Di2 or disc brakes?

thegreatdivide

shamrock134 wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

why? absolutely nothing wrong with rims in the "mountains".

It's just my opinion. There is also nothing objectively wrong with disc brakes in the mountains (or on the flat ). I guess bleeding them can be annoying.

Personally, I'd go for discs to avoid rim wear, avoid overheating/delamination if you decide you want blingy carbon rims and also no worries if you do get caught in the rain at the summit. I value these things over having Di2 with its poor button ergonomics.

Delamination - this hasn't been an issue for rims for an age now. Maybe a knock of Chinese copy, but for the big players it's a thing of the past. Same for overheating and popped inner tubes.

Wet weather performance - I can assure you that the breaking on my Bora's is about as good as it gets for carbon rim brakes. Easily on a par with discs on a road bike. They'll stop me in any situation. I can hurtle off the back of the Madeleine and carve the corners on the way down to La Chambre in the baking sun, or off the Colombier in torrential rain. No issues whatsoever.

shamrock134

thegreatdivide wrote:

Delamination - this hasn't been an issue for rims for an age now. Maybe a knock of Chinese copy, but for the big players it's a thing of the past. Same for overheating and popped inner tubes.

Wet weather performance - I can assure you that the breaking on my Bora's is about as good as it gets for carbon rim brakes. Easily on a par with discs on a road bike. They'll stop me in any situation. I can hurtle off the back of the Madeleine and carve the corners on the way down to La Chambre in the baking sun, or off the Colombier in torrential rain. No issues whatsoever.

I have rim-brake Boras too and have used them in the Pyrenees and Gran Canaria without issue. I'd still choose disc brakes if I lived exclusively in a mountainous area.

I also have electronic shifting and whilst it's nice and luxurious, I think I could probably live without it considering how good mechanical shifting is.

Ultimately, he will just have to sift through our opinions and decide what he values. There is no correct answer.

ugo.santalucia

YiannisM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

Resale value its just one point its my opinion, and not my main argument. Wider tires, and safety are. Plus you can always upgrade to Di2, but you cant upgrade to disc brakes.

What safety? He says he never rides in the wet...

It seems that you dont have ride disc brakes else you wouldnt question that. Rim brakes are pretty good, but not as good as disc, and i dont think that is debatable.

I was riding road disc brakes long before you joined this forum... had my first pair in 2010.
If they were so much better and safer in dry conditions, then surely all Grand Tour contenders would want to use them... I'm still waiting to see any of them... and that includes wet stages!!

Matthewfalle

shamrock134 wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

why? absolutely nothing wrong with rims in the "mountains".

there is absolutely nothing wrong with mechanical shifting.

completely agree 100%. this exactly.

bianchimoon

Matthewfalle wrote:

shamrock134 wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

why? absolutely nothing wrong with rims in the "mountains".

there is absolutely nothing wrong with mechanical shifting.

completely agree 100%. this exactly.

The 10 year old veloce mech shifting on my Bianchi is 'very poor' never been any good, whereas the Di2 on my Cervelo S3 is sublime, would change it to EPS in a second if I could justify the cost

shamrock134

We're talking about mechanical Ultegra R8070 though.

yiannism

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

Resale value its just one point its my opinion, and not my main argument. Wider tires, and safety are. Plus you can always upgrade to Di2, but you cant upgrade to disc brakes.

What safety? He says he never rides in the wet...

It seems that you dont have ride disc brakes else you wouldnt question that. Rim brakes are pretty good, but not as good as disc, and i dont think that is debatable.

I was riding road disc brakes long before you joined this forum... had my first pair in 2010.
If they were so much better and safer in dry conditions, then surely all Grand Tour contenders would want to use them... I'm still waiting to see any of them... and that includes wet stages!!

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

ugo.santalucia

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

I am the average Joe and I can't recall an instance where coming down a col in the Alps or Pyrenees I wished I had better brakes. That includes a very wet week in the Pyrenees, when we came down the steep Portet d'Aspet in a deluge.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

If you want to talk about a filthy British winter and the consequences on rims, that is a different matter, but not one of interest to the OP

Matthewfalle

bianchimoon wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

shamrock134 wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

why? absolutely nothing wrong with rims in the "mountains".

there is absolutely nothing wrong with mechanical shifting.

completely agree 100%. this exactly.

The 10 year old veloce mech shifting on my Bianchi is 'very poor' never been any good, whereas the Di2 on my Cervelo S3 is sublime, would change it to EPS in a second if I could justify the cost

thats because its a 10 year old veloce with 10 year old shifters

as ther dude said, latest Ultegra would also be a revelation.

trying to compare apples to hippos.

Matthewfalle

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

I am the average Joe and I can't recall an instance where coming down a col in the Alps or Pyrenees I wished I had better brakes. That includes a very wet week in the Pyrenees, when we came down the steep Portet d'Aspet in a deluge.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

If you want to talk about a filthy British winter and the consequences on rims, that is a different matter, but not one of interest to the OP

exactly as ugo said. he's actually never said anything more correct. this gets 11/10 on the correctness scale.

haydenm

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

Why would you need to pull the brakes at a different time?

ugo.santalucia

HaydenM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

Why would you need to pull the brakes at a different time?

I don't know... YiannisM seems to be convinced there is such a big difference in performance, if that was the case, then you can brake later...

haydenm

ugo.santalucia wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

Why would you need to pull the brakes at a different time?

I don't know... YiannisM seems to be convinced there is such a big difference in performance, if that was the case, then you can brake later...

I'm not necessarily agreeing with YiannisM but if you can brake later and more effectively then it is basically just better (at braking).

For the record, the silly inline aero rim brakes on my silly aero bike are better than the 105 discs I used in Tenerife. Neither are as good as the expensive discs on my nice mtb, even my cheap mtb ones are on par with the aero bike (probably heavily skewed due to the massive extra tyre contact/grip on the mtbs). I bought the nice aero bike based on the deal rather than the brakes though. I'd be quite stuck if I were in the OP's scenario

ugo.santalucia

HaydenM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

You know that you cant compare the average Joe with the grand tourers isnt? the same applies for our bikes too.

Now, if you are below average Joe and can't judge when to pull the brakes before a hairpin due to inexperience and therefore FEEL safer with disc brakes... that is your problem, rather than Joe's problem.
I have no reason to judge the OP incompetent...

Why would you need to pull the brakes at a different time?

I don't know... YiannisM seems to be convinced there is such a big difference in performance, if that was the case, then you can brake later...

I'm not necessarily agreeing with YiannisM but if you can brake later and more effectively then it is basically just better (at braking).

There is no evidence of them being better. That said, safety is not about having better brakes, but it's about knowing your brakes.
I have a 1980s bike which I keep in Italy... every year the first ride it takes me a couple of hairpins to get used to the different, likely worse brakes, after that my brain adjusts and the bike feels and effectively is just as safe as any other more modern bike with whatever fancy hydraulic system you can imagine.
If you know your bike and you have a bit of experience in descending, having "better brakes" is completely pointless... paradoxically, it is more dangerous to have "better brakes" if you are not used to them... I know I can feather my rim brakes even very late whilst turning, without crashing... can I do that with "better brakes" and to what extent?

Bottom line, better brakes are no substitutes for knowing how to brake and they are not safer (they might be if you like to draft cars in traffic)

northpole

I rather imagine that if I were riding out in the back end of beyond in Mexico I would feel more comfortable with a mechanical group set. No great thoughts about disc vs rim other than I suspect within a few years of the pros switching, most if not all new bikes will come with disc brakes. It's a good way for the industry to reinvent itself. But a decent Shimano mechanical groupset will just keep on working reliably and, should a glitch occur, usually very easy to repair. Not so with Di2.

Peter

rdt

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Your idea that rim brakes are facing obsolescence is not supported by the reality... the slice of the market with disc brakes will stabilise probably around 50-60%...

Out of interest, what % of £1000+ *new* road bike sales do you estimate will have disc brakes in 5 years time?

A conservative guess from me would be >50%, with >75% quite possible. In 10 years time, I'm guessing >90%. I could be wrong.


--
NB £1k adjusted for inflation as the years go by...

ugo.santalucia

rdt wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Your idea that rim brakes are facing obsolescence is not supported by the reality... the slice of the market with disc brakes will stabilise probably around 50-60%...

Out of interest, what % of £1000+ *new* road bike sales do you estimate will have disc brakes in 5 years time?

A conservative guess from me would be >50%, with >75% quite possible. In 10 years time, I'm guessing >90%. I could be wrong.


--
NB £1k adjusted for inflation as the years go by...

50-60% and it will plateau there. However, I suspect those figures will never become available. The closest thing would be for Shimano to release data on how many disc Vs non disc groupsets they churn out.

As someone pointed out upthread, getting rid of rim brakes would reduce the stream of revenues, which would be a silly thing for the industry to do.

bianchimoon

Having read through all of this I have come to the learned conclusion, that the answer is Di2 based on the fact that
A) it is silly for the average Joe to leave his braking till so late he is a danger to himself and every other road user
99% of his braking will be subtle modulation to allow him to get round the next bend or stop at a cafe or junction (if you get into the other 1% territory doubt a disc brake will help that much
C) I have some rather natty red Fizik RB1 shoes that could get slashed in a pile up with those razor sharp disc brake.

neeb

Electronic shifting is like electric windows in cars. It's kind of nice to have, but they're not going to make the car go any faster or even change what you can go with the windows. It's slightly easier/less hassle overall to operate electric windows but there are one or two situations where you might wish you still had wind-up ones. Electric windows are very reliable in general but if they DO stop working it's a major hassle.

thegreatdivide

neeb wrote:

Electronic shifting is like electric windows in cars. It's kind of nice to have, but they're not going to make the car go any faster or even change what you can go with the windows. It's slightly easier/less hassle overall to operate electric windows but there are one or two situations where you might wish you still had wind-up ones. Electric windows are very reliable in general but if they DO stop working it's a major hassle.

Bad analogy. How many new cars come with electric windows now?

pilot_pete

neeb wrote:

Electronic shifting is like electric windows in cars. It's kind of nice to have, but they're not going to make the car go any faster or even change what you can go with the windows. It's slightly easier/less hassle overall to operate electric windows but there are one or two situations where you might wish you still had wind-up ones. Electric windows are very reliable in general but if they DO stop working it's a major hassle.

Can’t think of any occasion when I have wanted wind up windows over powered. When do you want them? The only time I had problems with an electric wind up window was on the wife’s Discovery, which, when it got to ten years old the metal rods in the door inners which transfer the spinning of the motor into an up and down movement of the window had a weld that failed. Stripped, tack welded it back together and replaced, problem solved. Since then I have found the reliability of electric windows to be faultless on every car I have owned.

Major hassle? Exactly the same hassle - you (or more likely the garage where you have your car repaired) will have to diagnose the problem (for either type). Probably have to strip the inner door panel off (with all that entails for manual or electric) and then replace the faulty part(s) be that a knackered winder mechanism, electric motor or damaged wiring etc etc. Then they have to put it all back together.

Granted it may cost more if an electric component is the faulty part, but once diagnosed I can’t see where all this extra hassle is.

And if you have ever installed it, di2 is a doddle. I’ve been running it for 4 years on two bikes and never had ANY sort of fault on either. I ride about 6000miles a year and I reckon I can count on both hands the number of charges I have had to do with the di2 batteries.

My non-electronic winter bike however has had a number of inner and now outer cables, required regular adjustment and often gunks up and requires deep cleaning to remove all the crud from the bottom bracket cable run.

My previous best summer bike running Campagnolo Chorus/ Centaur mix had constant shifting problems, especially the front shifter cable running under, then up through the bottom bracket housing of the frame to the derailleur. It never shifted perfectly and the shifters themselves had a wear issue with the spool which allowed the cable nipple to protrude and foul the inside of the shifter housing causing constant bad shifting, especially the rear. Repaired twice in five years. Eventually got rid and lost faith in Campagnolo.

PP

neeb

Pilot Pete wrote:

Can’t think of any occasion when I have wanted wind up windows over powered. When do you want them?

I kind of miss being able to slightly adjust the exact width of the gap at the top of the driver's side window using the handle, instead of toggling the electric buttons back and forth (which always seems to be a little hit & miss, shooting over and then back again). Also it's mildly annoying sometimes having to turn on the ignition just to operate the windows..

Pilot Pete wrote:

Major hassle? Exactly the same hassle - you (or more likely the garage where you have your car repaired) will have to diagnose the problem (for either type). Probably have to strip the inner door panel off (with all that entails for manual or electric) and then replace the faulty part(s) be that a knackered winder mechanism, electric motor or damaged wiring etc etc. Then they have to put it all back together.

But the way in which each is likely to fail and what you can immediately do about it is different. Manual windows can get a bit tempermental if they are old, but they rarely fail completely without warning. I'm fairly confident that if a mechanical window stopped working in the middle of nowhere with pouring rain forecast I could find some way to get the window back up again (even if it meant removing the inner door panel in a worst case scenario). I couldn't say that about an electric window. And if the battery's flat and you have to spend the night in the car somewhere you're completely stuck with electric windows..

Pilot Pete wrote:

And if you have ever installed it, di2 is a doddle. I’ve been running it for 4 years on two bikes and never had ANY sort of fault on either. I ride about 6000miles a year and I reckon I can count on both hands the number of charges I have had to do with the di2 batteries.

My non-electronic winter bike however has had a number of inner and now outer cables, required regular adjustment and often gunks up and requires deep cleaning to remove all the crud from the bottom bracket cable run.

Yeah, I suppose electronic groups are a bit more fit & forget, and that's a good thing. Mechanical ones do need regular tweaking and intermittent more significant attention. I don't find it a deal-breaker though, I suppose I'm just used to it. Like I said, electronic gears are nice and generally more convenient - but for me at least, not so much that I really need to have them.

neeb

thegreatdivide wrote:

neeb wrote:

Electronic shifting is like electric windows in cars. It's kind of nice to have, but they're not going to make the car go any faster or even change what you can go with the windows. It's slightly easier/less hassle overall to operate electric windows but there are one or two situations where you might wish you still had wind-up ones. Electric windows are very reliable in general but if they DO stop working it's a major hassle.

Bad analogy. How many new cars come with electric windows now?

You mean how many don't? Yes, they are now ubiquitous I suppose. But TBH, I could do without them.

green_mark

I wouldn't upgrade to either Di2 or discs. Not yet anyway. I'm waiting until I can operate my brakes via my smartphone.