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Comment by prhn | Hacker News Reader

If you're not an avid cyclist please take this article with a grain of salt. It's largely understood that disc brakes are better, full stop.

A few guys in my cycling group who are still on rim brakes will not take the really fun descents, even when it's completely dry. They don't trust them. Pad fade, overheating brake surfaces causing de-lamination and popping inner tubes.

So, sure, if all you're ever going to do is ride on a flat surface in dry conditions rim brakes are fine, but not better.

It's arguable rim brakes are slightly more aero. I like my bones unbroken, so I'll take the penalty.

I also find servicing hydraulic disc brakes to be more intuitive. Having to fiddle with the tension of rim brakes' mechanical cables to get them just right was always much more cumbersome to me.

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I think this is one of those articles that sounds smart and convincing. And that's a small problem when smart and convincing nerd-snipes the crowd here.

I had a funny, similar problem when I got into sea-kayaking. There are so many videos on Youtube that you can watch, and they will make you think you're planning and preparing to get into a sea-kayak, but, not a single one of them give you any sort of clue what it's actually like.

This article is similar (and dissimilar) to those videos. It's similar in that it makes you think you're understanding more than you really are. Dissimilar in that this is basically some old grumpy guy trolling. Maybe they're like that friend who "thinks" we should've stuck to using C to write our applications, and that virtualization was a mistake. Now consider e.g. grandma. If you were a third-party with no background into the field, you would not be able to distinguish the person being serious from your troll friend who enjoys "debates" and creating arguments for argument's sake.

Maybe it's a lesson that smart doesn't go as far as we think it would. Domain knowledge matters. (And going back to that third-party and your troll friend, maybe that is why it's not so nice being managed by a non-technical person.)

> A few guys in my cycling group who are still on rim brakes will not take the really fun descents, even when it's completely dry. They don't trust them. Pad fade, overheating brake surfaces causing de-lamination and popping inner tubes.

That's a silly argument. The people crushing it on a downhill aren't using their brakes. I road/raced on rim brakes for decades and brakes were my least concern.

Interesting you prefer hydraulic specifically, even the disc brake zealots mostly agree mechanical is more reliable and easier to maintain.

This is absolutely the opposite of my experience and the experience of anybody I've ever met who has actually ridden a bicycle before.

My personal experience is that cable is easier to maintain and repair than hydraulics -- but it may very well be that I'm just used to repairing and maintaining cable brakes so that's naturally easier for me.

If you have the money to pay someone else to deal with the maintenance, then sure I guess. I do my own work and don't want to deal with bleeding brakes and all the extra tools that are required for that.

I'm at 16k miles on my current road bike and the only maintenance I've done on my hydraulic disc brakes is swap the pads, which takes five minutes and requires no special tools. I assume at some point I'll need to have the brakes bled, but a $50 service task every 20k miles is not actually a meaningful expense relative to everything else.

The problem with having a shop do the work isn't the expense, it's the time. At least in my area, bike shops typically have several days to a week of backlog, so if you take your bike in, you have to be prepared to not have your bike for a week or so.

That's a big deal for me.

All you really need is the brake fluid, a standard sized syringe, and a rag. I was concerned about this when putting together my first hydraulic brakes, but it turned out not to be any more complicated than cables. It's annoying but definitely worth it for the power of hydraulics.

For context, I know someone who claims this statement is only true if you use TRP mechanical disc brakes. The rest of the mechanical disc brakes is supposed to be garbage.

I'm with the op, once you get used to servicing hydraulic I find them easier in many regards and require less frequent adjusting.

Sure if you get a leak on trail you're screwed, but that has happened to one bike one time in my riding group over the last 10+ years. I will be happy to have a cable-free bike someday.

> once you get used to servicing hydraulic

In my experience with over 40,000km on Shimano hydraulics, the only servicing is swapping pads when the pad wear spring starts screeching against the rotor.

My early 2000 era Magura hyrdros were a bit shit and required a lot of maintenance and issues with sticking callipers, but shimanos made in the last 15 years are pretty much perfected and maintenance free.

As an overweight rider, I'd prefer rim brakes since they don't brake fade as quickly as rim brakes.

I can't even lock up the front tire on my last two bikes, both with hydraulic brakes. They just don't have enough torque.

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