On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 9:30:44 AM UTC-7, Mark Reimer wrote: > > The big push for discs is because they work better, period. Some people > are happy to have brakes that work 'well enough'. Like I said before, if I > always rode in fair weather, I too wouldn't care about having discs. But if > you ride in snow, rain, wet mud, swampy terrain, etc, it becomes very > obvious, very quickly, how rim brakes fall short. >
I disagree that the big push for discs is because they work better. Discs are being pushed simply because manufacturers need something new and different to sell in this stagnate market. You, I and most people on this Google group aren't the majority of the customers for the bicycle industry. Make no mistake – we are the tiny minority of cycling nuts (I wear that badge with pride). The majority of cycling industry customers aren't pushing their bicycles to the limit. In fact, I suspect the majority of cycling industry customers won't be riding in the rain, and they won't be touring with stuffed panniers. They are the fair weather cyclists whose bikes probably won't even need a brake pad change while in their possession. These customers buy stuff because it's novel and cool, but not necessarily because it works better. A lot of them probably buy by bullet points – Disc brakes? Check. Minimum dual 5" suspension? Check. 27.5" wheels? Check. Wheels that can save 5 seconds off a 40-km time trial? Check. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but let's not fool ourselves by claiming that disc brakes are pushed because they work better. Indeed, manufacturers won't be bothered with disc brakes, if the target market only consists of people who can functionally benefit from them. And yes, I'm an all-weather commuter (albeit in Northern CA) who has two disc-equipped bikes, so I'm demonstrably not anti-disc. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
