Rim brake road bikes becoming rare

Quote from the rider - he likened them to “giant machetes,” adding, “I’ve been lucky: I didn’t get my leg chopped off, it’s just some muscle and skin. But can you imagine that disc cutting a jugular or a femoral vein? I would prefer not to.” - hysteria.

The funny thing was it was his left leg got cut and he claimed he rubbed his leg on his opponent's rotor while they were riding which was odd given that the rotor is on the left hand side of the bike so this couldn't possibly have happened unless he unclipped and slung his leg over his opponents back wheel.

They're blue now I think? I think the older green ones were the ones that worked well in the wet. Now I think it's just alloy pads, don't remember a distinction for wet braking. Big upgrade over 105 pads in my opinion.

Started cycling during lockdown myself, never ridden rim but seeing the prices of second hand bikes I'm tempted to switch. I've been racing a 105-spec disc brake bike and for a similar used value bike I'd be looking at a bike 1-1.5kg lighter. How much difference in braking performance will I notice, given that I'll use it exclusively in the dry though on carbon pads/rims?

They would definitely be better, I mean if they weren't then what the hell would the entire endeavour have been about at all. That's their undeniable upside. But the downsides imo of increase in weight, expense, maintenance complexity and, for the want of a better word, apparent finickiness lead me to want to stick with rim brakes.

As well as the fact that, like yourself, I don't have an issue with the braking performance of my run braked bike. If disc brakes are excellent at braking then I would say rim brakes are very good. Very good ifms good enough for me.

Then there's the aesthetic aspect to it.

Look, to each his own is what I say, buy what you like and all that. What really irks me is being forced to buy a disc braked bike through the industry's strong-arming obscelescence of rim bikes/frames/wheels.

While I'm not a big fan of disc brakes and am a rim brake purist, I'd agree with Weepsie about obsolescence in the industry. People probably said the same thing about handlebar shifting, clipless pedals, non-quill stems etc when they first came about. Added cost, complexity, weight, and maintenance for objectively small performance benefits, and I would never go back to any of those things now. Saying that I won't be changing to discs until I'm forced to and will be holding onto rim brakes until Shimano pry them from my cold lifeless hands.

Main advantages of discs I find (in order):

• Better braking on wet roads (esp vs carbon & rim combo)
• Can fit wider tyres
• No wear on rims

Main advantages of rim (in order):

• No bloody noise (I really hate how finicky road disc set up is to avoid rub and/or squealing)
• Lighter
• Simpler

I think the above pro’s and con’s have a different ‘value’ to everyone and if you’re running aluminium rims or carbon rims the relative advantages/disadvantages weigh differently.

I love the extra stopping power of discs and all day comfort of wider tyres on that set up. I also love the lightness and simplicity of rim brake bike which just feels faster.

Would be great if industry kept both options alive but I think rim brakes are on the way out. If shimano can sort the disc noise issues (which I think is to too low clearance between pads and also potentially frames holes not being exactly square) then I would be happy to go all in with them. I expect that the weight issues will be sorted on another couple of years.

As someone with both (and several different disc bikes at this stage) - I'd fully agree with this as a summary. I've got a 5k bike with disc brakes and when it works everything is great but I've had to adjust the front brake far too many times to stop it rubbing. I'm considering trying a new caliper even.

On the other hand I've a bike I bought second hand nearly new with rim brakes for about 850 which is lighter and on a dry day, just as good in almost every way (aside from only taking 25mm tires)

Yeah it's often game over if the pads get contaminated however if you hold them with a pliers over a blue gas flame for about 20 seconds it will burn off any contaminants and then give them a quick sand in a circular motion they can be as good as new.

One benefit to discs is not having an ugly braking surface on rim brakes. I ordered a SwissStop cleaning pad which loons like some sort of sandpaper eraser block which will apparently make it look like new. We'll see...