Disc or Rim

You’ll be hard pushed to do it in the UK, the descents aren’t long enough really.

But as per the other comments, in the wet make sure you’ve got dark shorts on!

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Happened to a friend of mine descending from a hill climb effort, ( couple of minutes of steady braking down a 12% ) however, the origin of those wheels was questionable so could have been Chinese counterfeits.

It’s a load of utter tripe by people who cannot brake and don’t know how to ride a bike.

I am crap at descending, but have never considered that I need disc brakes. I can stop in the same time as disc brake riders. Dual pivot rim brakes, set them up correctly, get the toe-in correct and there’s no issues.

Rim brakes don’t squeal like a muthafreakin’ banshee, either.

The modern brake surfaces are much much better.
I descended a 10km “hill” - Cat and Fiddle - in an unforecast storm a few summers ago. I managed to get down at 24kmh. Usual speed is over 50kmh “down” that (there’s uphill parts and headwinds, so it’s quite a good one to descend, as you have to pedal a lot) :rofl:

Since that, I’ve got the newer Zipp Firestrike/Firecrest wheels with the textured brake surface. Coupled with SwissStop black prince and they’re fine.

It utterly pissed it down at IMUK and my PX front wheel with SwissStop Yellows and rear Mavic Comete disc with an Exalith brake track was fine. Sailed down Sheephouse lane no dramas both times.

I was reading about delamination over the weekend, as there’s a debate in our club for “larger” riders if they should upgrade to discs.
Zipp and Enve state that in over 100k wheelsets sold, none have been returned under warranty for delamination.

It ”anecdotally” occurs on Hunt or Prime wheels, which are £500 and not tested to ISO4210; which is equivalent to a 220lb rider stopping dead 30 times from 30mph.
Even at 1200W, with the brakes fully applied, it takes 5 minutes for the rim to fail.

Trek state they’ve had 2 failures from over 100k wheelsets. But you notice the wheel failing (noise probably, from the thread hitting the forks) and you stop.

There’s no catastrophic failure.

It’s utter bunkum.

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Great thanks. I figured as I’m below 70kg I’m already in a low risk category. :+1:

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In a very wet race like IMUK 2021 I was watching … disc breaks make a HUGE difference.

The five people I know who excelled all had discs and 70 psi tubeless tyres, the four who had nightmare bike splits had carbon rims and crappy brakes.

Under normal conditions in the UK there’s probs not that much in it.

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Youll be fine. Ive riden mine at 95kg on a hot summers day when I was training for Lanza and looking for every hill I could find. Had no issues.

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A friend of mine has blown 3 rims. He weighs 80kg and is a horrible descender, he runs the brakes, its pretty easy to blow a rim on a 15km, 1400m descent. He now has disc brakes and is getting through discs and pads at an alarming rate, but still cheaper than blowing a rim on each descent.

Regarding Pros causing spokes to fail, or Chris Fromes mechanic claiming that Pro’s overheat discs… utter utter BS anyone who is overheating a disc would be blowing their rim appart. Pro’s descend braking hard into the corner and releasing early, the disc will cool down no problem.

In the dry, I can descend as fast on rim brakes and disc brakes. I know its totally illogical, but I feel that I climb better on a rim brake bike.

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I’m definitely in the don’t need discs category but if I do push the button on a ‘proper’ bike around the 3k mark I’d probably go for them as an element of future proofing. If brands are really cutting back rims in their ranges then I’d just have a worry if I did have a problem in 3-5 years time it would be harder to sort. And the savings from cycle to work would, applying my financial logic, cancel out the increased costs compared to rims (even though rims on cycle to work would still be a few hundred cheaper obviously :smile:).

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If I do move to disc brakes on my next bike/TT then I would simply get my existing wheels rebuilt with disc hubs. I rather like my wheels

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Would that work? If you replace the hub, might you also need different spokes?
You’d then have a rims with an unrequired brake track?

Don’t disc wheels generally have to have more spokes too as the braking forces are transmitted along them from the hub?

I’m curious on peoples braking technique? Most of my riding on big descents is done on my disc braked gravel bike. Admittedly I like a down and would say I’m probably pretty quick on the downs compared to others. I pulse the brakes. I really don’t drag them at all. Its just something I’ve always done. I use the same technique on my rim braked TT bike but thats seen far less downhill action and no carbon rims or anything fancy like that.

This is what leaves me somewhat bugggered for a new bike. I have two wheel sets , both with powertap hubs, both rim brakes.

Most new bikes are disk and no one wants to buy rim wheels anymore.

Just read an article that suggest that spoke failure was due to disc brakes transfering more force to spokes as rim brakes transfer force directly to the tyre and no force to teh spokes… clearly the author know absolutely nothing about physics. The force under braking is between the contact point the tire has with the road and the hub, it doesn’t matter where the brake is positioned between the hub and the tyre, the force is the same… having just said that, there could be a slight difference as disc is just on one leg of the fork, if that leg of the fork bends more than the other then possibly there is an asymetric force on the spokes

Chris Froome’s mechanic did make a point that disc brakes allow the rider to brake harder and later into the corner, this would put more stress on the spokes. Since Rim brakes are perfectly able to lock the rear wheel or to throw a rider over the front, I do wonder why you can brake later with a disc, I suspect this may be due to a disc brake being much more consistent and progressive than a rim brake, so riders can brake closer to the limit without going over the bars.

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Why you singling me out, bruh? :kissing_smiling_eyes:

Feather. Feather.
Same as you, this is how I’ve always done it.

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:joy:

If people are dragging the brakes for long periods I could understand issues arising. Heat is going to build up. Feather, pulse etc gives the track or disc time to cool before the next pulse.

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If it’s wet, on a descent I do drag the brakes to keep the rims dry. I had one really scary descent in torrential rain, where the brakes simply wouldn’t work. I ended up descending at 10kph with brakes clamped down hard, my hands were really hurting by the time I got to the bottom

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Not exactly as it’s in the opposite direction, this explains it quite well and also other factors like the lack of symmetry in a disc wheel that compounds the problem. If that weren’t the case every manufacturer building disc wheels with extra spokes would be wasting time and money, something I’m sure they wouldn’t do unless it was necessary.
Spoke lacing for rim brake versus disc brake wheels – November Bicycles

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Having read that, I’m still absolutely lost on what he was getting at???

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Did you read the final question and answer at the bottom (Sept 19)?