mike wrote:
On May 7, 2:26 pm, Tosspot wrote:

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

In article . com,
mike wrote:

What are the benifits of disk brakes over V-brakes, other then the
disks do not get as wet on the trails?

After the recent run-in with a dog on a downhill stretch of trail, I
am now in the process of replacing my rims and brakes on my mountain
bike, and am looking into the possibility of going disk.

My areas of concern with moving to disks, is the weight differences,
as well as the stopping range between none, and fully locked. My
current V-brakes are easly able to lock the tires up, even at a speeds
over 30mph.

From my understanding, V-brakes should be able to provide a larger
range of control over the disk (based on the diameter of the wheels,
over the diameter of the disks).
Is this incorrect?

Any insight into this?

The confounding variable you are not considering is that discs can be
set so their pads run very close to the discs, thus allowing massive
leverage ratios. This makes every other variable (modulation, lever
effort) a lot more flexible

Around here, the freeriders praise the easy modulation, light effort,
and consistent action (which I think is largely a function of staying
drier and less muddy than rim brakes) of discs. The current trend seems
to be to prefer cable-actuated discs over hydraulics, mainly for
maintenance reasons I think.

Eh? I thought (I'm no expert here) that hydraulic disk brakes actually
had *less* maintenance than their cable counterparts. No cable stretch,
no need to lube, no frayed ends. I'm assuming mineral oil of course.

My objection is a bit more philosophical, I don't like my braking
surface to be a part of the wheel structure and anyway, disks have so
much more bling!

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I believe that the "bling" factor is more a reason to aviod disk
brakes.
As for hitting the dog, the brakes might have been a little too
touchy. After the whole thing, I looked back up the trail, and could
see the 10+ feet long marks where I had both tires locked up. In the
end, the dog faked left, and went right.

The reason I am looking into the brakes, is that I have had to replace
a good part of my steering components and front rim (handlebars, stem,
headset...), and figured that this would be a good time to consider
alternatives to the current hardware.
The bike is 7 years old, and at the time of purchase, I could not
afford disk brakes (college student).

shrug My mountain bike has Hopes, my commuting bike no-name V's (but
they are well setup), to be brutally honest, they're ain't much in it in
terms of braking, I might even go so far as to say the V's are better,
but I'm not *dead* confident I got the Hopes set up correctly.

So, for me, and this imho, for pure braking, then I'd say nothing in it.
To go to discs you need other reasons, maybe particularly muddy
trails, maintenance, you can ding a rim without affecting braking (or
even crisp one), and of course the aforementioned bling.

As I said, I'm no expert.