With regards to your specific situation, I would stick with rim brakes unless you think you’ll have a large disc brake arsenal in the foreseeable future.

I’ve seen the new Evo rim brake. Very clean, slick bike.

I believe I can safely say I ride my bike as much or more than about anyone and will ask this question. What maintenance in regard to hydro? There really isn't any. I blow mine out with compressed air every so often. I have over 10K outdoor miles on my Madone this year still running the original pads. About 21,000 miles ridden total. All on hydro. Some on MTB, some on gravel. No issues. And I swore I'd never ride disk brakes....ever. And here I am.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

I’ve build about 7 bikes from the frame up in the past ten years. The most recent one was hydro disc. I did find it to be more challenging than all of the rim brake bikes, and maintenance and adjustment is a little ‘harder/more time consuming”

That said, with YouTube videos and the right tools (namely a bleed kit and stuff to true the rotors) it really isn’t bad. If you’ve been doing lots of other work on bikes you should be able to figure it out without too much heartache.

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Matt

Bleeding brakes
Changing pads
Trying rotors
Adjusting brake pad spacing when putting a different wheel on for the first time
....Probably something I’m missing

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Matt

Bleeding brakes shouldn't really ever be a thing unless you have a poor initial bleed or pull the hoses on an internal route bike. In my experience anyway.

Pads last forever. Maybe not so much if you put on huge miles and live in the mountains.

I don't think good rotors really go out of true. I haven't had issues, but I also run 140mm rotors and I bet smaller diameter rotors are less susceptible to tweaks.

I have had rotors touch when switching wheel brands. So....yes....that's a thing for sure or can be. 1 minute adjustment per caliper just like a rim caliper :)

I really don't see drawbacks vs. caliper brakes...but it is different and must be learned.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

I'm in the market for a new bike but holding out on disc brakes as long as possible. I love them on my cross and mountain bikes (one mech, one hydro), so I know how to work on them and wouldn't buy a rim brake version of either, but I'm still not sold on their necessity in the tri world. While rim brakes are marginally easier to maintain (Omega x for me), my main driver is not giving up my stable of race wheels. ETA: Travel. I'm not sold on traveling with hydro discs just yet. Maybe if my wrenching skills get a little better.

I do about 95% of my own bike work at home and I think hydro disc brakes are great. They are essentially maintenance free, and then I'll take them to get worked on if I can't do it myself, but that's only a rare event. Last time I was at the shop, they showed me and my son how to center the pads if they get misaligned. Like most bike stuff, turns out it was super simple.

In this recent intervention on Spanish TV: Mario Mola says he prefers rim brakes because they are easier to maintain while traveling. Plus your race is not over when you flat. He claims changing a disc brake wheel takes 30-40 seconds whereas rim brake is much faster.

When someone asks a question I like to make sure they are well educated of all the possible things that are worth considering

Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in people who have either a really great or really bad n=1 experience

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Matt

A potential issue I've had (but in a MTB race) is a rotor coming loose. Not exactly easy to field service, but with centerlock they can't come out and still work! Yikes.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

I'm kind of in the same boat right now. My team has a incredible deal on Trek bikes and I'm considering a Madone. The problem I have is that it will be a lateral move aerodynamically, a down move weight wise, and my wallet will be lighter even still compared to my rim brake S5.

I honestly can't imagine not having a rim brake bike to travel with. It's just easier to break down and parts are cheap and readily available. I don't have to worry about a rotor getting put out of true either.

I guess no one has made a good enough argument for me to change.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

These are the valid reasons: existing wheels and travel. A lot of the new bikes with internal routing making travel with them hard.

I'm about where everyone else is. Have disc on my gravel bike and MTB, but not ready for road disc. They're still a bit heavy and when something goes wrong it's a major pain in the ass in comparison, and I still have a bunch of nice rim brake wheels to use up.

As an example on the maintenance front, the rear caliper failed a few months ago on my MTB, which BTW was a mess because all the fluid leaked out, and also meant I had no rear brake for the rest of the ride! Replacing it requires an hour's work fiddling, and another small mess, so it's been hanging on the wall unused ever since. Meanwhile I swapped 100% of the parts from one rim brake frame to another this weekend in under an hour. The brakes took a total of a minute or two, for both, and I ultrasonic cleaned them in between so now they're shiny new!

Another thing to think about: just think how many cheap used rim brake wheels are going to be out there over the next couple years. Prices are going to plummet! Bet there will be some really good deals on top end stuff to take advantage of.

That said, it seems like the industry is committing heavily to disc, so unless that blows over I'm sure I'll reluctantly end up there with everyone else. I'm sure they will get better.

Thanks for all the responses everyone. From what some have said, I guess I was thinking the brakes would need more regular maintenance. Maybe I overestimated.

In regards to current wheelsets and travel...I don't travel much with my bikes, any I've ever done has been in a car with the bike in the back or on a rack. Wheelset wise I just have a cheap training set on my CAAD10 and Flo 60/90 for my tri bike so I'd be going with whatever wheels come with the bike. If I got the rim brake, I'd maaaaaybe upgrade wheels due to the savings from the bike.

Thanks for the insights!

My only caveat with the disco world is that most triathletes travel/fly with their bikes more often than most folks. Pretty much a monkey and a multi tool can make rim brakes work good enough for 90% of triathlons. A ruptured line, bent rotor, or a person without decent mechanical skills can be in a bad way with a messed up disco on the bike in a far away place and short on time. Don't like too but I do work on my disco rigs.

Why would your race be over if you get a flat and have disc brakes?

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IG -frebay | Strava

I've now gone 2 1/2 years with a road bike with disc and haven't had any issues with changing pads and disc. I haven't had to bleed the brakes yet so I guess that shows how little maintenance there is. I went on a long 2 week tour riding in the Pyrenees averaging 10k feet and 100 miles per day so the brakes really were pushed to the limits. One guy went through a set of pads, but mine were still OK. I did bring extra pads which are really easy to change.

My first year travelling with my bike did bend one of the disc. I guess I didn't pack the bike very well. The next time I removed the rotors and no issues with them. Very easy to remove so might as well do it.

I'm not going to bother replacing my tri bike with a new disc brake model so I hope to take advantage of used wheel sets someday. Also my favorite road bike has rim brakes and I like that bike so much I can't imagine getting another high end road bike.

Wow! I guess my thinking was way off.

I bought a nice road bike with disk brakes. They are less of a hassle than I thought. A little noisy.
On the road I don’t feel I need them.
If I had my choice, rim brakes work really well and are easier. If you want to learn something new, go disk. Not a big deal either way.

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Team Zoot So Cal

The one nice thing about the disc Madone and SuperSix is the ability to run pretty huge tires because you don't have to worry about getting the tire through the brake caliper. This turns your aero road bike into a killer gravel racer. I can't do that on my rim brake Madone.

Not even remotely would I do rim over disc for maintenance. For any reason actually. But maintenance for sure

According to him because it takes much longer to change a disc-brake wheel than a rim-brake wheel. He actually implies disc-brake wheel race over. Rim-brake you *might* still have a chance.

Huh

They are both quick release usually. I put mine on and off my tacxt neo a few times a week

It takes seconds.

What could he possibly,mean?

To be fair...that's not necessarily a function of rim brake vs. disc, but more of the actual design of the bike and the equipment selected by the designer. Just wanted to point that out.

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