Disc brakes v Rim brakes - Food for Thought

[M-Power]

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2018/07/ ... im-brakes/

Always been a fan of Cantis over V brakes. Properly set up with the old Shimano 2mm cable stuff and Aztec pads, it’s more than powerful enough to send me over the bars and so easy to modulate. I love my Paul V brakes too but they are no more powerful and tbh more flexy than the former Cantis. Its interesting what tandem users say about disc brakes in the ‘comments’ section at the end of this article.

 

[legrandefromage]

These are just nuts in use -SRP Mr Grumpy cantilevers, great modulation and good mud clearance

70g a side excluding pads

 

[legrandefromage]

I'll get this in early before we're shouted down by the frothy mouthed disc brake users*

*I had early Hope hydraulics in 1995 and they were great but that was going from low pro cantilevers which were shite.

 

[RickTheUncivil]

Re:

Agree that you can set cantis up as good as v's, and I agree that you can get the same power and feel from a rim brake as a disc with the right setup. For me some of the big advantages of a disc brake are:

Wet: ride through a big muddy puddle and tell me your rim brakes are working at their best. Discs being higher off the ground are less likely to get mucky.

True rims: with a perfectly perfect rim there is no problem but the slightest dink and the brakes can grab, rub etc. With a disc brake a slightly out of true rim is an inconvenience but more manageable. Granted it is possible to bend a disc rotor but I never have in use.

Just me?

 

[M-Power]

Re:

We want this thread to stay friendly We can all see the pros of disc brakes as you say Ricktheuncivil, especially in those conds. I dont ride my bikes in heavy gloop these days and with ceramic rims, aztecs or Scott M blocks and correct set up like LGF ( love those perfect cable angles ) i have never had any issues. Im preaching to the converted on here though and we are expert on setting things up ‘right’.

Tbh a lot was made of cantis being hard to set up correctly bitd, hence the move to V brakes but even my Paul V brakes can be more bother to keep fettling than earlier top end cantis.

 

[tintin40]

i found disc brake just over kill for a 26er. rim brakes either canti or V once set up are more than good enough to stop a mtb fast enough to send you over the bars with plenty feel and feed back. But i can see why the 29er makers wanted disc. The large heavy wheel just needs the extra stopping power. The extra power of disc has made the need for extra strong wheels on the brake side.
A small light wheel needs less force/energy to stop it.

 

[bolly]

Re:

Think you just have to use your common sense if you think you don't need disc brakes then you probably don't so why go to the expense of buying some. For me you don't need them on a fully rigid mtb with narrow tyres as your probably not riding the type of trails and carrying the speed to need them but on a bike with suspension and larger tyres you do

 

[Thias]

I like my Maguras very much, thank you.

Disk brakes are great, but they do have their disadvantages. Compared to Magura rim brakes, that is, in my case.
The setup is a pain on both, but I am used to the maguras. The rubbing on all my rim brakes is a non issue.
With disk brakes, I had much more problems regarding that. Going fast downhill and braking until the disk is really hot, puddle of water splashes onto the disk -> bent -> scrubbing noises until you buy a new disk. On some disk brakes I had the problem, that they started rubbing when hot. Some of them had their disks bend a bit, some of them had their brake fluid expand when hot. That then made the brake pads close a little bit and that caused the rubbing. And I hate to ride with a front wheel going "hhling hhhling hhling" all the time.
Changing the pads on disk brakes can be a real pitb. And they do not last too long. I had a pair of shimano pads that didn't even last 2000km...

On the pro side: The "forces" needed to operate them are really tiny. One finger - bam! Like throwing an anchor.
I wish I could tune my Magura rim brakes to that level...

But then again - I don't really need that kind of braking force. I'm not Danny McAskill

 

[T'boo Ted]

I always found that a perfectly set up canti was better than a perfeclty set up V... but getting a perfectly set up canti is like some black are to me and I could only do it by accident, where as getting V's set up well was fairly easy* and a good V is better than anything other than a perfect canti.

Also cantis with Scott Mathuser pads in the wet, no problems at all, they still stop great.

When I first got some XT disc, I had lots of issues, they were grabby and I jsut didn't like them...until I started using 1 finger braking, then suddenly perfect. It's not so much that they are more powerful, it that they have loads of power from a light and easy touch, so less fatigue on the long/tech descents. I still quite happily ride on V's no issues, but discs are better.


*Unless I'm tying to set up anything but my old XT parallel brakes on my Xizang, then it's all just poo.

 

[xerxes]

Re:

For ease of set up and general lack of faff, I think it's hard to beat V-brakes. However, with disc brakes, in addition to the added power, modulation and wet weather performance, I like the idea that, in theory, your rims could last forever.

Obviously there are some caveats, I've had decent V-brakes that easily out-perform some crummy disc brakes I've tried and no rim is completely indestructable.