you're driving, you drive accordingly. I do the same when riding. Simple.
Was in a gravel race a few weeks back. A guy stopped right before the first big climb and asked if anyone had a spare Shimano shifter battery. This is why I'm not down with electronic shifting, hacking aside.
And I've seen people break shifter cables on a ride. The problem is a lack of regular maintenance, not the shifting system. Look after your bike, and it will look after you.
Why would someone carry a spare shimano battery? Pull out the seat post.. diss assemble the bike. This Is a SRAM thing due to the size of their batteries..
@@vgjhlgjhfuyfjhfjkhgyghj Gears are certainly great, don't think I've ever seen a bike using pure Sora though, see it a lot on cheaper bikes (road and gravel) with Tektro mechanical disc brakes like my Voodoo bike.
I hate seeing the original message because of my loss. But seeing some of the replies hating on sora and mechanical disc brakes, aggravates me even more. My 2015 trek 1.2 with sora just got stolen earlier this year. It was around $1000 (US) brand new then, but my college professor's son ran a local bike shop and i got the bike for only $400 brand new because they say road bikes sold less than gravel, hybrid, and mountain bikes then. Awesome bike that I will forever miss because rim brakes are dead and I havent seen many if any rim brakes with at least a sora drivetrain (they all seem to be 8 speed or less cassettes). I like disc brakes too, i have them on my All City Space Horse touring bike (mechanical disc brakes for me if its a touring bike) but I dont need it on a road bike that I rarely ride in bad weather. I don't have a hybrid now, but usually i commute on hybrids with hydraulic disc brakes since those brakes have little maintenance issues compared to mechanical disc brakes I have used. But touring, i like knowing I can quickly fix mechanical brakes compared to hydraulic brakes on the road
Rim brakes vs disc brakes has been done to death. Enough already. There are pros and cons to both. Pick what you can live with, move on and don't judge others by the brakes they choose. That's what bottom brackets are for. 😶
I think you should do a test with wireless gear shifting. All GCN, GMBN, GTN get on a bike with wireless gears and a few other wireless components and then find a team of hackers and one person riding a children's tricycle. Then do a slow race in an outdoor velodrome with the hackers trying to mess with the bikes enough so the tricycle wins...
over 30,000 miles on my original rim brakes (replaced the pads, obviously). Still going... well... stopping fine. 1,300 miles on 105 hydraulics, seal blew and had to completely replace the caliper. Rim brakes for the win all over the place!
I don’t think chain waxing is just for racers. I ride 320 km / week and I just like a quiet chain. I keep two chains waxed and swap them every 1600km (I live in a very dry climate and that’s how long I can go before the chain makes noise, if I maintain the chains by keeping them clean.)
Sure if your are racing down hill in the wet, disc is the way to go, but in the real market that funds the production of the leading companies, the real riders, like me, 62 year old, working to stay fit, riding 18 mph and maxing out at 34mph in solo ride don't need the complexity of disc brakes..........I love working on my own bike......
After having only disc brake bike for years, I recently bought a Wilier Superleggra with Campagnolo rim brakes. They suit the bike, work well enough (in the dry) & actually feel pretty good.
Currently on a rim braked bike that was near state of the art (Ultegra level) when made and I question your opinion of the benefits of discs. I avoid the rain so don't need that. I can repair/service/maintain the rim brakes with ease, quickly, and thus cheaper. Not everyone says discs are more aerodynamic. Are discs really lighter? though I regret to say it boys, discs will eventually take over simply because the makers say it will. I'm stocking up on spares for my rim brakes. Bring back Channing, Manon, and Pooley!
Haven't ridden disk, but I love the simplicity of my rim brakes. Just bought a used Fuji for touring; would have accepted one with disks, but was rather chuffed this one came with rim brakes. Much easier to maintain, and fix in the field if necessary.
Number 5; rim brakes still work really-really good. They stop the wheels before the wheels can stop you without all that much effort. A bit more effort in wet. But they'll still stop you. Remember; disk brakes weren't always around.
Still keeping a rim brake bike because it fits nicely in my travel case. Plus disconnecting and reconnecting of brake and shifter cables is not a problem.
The industry went all in on pressed in BB's, and now we are going back to treaded because it is superior. Rim brakes other than in the wet are as good as any tire can hold the road without locking up in any other conditions. Not to mention as you all know, rim brake bikes are lighter, wheels are lighter and more aero without having to cross spokes.Hubs are lighter, maintenance is simple, and really if you are racing in wet conditions ,ten minutes to change pads is not an issue. All this electric stuff and complex new tech is the opposite of why cycling is so great(KISS) Keep It Simple Stupid.
Unlike pressfit BBs and hookless rims/tyres, disk brakes offer real performance advantages, not only monetary savings for manufacturers. Simplicity is the only substantial advantage for cable rim brakes as far as I've found.
All my road bikes are rim brake models. Not everyone is a racer or a wanna be racer , and rim brakes are fine for the rest of us. I do ride disc brakes on my mountain bike and my gravel bike , where I use much wider rims. BTW for context I am 69 years old have been riding since 1959. Yea I’m old !🤣
Love rim brakes and hope to never have to go to disc on my Road Bike. I have disc brakes on my gravel bike and I think the are great. With respect to road, I'm a traditionalist, I don't like riding next to someone that has a circular saw blade looking thing for brakes. Your comment relative to Crits is spot on. I race Crits and I use Rim brakes, I race in the wet and do not have the same stopping power as the majority of the lineup. It forces me to be a better bike handler because people around me with disc brakes can stop easier than me (I have carbon rims to boot), but I will not give up until I can no longer find a Rim brake frame. I am very disappointed with Pinarello's move to give up on a Rim Brake frame as I have always ridden Pinarello frames, hopefully, my current frame hangs in there for a while. Rim brakes for road!!!
Rim or Disc brakes? I've been a cyclist for around 70 years and have never had any issues with rim brakes. I feel that disc brakes are a solution to a problem I don't have. Of course it could be argued that I don't cycle fast enough to need any brakes at all! I have been able to convert my bikes from down tube shifters to Ergo shifters, change to more modern (mechanical) group sets and lighter wheels but if I wanted disc brakes I'd need a new bike. I'm more than happy with the one I have.
am I doing something wrong? On my bikes, rim brakes wear out rims so I have to buy new wheels every ~4 years. Honest question: doesn't it happen to you? How often do you change wheels?
@@random-biker-k7c I have made around 60000 km with my CF clinchers. Hilly terrain, not mountainous though so very hard braking in front of a corner is not very common. I use them also through winter so brake track gets contaminated with dirt and sand. Surprisingly they are still fine! I paid around 800 EUR for the whole wheelset, replacement rims would cost me around 200 EUR. So I honestly don't know what all the fuss is about.
@@random-biker-k7c I don't know what you are doing... I ride bikes for more than 40 years and well in the 6-digit numbers of km's - I never ever have worn out one single rim through braking. Just now I ride carbon wheels (Bora One) since ~20000km and the brake track has not even lost 1/10 of a mm, I could easily ride them for 50000 more!
@@fiddleronthebikeI'm a 220lb commuter in the Seattle area. I've worn out 2 brake tracks on rim wheels. My Carbon rim brake wheels last maybe 1200 miles for brake pads for the front and the track is still barely any wear after 3000 miles. Everyone I know who's used rim brakes long term, 5+ years, has worn through at least one wheel.
@@viet0ne I don't know why we have so different experience. I live in a hilly area and love to ride Alpine passes in the holidays, so hard breaking needed, I use Campa red brake pads with my carbon wheels and before the normal Campa black pads on alu, and as I said, never had to change a wheel because of brake wear. I still have my old wheels from the 1980's in the cellar, don't use them because I'm on carbon since ~9 years, but all my wheels are still fine
Hot take incoming: cable actuated disk brakes (high quality, properly setup, with compressionless housing) is the best marriage of old and new. Doesn't require a new groupset and opens up a world of modern wheelsets while still being dead simple to setup and maintain.
For me, the main reason for chain waxing is to reduce component wear - replacing that stuff is expensive. If there are also marginal efficiency gains, that’s a bonus. Admittedly the initial setting up is a faff, but subsequently it couldn’t be easier.
Have both rim and disc brake on my road bikes. I like both of them. But for my shredders (mountain bikes), no brainer disk brakes all the way. As for the shifting, mechanical shifters on all of my bikes. Ease of “grab and go”, no batteries to charge, can’t be hacked.
The #1 thing that people want from rim brakes is "thats how it was when i was growing up"... nothing else... the argument that they are more complex, is just a cover for "i dont want to learn how to adjust to this new technology"... its nostalgia for the sake of nostalga, and hate because people just dont like change
I agree to an extent, but never underestimate how much people will kick back against having their choice taken away, and effectively being told what to do. I love and prefer Disc, I will never buy a rim brake bike again so I shouldn't care, but I kind of do. I think it is because even though I don't really care about the end of Rim Brakes, there are other things that I (and possibly you) might not be so keen to see go the same way, I also love and mostly Prefer Di2/e-shifting, but I'm not so sure, in fact I'm pretty certain, as the owner of multiple bikes (N+1=Happiness), I'd not want them all electronic, at least as the tech stands right now, in the future when all the patents have expired and the manufactures have to stop artificially holding back on what I know computer controlled electronic servos are more than capable of for future upgrades, maybe.
Maybe it is not solely 'nostalgia' as you claim, and it becomes a co$t factor for some, since they already own a perfectly fine, functional, rim brake bike, and do not have the 'dentist's' (in the UK), or the hedge fund manager's (in the USA) disposable income to just drop on an insanely priced, new crunchy carbon disc braked wonder machine. By forcing disc brakes on everyone, with no choices at all, and not even offering rim brake wheels for those who must stay on those older bikes because they cannot afford the 1%ers' oriented grossly exorbitant price$ on new bikes, they take away the 'nostalgia' of even riding a bike for many.
Anything wireless can be hacked, and unless the vendor is serious about patching vulnerabilities as they are found, their devices should be considered insecure. The fact that each vendor are using proprietary protocols, closed source, and writing software is not their core competency means weaknesses are inevitable. In the software industry, we know security is hard, and generally we use off the shelf libraries rather than rolling our own code. Those that go proprietary (because secret is better, right?) generally come unstuck. The answer is an open standard for wireless shifting. Get the code in the open so that the Tefal heads can review/improve it. Of course this runs counter to SRAM and Shimanos competitive ethos.
I don't see comments about these two things: 1) the rim brake on the thumbnail is in open position... 2) most bikes are not top tier; as such, they don't use wireless shifting nor do they have hydraulic disc brakes Let's always remember this channel focuses on *racing* at the top level, as well as being sponsored by top racing components manufacturers. Analogic technology is not going to disappear any time soon.
Talking about hacking wireless shifters, does anyone remember Mavic's mektronic? I remember hearing stories of two riders with the same groupset but it wasn't shielded well, so the radio signal from the first person's shifter would reach the second persons derailleur and it would shift the wrong one! But we can all agree, the ultimate way to forever block the option of hacking gears is going back to mechanical
@@einundsiebenziger5488 You're thinking of the Mavic Zap, which was still wired. It might not be radio signals as the correct communication method, but Mektronic was wireless.
Almost all the rim brake bike that were purchased in the last 10 years are still around! They haven’t gone away!! I’ve 3 bikes. Campagnolo super record on one and Dura ace 9100 on the other 2. Great stopping power in the dry and wet. I don’t know why people keep banging on about not being able to stop on rim brakes in the wet, mine are perfectly fine.
...and the asinine wheel manufacturers who flat out refuse to continue to offer up rim brake wheelsets for all of those rim brake bikes still around are going to lose coin, BIG TIME! NOT all of those owners are going to rush out to buy (some cannot afford the frivolous 'luxury' of doing so) the ridiculously over-priced plastic fantastic junk they are hellbent on forcing them to buy in order to keep riding, and putting wheelsets under them.
The benefit of the wireless shifting isn’t that it’s wireless, it’s that it’s electronic, and therefore precise. The lever and the derailleur remain in-situ on the bike, they aren’t removed frequently, so what’s the benefit of it being wireless? It may as well be wired with a discreet cable which will hardly be noticeable, the functionality will be the same and the wireless hacking threat will be gone
I would disagree when you say it is hard to hack the bike, criminals do something similar with automobile key fobs all the time to rob or steal cars. All you need is to walk around with the receiver during maintenance to get the signal. It is no different than thieves walking around someone house to pick up an automotive key fob signal when you are at home.
GCN are not reading the room on chain waxing. Not everyone can wash their bikes outside. I switched to chain waxing because of apartment living, makes life so much easier and cleaner. Couldn't care less about the watts.
I don't have a lot of money for new bikes. My 20 year old Giant works just fine with rim brakes. Never had a problem that would dictate the need for disk brakes. And yes I can work on my own brakes!
honest question, if I may: don't rim brakes wear out rims for you? I have to change wheels every ~4 years, otherwise they might break when braking going downhill (happened to me once). Maybe I'm doing something wrong, though?
I have a Cannondale CAAD13 with mechanical 105. Rim brakes suit me where I live. There are no continuous climbs and descents enough for me to worry that my carbon rims will delaminate. I don't ride when its raining. The people I ride with have a mix of rim and disc brakes and no one complains that the rim brake people don't stop quick enough during the group ride. The biggest thing for me is that I can work on my bike myself. I do take my bike in for yearly once over by my local bike shop, but in between I do the maintenance, unless there is a special tool needed to do an adjustment or repair. I think the real problem is that we are not given the choice. Anyone paying $2000 or more for a bike should be able to choose what they want. That's the real shame.
Kind of missing the point that I don't need disk brakes. I have rim brake wheels that I love using. And if I want a new bike or frame for that matter, I'd like to have some nice options. And this has nothing to do with building a cheap bike.
I don't understand what the benefit of wireless shifting is for anyone in a bike race. It's heavier and can easily be hacked by anyone with $400 device. I mean thieves can unlock car doors by listening to key fobs on the hook behind people's front doors. Are we really waiting for some dude with malicious intent at the finish line of a bunch sprint to activate one of these devices to cause chaos and carnage when a simple wire defeats them?
I only ever ride my road bike in the dry. Rim brakes with good quality pads are more than good enough for my needs. I'm pretty sure this goes for the vast majority of recreational cyclists.
Rim brakes have always stopped me. I am not going to miss a bike rice because I failed to charge a battery. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. So I’m a rim brake and mechanical shifters vote.
Discs also allow for wider tires, carbon rims are less expensive to manufacture due to no brake track and carbon wheels don’t wear out as quickly for the same reason.
That last bike, I would say everybody dreams of a partner like Alex! That bike is just wow! Congrats Chloe! For the new bike, and for a wonderful husband. ❤️✌🏾
Re: hacking wireless shifters: You’re not thinking like hackers. I’d spoof the signals while the team mechanics are working on the bikes before the race, or between stages. I know that no one wants to believe that anyone would cheat at a bike race (tongue firmly in cheek), Shimano believe it enough to offer a software patch and promise an update. Retrogrouch smugness alert: no hacker is ever going to hack into my mechanical shifters.😁❤️
If you are going to have rim brakes, you also need cable shifting, to keep the price reasonable. I think that I'll keep my 7700 and 7800 bikes, until they fall apart. I don't need mountain bike cassettes on a road bike.
Yes, I feel like Colnago missed the ethos of why a lot of people are still using rim brakes: simplicity. Electronic-only shifting is kind of missing the point.
I bought a used bike with Ultegra 6700 di2 and rim brakes about 1,5 years ago. The bike is almost 10 years old, but still everything is working perfectly fine. The used market is awesome (and it was really not expensive) 🙂
But I have to say, in terms of simplicity, I agree with having cable accentuated shifting. Although I have never even had to touch the electronic groupset at all, there is always this fear of running out of battery in the back of my mind 😄
Come on guys, the number one virtue of a good rim brake is how stiff they are. Totally devoid of any flex. Then it's all about the brake pad selection as to how grippy they are and how well you can modulate them. Then with regards to the DI2 hacking, I figure the easiest thing would be that a spectator would just sabotage a section of a race just for kicks because it would be very easy to jam everyone's wireless shifting. Going back to wired shifting would be safer as would old fashion cable shifting. I'd be curious to know...During the Tour De France, how many shifter malfunctions there were during the race, requiring riders to have to change out their bike?
On the custom bikes, for me it's the green. Green is a wonderful color, and Biniam Girmay's green Cube was, for me, the sexiest bike of the Men's tour. The polka dots are fun on a cycling cap, but not a huge fan of the pattern on the jersey or the bike.
I love the stopping power of disc brakes, but that god awful wet weather squeal makes me question whether I would rather get hit by that car turning in front of me or listen to the squeal! I know some people will say that they don't squeal if set up right, but I watched the Olympic time trial with riders on the latest tech set up by pro mechanics and you could hear the squeal at the finish line from most rider's bikes.
Finding the fastest bike on a budget for racing that can be used for everything has meant I went rim brake. Aero aggressive frame that you can fit 28mm on to road race and TT would mean you'd spend at least double the money on a disk brake bike.
Heated seat and heated handlebars, love the idea. Also some tech for heated toes/feet - my addition. Would love this idea realised for Canadian winter! ✌🏾
I just built up a new rim bike bike. It's a Tsunami Weapon CR03, a steel bike from china with an oversized downtube, dropped seat stays and internal cables. I built it up with second hand 105 11 speed, an ultegra crankset I had laying around and second hand Bontrager Aeolus 5 with allow brake tracks. For the calipers I got definitely real, not at all fake cane creek ee brakes from AliExpress and with Kool stop salmon pads it stops great! I love rim brake but I'm keen to build something disc for better modulation.
How wide are those Aeolus 5 rims, both inside width, and outside?? I always thought that only some ancient Mavic (original Cosmic Cabones), Campy (Bullets), and one model of H.E.D.s made anything with an alloy braking surface with a carbon aero V section on them. ??
I"m not sure about the "difficulty" with maintaining disc brakes. New pads when needed, loosen then visually re-center the caliper if you get any rubs, and flush the fluid when needed. My disc brake bikes have usually been "set it and forget it".
I have two 12-speed Record gruppos waiting for a couple of frames I have on order. Campagnolo can be a challenge here in the States to find, but I (as of yet) will not switch.
The problem is that the C68 rim brake is *electronic shifting only*. Right now, I think Dura-Ace is the only rim/electronic groupset available new. Campag appear to no longer offer an EPS/rim option, and wireless is disc-only
Who actually thinks maintaining disc brakes is difficult? I bleed the pair once a year in less than 30 minutes. Changing pads takes less than a minute. Rim brakes are easy too but saying that discs are more difficult to maintain is a red herring.
The same people who can’t service disc brakes are the same people who also couldn’t service rim brakes. Rim brakes are more approachable, but a hydraulic brake is not high tech or advanced in any way. …It just requires a bleeding tool and some really basic understanding.
I think bleeding them requires more specialty tools, but doing it is really not hard at all. I have both rim and disc brake bikes and both are pretty easy to maintain
There's definitely a fear factor to learning a new skill you could mess up. For me, anyway. Until you've done it a few times. One thing for sure, though, is it can be fiddly getting the calipers exactly where they need to be to stop rubbing (and you need to do most of the time if you go to a different wheel set).
@@stuartdryer1352if you loosen the brake caliper bolts a bit, then apply the brakes, and while applying the brakes tighten the bolts again, the brake caliper is pretty well centered (check wear of the brakepads). 🙂
I rode my rim brake Giant Defy for 10 years. Bought a TCR in 2022, went for disc brakes, simply for the reason that I wanted to future proof my bike, and didn't want to be stuck for parts down the line. I do all my own maintenance, so I like rim brakes for the convenience, but disc brakes are much nicer to ride
I'm a fair weather rider who only occasionally gets caught in the rain.. I like the bike light as possible and easy to work on. Rim brakes are staying on my roadie for sure. my MTB has XT discs and I love them.. but the roadie just is lighter with rim brakes and I already own it , love the bike.. so that's all i need. And I also agree the polka dots is the coolest color jersey / bike combo with yellow right up on it's tail a close second.
Love disc brakes on my mountain bikes, but I'm still riding rim brakes on my road bikes. Trek makes a Domane frame with rim brakes and a Emonda frame that takes direct mount rim brakes. I know because I have one of each.
Rim brakes are lighter, more aero, mechanicly more efficient as a design with far less parts, cause they apply the stopping power in a much wider surface and close to the perifery of the wheel (that means less spokes and more stability during braking), more gradual braking with out locking, work better with alloy wheels that are easier to produce and are more affordable than carbon wheels of the same weight. Yes.. disk brakes cooperate better with carbon wheels. Yes.. disk brakes behave better in wet. But bike industry used them as an excuse to increase sales and bike prices. Before disk brakes (in road bike application), the price even for a super bike was half. The quality of the bikes was top or at least they were worthy of the money spent. With the excuse of evolution we were forced to buy expensive bikes with electronic groupsets (as if mechanical eleven speed 105, ultegra, Chorus, Sram Red, Sram Force, all compatible with the same eleven speed cassete were not good or enough) disk brakes and threaded bottom brackets (not being able to achieve press fit tolerances due to cheap production costs) carbon wheels, that in some cases proved to be dangerous (the hookles idea) due to the effort for even cheaper construction methods. I will continue to ride my light rim brake bikes with mechanical groupsets and when in need for an other bike I'll search for a bike with the same characteristics. A bike like those that gave the reputation to all these companies like Cervelo, Specialized, Bianchi and the rest. Reputation that they have abused for the shake of profit. With no respect to the ideals and the concept that they were established. Until the day that they bring the production in their homelands their names have no meaning. Bike industry's greedy behavior has to stop. There are some exceptions to be fair but the majority is not worthy of our sweat.
No great beef with disc brakes but have a couple of carbon bikes(Trek Madone) with rim brakes, the frames are great and I don't foresee any need to upgrade those. However it's rather galling that in time it appears replacing worn group sets or rims might be borderline impossible rendering the frame scrap(not a positive enviromental strategy for cycling)
I ride with rim brakes - especially made for me out of Carbon Fibre [60g/64g ahem]. The switch to disc brakes, it should be noted, has been industry led. In this instance think of the industry as a Sheepdog and you're the sheep! Also see Aero (if your not a racer it doesn't matter, if you are then weight is far more important given how much time you'll spend in the bunch). As for wireless shifting being externally influenced, that's neither farfetched nor new. As a Mavic Mektronic owner in the late nineties, I would occassionally fall foul of interference. For those who know East London, a hotspot was under the Bow flyover. There are cables underground on the roundabout that will interrupt the signal and change your gears. This happened to me several times. I finally changed back to Campag when, having locked out the rather backward friction system covering the chainrings as it was too easy to nudge the lever and de-align the chain. An action I came to regret when for the umpteenth time the system was interrupted. This time the chain stayed put in 11 (I ride a 56 chainring) with 18km to go. Happy days
