The Great Braking Debate Thread (Disc/Rim/Cantilever/Fixie/InsertNewTechHere)

[MikeD]

^ which reminds me... my LBS gets broken into on a regular basis. Rim brake bikes never get stolen.

You mean bike shops actually have bikes in them? I thought you had to wait a year after ordering one.

[TobinHatesYou]

^ which reminds me... my LBS gets broken into on a regular basis. Rim brake bikes never get stolen.

You mean bike shops actually have bikes in them? I thought you had to wait a year after ordering one.

Real talk. At the very least Trek dealers are doing way better than Specialized dealers right now. R9200/R8100/Red AXS are insanely backordered, but everything else is trickling in.

From what I can tell of security camera footage, smash n grab bike thieves prefer stealing MTB.

[Mr.Gib]

One request of the mods, when you do ban someone, can you highlight the post that got them banned? Not only would it guide behaviour, it would also be fun.
Thought we were getting close there for a bit. One can hope.

[tomato]

Okay okay you guys got me. A 5k disc bike has more margin than a 15k rim bike. Or as you would argue "very similar margins".

Like I said, these threads are always ruined by the same posters being rude.

What the heck are you even talking about? You're the only one comparing $5k bikes to $15k bikes.

P.S. Profit margins are expressed as a percentage, so a $5k bike can very easily have the same or similar margin as a $15k bike.

[TobinHatesYou]

The point is Aethos is the most expensive by far. Aethos has gone back to simpler tube shapes, external cabling, comfort and most importantly light weight. However the trade off is extreme high msrp. Specialized has successfully trained the consumer full circle. It is universally loved for all the reasons which a rim brake bike can provide at much lower price.

Specialized charges whatever they feel they can get away with for high-end bikes. Period.

The Aethos is a halo product regardless of what type of brakes it uses. I bet a rim-brake Aethos frame would cost even more than a disc-brake one at this point just due to allocation and availability. They might make/sell a hundred in a year and brand it as a Heritage Edition or something, lmao.

Okay okay you guys got me. A 5k disc bike has more margin than a 15k rim bike. Or as you would argue "very similar margins".

Like I said, these threads are always ruined by the same posters being rude.

Who's being rude?

In the end, operating margin/net profit is what matters. "Lot time" also matters. Let's go back to an example I hinted at. My local shop had an Emonda SLR with R9100 mechanical on the floor for at least 6 months. In pre-Covid times, I bet shops would prefer bikes to have a lot time <60 days. Once a bike's lot time goes past that duration, there's a good chance it won't sell without a price reduction...you can also bake in interest lost over that period. So if that rim-brake Emonda SLR with R9100 is $6500 and the equivalent disc version is $7000, but it tends to sell immediately, which bike do you think a predatory salesperson is going to try very hard to sell you?

[RyanH]

Watch the tone people. Telling people they are confused or other similar things isn't constructive.

[GregR]

Frankly, all of this talk about profit margins on different bikes seems so irrelevant to me. It has little or nothing to do with the relative merits of either system. What a red herring.
Thanks to Ryan and the other mods for their hard work and patience.

[GregR]

One more thing. The implications that are being thrown around that all of us who are riding disc brake bikes are riding them because we have been influenced by marketing campaigns is pretty insulting, and isn't in keeping with what we all should believe about each other. Which is that we are experienced riders who have made thoughtful decisions about our equipment.

[TobinHatesYou]

Frankly, all of this talk about profit margins on different bikes seems so irrelevant to me. It has little or nothing to do with the relative merits of either system. What a red herring.
Thanks to Ryan and the other mods for their hard work and patience.

Not only is it a red herring, but openwheelracing's supposition that shops are driving customers to disc because of the price difference just doesn't add up. The goal is to sell more attachments, not more bike. One of the basics of bike retail is to put a couple bikes in the window displays, but actually keep the rest toward the back. Put grab'n'go style consumables and accessories closer to the door. People are going to want to see the bikes in the back, but their eyes will have to get past everything else on display too. Bikes don't make money, it's everything else that does.

[GregR]

We should not assume that people are buying disc brake bikes for reasons other than performance. I bought mine after a lot of thought about the pros and cons. (bought the frame online, so no salesperson)
My sister, who doesn't gaf about cycling media just bought a disc brake bike. I tried to present the pro rim case but she didn't want to hear it. Why? I let her take my bike out, and the braking was so much better than her (rim super 6 with etap) bike that she wanted disc for herself. It just is what it is. FWIW I think that she has relatively low grip strength and found that the disc brakes grabbed with really low effort.
This doesn't mean other people need to buy one or the other, just that people might decide for a variety of reasons. And just because we consume cycling media/propaganda doesn't mean less obsessed people do. (umm they don't lol)

[TourmaletteduFromage]

But Aethos is not rim brake, it is still a disc brake bike which is contradictory to lightweight.
So overall, I don't understand the meaning of Aethos.

I am in fact not interested in most of the road bikes nowadays simply they are disc brake.

Well if the made the Aethos with rim brakes, it's basically a SL5 for a lot more $..

[Stendhal]

Thank you to the moderators for creating this one-stop-shopping thread and trying best to moderate. IMO even though the brake debate has been adamant, it's actually been mostly constructive and not ad hominem. There's a lot worse on most sites!

Personally, I go back to a recent thread that stimulated this one -- the thread started by the poster who missed rim brakes. I thought his or her post was NOT demeaning or argumentative even though as you'll see I am on the other side; it was an honest observation.

I've switched from rim to disc over the past two years, now on both my bikes, and I do NOT miss the rim brakes bikes. Yes they were lighter but I perceive the disc brakes to be more reliable and powerful. (I am a large rider who values stopping power.) In addition, the thru axles add a stiffness that helps make up for the extra weight. Most of all, the disc brakes allow for wider tires. As referenced in another new thread on tire widths, wider tires help a lot on the poor roads in my area (Silicon Valley) and I bet many other areas. I now run 30 mms on one road bike (aero) and 32mm on the other (an all-arounder that is sub 16 lbs with pedals). I am not a racer but not a slug either. Perhaps there are rim brake bikes that allow for 30s but none come to mind and I've collected and reported on posted max widths in the past.

For rim brake fans, the future is unpredictable, but likely rim brake frames won't go away completely, just as carbon has not completely obliterated metal in frames. Specialized manufacturers will continue making rim brakes in order to serve the weight weenie market.

And now for a more controversial point, sorry! I happened to think about this because a member of my bike club owned a shop that carried the brand I'm about to describe, and my neighbor owns one. When I first started obsessing on bikes (2008 to 2010), road disc brake bikes were practically nonexistent. But it wasn't one of big bike companies that started what is now the movement to road discs; it was a tiny start-up (famously sued by a big name). Here are reviews noting that this brand was "one of the first road bikes to really take the whole disc idea head on" and "one of the first disc-specific road bikes":

https://www.bikeradar.com/reviews/bikes ... io-review/
https://road.cc/content/review/126219-v ... o-frameset
https://bikerumor.com/2011/07/07/initia ... road-bike/

Then again I just read that Schwinn sold disc brake Manta Ray bikes in the 1950s!

[G104xG320]

But Aethos is not rim brake, it is still a disc brake bike which is contradictory to lightweight.
So overall, I don't understand the meaning of Aethos.

I am in fact not interested in most of the road bikes nowadays simply they are disc brake.

The point is Aethos is the most expensive by far. Aethos has gone back to simpler tube shapes, external cabling, comfort and most importantly light weight. However the trade off is extreme high msrp. Specialized has successfully trained the consumer full circle. It is universally loved for all the reasons which a rim brake bike can provide at much lower price.

Is it possible that rim brake will be more expensive due to its quantity in the future?
People who want rim brake will have to go through customization or special order.
The tendency shows that disc brake overflows and rim brake goes rare.

[mrlobber]

Hardly any of the big manufacturers produce rim brake bikes anymore while the resale value still has plummeted obviously. That's why I will keep the couple of excellent ones I have as long as they don't break, use them for nice weather riding and so on.

[Flasher]

So were disk brakes introduced onto road bikes for the benefit of cyclists?