Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Nuh-uh, everybody should fit double-wall MTB downhill wheelsets to their road bikes! What's a couple of hundred grams per wheel extra weight and ZERO aero between friends?
If you're benchmarking against time improvements, the payoffs are often very slim. The old rule still applies: the rider, not the bike, makes the ride.
And yet the sum of all those differences (including the rider's!) can be quite large in terms of endurance. Human endurance is grossly non-linear versus power output. For example: you might be able to ride all day at 150 W but only an hour at 175 W and perhaps ten minutes at 200 W.
So when you're operating at a chosen speed (keeping up with people, which gives you a tremendous boost, or at a minimum climbing speed) and that puts you somewhere near that steep knee in the curve, a small reduction in required power can have tremendous endurance benefits.
Five watts saved in the right place? That can save you hundreds of watt-hours on the day.
Wheel update because it's like 17 F / -8 C here and my office with all the computers is the only comfy place to drink coffee:
1. Inspection of the cleaned rim showed two possible cracks at the spoke drill holes. Due to the deep recesses inside, I (and two machinist friends) can't tell if they're real cracks or just in the paint. Time to carefully strip a little paint and see! God help me if I have to dye pen test this thing.
2. I finally ordered a cheap USB microscope so that I can take pictures of these sorts of little fun things. First world problems.
3. I may have also ordered a set of 2017 Reynolds Assaults from the shop up the road from my brother.
Look, I had a moment of weakness and they were a good deal! :redface:
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Okay, so my plan is to go to my bike shop this weekend and work with the guys there on my new bike for my cycling trip -
Here's the thing. I don't want to get caught up in "well you HAVE to have ____ because it's the BEST", but the bike I'd decided was more or less what I wanted is the Diverge E5 Comp, which is apparently nigh impossible to locate here in Singapore. In fact, the one place I've found where you can get Specialized in town appears to sell them at a 2K markup (accounting for the exchange rate), and fuck that.
So what I'm going to try to do instead is make a list of the details that are important to have (disc brakes, aluminum frame, etc) and then have the bike shop dudes help me out building something that fits the bill. I don't want to get talked into stuff I don't need, or into leaving things off that will actually make life better.
Help? What details should I make sure to have, and what isn't so important? What brands for various parts are the ones to go with over others, in y'all's experience?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
0
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
If you're benchmarking against time improvements, the payoffs are often very slim. The old rule still applies: the rider, not the bike, makes the ride.
And yet the sum of all those differences (including the rider's!) can be quite large in terms of endurance. Human endurance is grossly non-linear versus power output. For example: you might be able to ride all day at 150 W but only an hour at 175 W and perhaps ten minutes at 200 W.
So when you're operating at a chosen speed (keeping up with people, which gives you a tremendous boost, or at a minimum climbing speed) and that puts you somewhere near that steep knee in the curve, a small reduction in required power can have tremendous endurance benefits.
Five watts saved in the right place? That can save you hundreds of watt-hours on the day.
I dunno, when I upgraded my dumb ol hybrid to carbon fibre road, I decreased my overall travel time by over ten percent.
Okay, so my plan is to go to my bike shop this weekend and work with the guys there on my new bike for my cycling trip -
Here's the thing. I don't want to get caught up in "well you HAVE to have ____ because it's the BEST", but the bike I'd decided was more or less what I wanted is the Diverge E5 Comp, which is apparently nigh impossible to locate here in Singapore. In fact, the one place I've found where you can get Specialized in town appears to sell them at a 2K markup (accounting for the exchange rate), and fuck that.
So what I'm going to try to do instead is make a list of the details that are important to have (disc brakes, aluminum frame, etc) and then have the bike shop dudes help me out building something that fits the bill. I don't want to get talked into stuff I don't need, or into leaving things off that will actually make life better.
Help? What details should I make sure to have, and what isn't so important? What brands for various parts are the ones to go with over others, in y'all's experience?
I tend to think of a bike purchase as "things that are hard / expensive to replace" and "things that are easy / cheap to replace". Like if you get a bike that's awesome but has a crappy seat: no big deal because seats are trivial. If you get a bike that's awesome but the entire rear cluster sucks: that's fixable but going to be considerably more expensive.
So I'd say you're on the right track and it sounds like your hard-to-change requirements might be:
a frame that fits you very well that's well-built
aluminum frame
disc brakes
Here's a cut-down version of my "so you're going to a bike shop and want to buy something like X?" guide I've used before. You can do most of this on the web in most markets.
Important at purchase-time because they're $$$ to replace and have a big impact on your interface with the bike:
a frame that fits you to a t - you can make a nearly-there frame fit you with stem and seat adjustments but you can't make a almost-nearly-there frame fit you at all.
frame that can do what you intend to do - Can it run the width tires that you want? Can it carry the number of bags and water bottles that you want? Can it survive your intended terrain? Is the steering fast or slow enough for your intended use? Is it stiff enough / too stiff for your tasks? Does it need to regularly get shipped to your destinations? Etc.
good shifters and derailleurs (groupset) - Expensive to change and crappy shifters are a constant emotional wear on the road
the right chainring (front) gearing range - cassettes are easy to change (within some range of gear spacing) but fronts may require new cranks, derailleur moves, etc.
do you like it - this seems silly but you'll never be happy with a color you really dislike or a shape that just looks wrong to you. There are too many bikes out there to suffer.
Moderately important:
handlebar width and shape that's right for you - bars aren't *that* hard to replace but it's not a minor job
wheels - can they handle your intended use? Bikes come with fairly inexpensive wheels but they'll serve just fine unless you're trying to take tiny climbing rims down bomb drops
Simple things you can change without much hassle:
seat - bikes almost always come with the cheapest possible seat to keep the price down. The seat is also one of the most important parts of your interface with the bike, so start searching for a better one soon.
pedals and shoes - likewise, if your bike comes with pedals then they're probably tin crap. They're your third interface to the bike, so they matter a lot (but there's a huge range of individual preference).
cassette (rear gears) - as long as you stay within the range that the rear derailleur supports, you can change your gearing back there in a few minutes.
accessories like lights, bags, locks, mounts, etc.
Let's say that you're going to end up in a shop that's a Trek / Specialized / Giant / etc. dealer. They're going to have predominantly one big brand with a ton of selection within it. They may also have some other brands. Let's not worry about that. Just to have examples to work with, let's say you've arrived at a Trek dealer.
Rank them on the website by (non-sale) price. This will get you a good approximation of quality tiers. The bottom tier is almost always going to have sacrificed a lot of component quality to get the price as low as possible. (I do not recommend it!) Think: brakes that work but feel crappy; shifters that work but feel imprecise and sometimes require fiddling; shocks that work but poorly compared to the next tier up. The top tier is almost always going to be spending a lot of money on small returns: double the price of a component to shave off 10% of the weight; that sort of thing. (Again: do not recommend.) Somewhere in the middle the price curve still gets you a lot of return (nice parts) for small incremental investment. There you'll find your bike.
Now apply your price range limits and see what falls in there. Leave yourself a some money for things you'll need: helmet, lights, pedals, etc. Which bikes are left? Well...
Customizing the "important" ($$$) stuff above is essentially impossible. Most bike shops can't afford that (but it depends on your local market). Customizing the "moderately important" ($$) stuff above is doable but is going to be pricey, so usually not worth it. Customizing the "simple" ($) stuff is easy and normal. Since almost everything different about the bikes in your range is going to be practically unchangeable ($$$/$$) like shifters and brakes and fork, you're probably going to end up picking the nicest (read: most expensive) bike in your price range. Or maybe a step down if the incremental improvements aren't that good for you.
This is basically going to be your decision tree in the shop: here are the one or two brands they carry; here's the increasing tiers of "niceness" of parts; pick a cost tier where you're comfy with the price/component trade-off; make sure bike fit can be adjusted to work with your body and style; go to next bike shop that carries another brand and repeat; agonize over the fact that you can't get bike X (which you love) in the same color as bike Y (which is the most gorgeous purple). Or maybe I'm the only one who does that last step.
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Thank you SO much, that is extremely helpful. It's definitely the track/assumption I was working with already, but it really helps me to refine what to compromise on and what not to, and what not to worry about so much.
(I definitely am extremely bummed that Specialized are impossible to find here, because I love the berry/mint color combo sooo much. Also I got my tires replaced on my commuter recently and they didn't have cream tires available and I am still sad about it because they look so much prettier with the maroon paint...)
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
(We used to have to spray down the chain, derailleur, and cassette with WD-40 or T-9 right before a ride. Nice runny oily coating to keep things from sticking as long as possible. Strangely enough, it seemed to work best if we sprayed, waited five minutes, and then went rather than spray-and-go. I'm guessing the solvents just weren't hot enough to quickly evaporate if we just rolled straight out into the winter.)
It's not as bad as it seems just to have it being all snowy like that -- current bike parking at work is in a cage in an an outdoor parkade, so it's protected from the snow but still outside. So the bike sat like that all day pretty much unchanged, which is fine, because it's cold enough that it won't melt. It's when I've brought bikes inside and the salt stops being suspended in snow and turns into salty water sitting directly on the metal that things get iffy.
For example, the fixed-gear that I rode through winter when I had indoors parking wound up with the front chainring looking like this about halfway through winter while I was still riding it and putting oil on all the time -- it was squeaky but still rideable, it looks worse than it actually was to ride:
When it got too cold and I stopped riding and oiling it, but still parked it at home in the garage (so car warmth kept the snow semi-liquid at times), the real trouble hit, and the chain wound up like this:
Also, while in theory there's bike lanes on an increasing number of streets around here, when it gets snowy the bike lanes don't always wind up being cleared as well as you might hope, or, rather, they're where the snow gets cleared into from everywhere else. In these pictures, there _are_ marked bike lanes, and if it wasn't snowy, you'd be able to see them. As it is, you'll have to take my word for it that it's between the red lines:
(first one the bike lane is right on the edge of the road; second one there's a lane of "parking" between the red and green lines, and to be fair those aren't exactly super useful for cars at this point either)
+3
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Goooood lord. o.o
I love living in the tropics!
Hey quick question as I continue to stew over what bike to buy - is there such a substantial difference between disc brakes and rim brakes that I should let it be a major factor in which new bike I ultimately buy? (full disclosure, I like the color options of the rim brake versions of the possibilities more and everything else is the same >.>)
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Discs have better stopping power, especially if it's frequently wet where you live and while you ride. Downside is that they are heavier, more expensive and a little more finicky to adjust (allegedly, I've never maintained a bike with discs and only rode one around for maybe 5-10 minutes) than rim brakes. Some purists will argue about aesthetics or some other bullshit but I'd ignore those folks. I went with rims because they were cheaper and I was already spending too much on my bike. It all boils down to what makes you happy and gets you out on your bike though, that is by far the most important factor!
I got discs after some consultation with bike people, but honestly I don't think I do enough hill biking for it to matter too much. They're also supposed to be better for the wheels in a hard-stop scenario, which factored into my decision because of the psychotic drivers and narrow roads around here.
Your bike trip is in the nederlands/northwest europe, yeah? I think in your position I'd go with the rims for weight, cost + ease of maintenance.
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
I will never buy another bike with rim brakes again.
They're not bad, but the difference between the best rim brakes and average hydraulic disc brakes is glaringly obvious. My own bike has some pretty nice downhill-spec MTB disc brakes on it (well, for 2007 anyway), and they're fucking magical.
A spare set of disc pads is small enough be popped in your wallet, too. Hell, you could hang them off a necklace. You won't need any on a new bike though (I've only had to fit new front pads, the rears are still only about half worn), and maintenance on a nice new well-bled disc brake system is going to be zero.
Hydraulic disc brakes are likely going to add at least a couple of hundred dollars to the cost of a bike, though. Avoid mechanical disc brakes, they're cheaper but they just add a bunch more moving parts to fail and also the cables are going to need adjusting!
+1
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Discs have better stopping power, especially if it's frequently wet where you live and while you ride. Downside is that they are heavier, more expensive and a little more finicky to adjust (allegedly, I've never maintained a bike with discs and only rode one around for maybe 5-10 minutes) than rim brakes. Some purists will argue about aesthetics or some other bullshit but I'd ignore those folks. I went with rims because they were cheaper and I was already spending too much on my bike. It all boils down to what makes you happy and gets you out on your bike though, that is by far the most important factor!
If your wheel is centred properly, the disc is mounted straight, and your caliper is mounted correctly, there is no adjustment required with hydraulic disc brakes. They are self-adjusting, just like the disc brakes on cars.
speaking of rim brakes. I took my bike on a very hilly very rainy 5 hour ride yesterday with rims that were really pushing it for how worn out they were. Could definitely feel something was really off when I was braking, but didn't really have much of a choice but to brake as hard as I could a bunch with how shot my stopping distance was on steep declines due to the rain. When I got home I saw that I had built up a little ball of metal shavings where my front rim had been rubbing the brake shoe metal despite there still being rubber left because of just how concave they had gotten. Time for new wheels!
If I was shopping for a new bike I'd definitely be looking at disc brakes. I do wonder how the costs compare over time, I could definitely see them being cheaper in the long run for someone like me just from your wheels lasting longer
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Time for new wheels could also be time for disc brakes, on the front at least (if your forks have caliper mounts)! A base model set of Shimano hydraulic disc brakes is like $75 here in Australia if you fit them yourself, so it should be cheaper in the 'States.
Rim brakes are still cheaper, lighter, longer-lasting, lower maintenance, more reliable, and allow simpler wheel lacing.
Disc brakes are better in the wet and muck, work better for heavy riders and loads, and allow some sophisticated wheel designs that rim brakes exclude.
If you're buying a downhill, trail, or cargo bike, go disc. If you're buying a pure road bike, commuter, or tri bike, probably go rim unless the above disc benefits help you. Anything else in between (all-road, gravel, touring, etc. etc. etc.), it'll depend on the specifics: use model, cost, what builds are available, what kind of wheels you want to run, etc.
ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Rim brakes are easier to maintain sure but I disagree they are lower maintenance than disc. As hallet mentioned, quality discs are self adjusting and though more complicated mechanically they require maintenance less often.
Around here in southwest Virginia, at least, I see a good mix of rim and disc brakes and by FAR the disc folks spend more time attending to their brakes. Rim brakes we set up once and then basically forget about them for 50 000 km or so. Every 5 000 km reach down and turn the adjuster a half turn or something. (For CF rim brakes divide that by about 5.)
Discs are awesome but they're infinitely more complicated. There are just a lot more moving things with smaller clearances and parts which have to work perfectly. You have to pull the wheel to replace pads, etc. Rim brakes are a lever that pulls a cable which pulls a lever with a return spring.
It would be a miracle of I could get that sort of mileage out of my parts in Vancouver, Canada. Riding year round with lots of rain and hills puts on some wear and tear.
... I just remembered I should really replace my chain before spring.
You can check how worn out is with a ruler (assuming you don't want to replace it due to other issues like being rusted to hell). Depending how worn out other stuff is you may want to consider replacing the other parts of your drive train along with your chain, as a new chain with a worn cassette (and to lesser extent chain rings) can cause slippage issues
The cassette looks ok for now, there's just a little stretch in the chain. Normally I'd keep trucking with it, but the dudes at the uni bike workshop thought if I replaced it now I'd get a longer life out of the rest of the drive train, and I tend to defer to them on this stuff.
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
I gotta replace my cassette and chain on my commuter.
In other news, new bike bought! Went with the Surly Disc Trucker, not the newest model because I am extremely shallow and the older model was still available in blue. I like blue a lot! Literal only difference in the specs is the seatpost, which I am led to believe can be replaced if for some reason the older model's is awful and I hate it.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
I have used clips in the past, like... two or three times.
I hate them.
I hate those dumb shoes and I hate clicking around like I'm walking on two of those metal stress balls after I get off the bike.
Soooooo I can't decide if they will really make my life exponentially better by investing in, once I'm used to them, or if I should just let my hatred burn and not.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
+1
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Around here in southwest Virginia, at least, I see a good mix of rim and disc brakes and by FAR the disc folks spend more time attending to their brakes. Rim brakes we set up once and then basically forget about them for 50 000 km or so. Every 5 000 km reach down and turn the adjuster a half turn or something. (For CF rim brakes divide that by about 5.)
Discs are awesome but they're infinitely more complicated. There are just a lot more moving things with smaller clearances and parts which have to work perfectly. You have to pull the wheel to replace pads, etc. Rim brakes are a lever that pulls a cable which pulls a lever with a return spring.
There are fewer moving parts in a hydraulic disc system than there are in a rim brake system, and they're better protected from the ingress of foreign materials. The lever, the master piston, the slave piston, the pad. There's no cable to stretch or get gunked up with muck. There's no arms to adjust and lube. There's no manual adjustment for pad height or angle. There's no manual adjusting for pad wear. There is zero wear on the rims themselves. And discs are more powerful and perform much better in wet conditions.
Honestly I've given up, because I'm a big dumb klutz and I hate having to fuss with my shoes
For the last few years I've been using a mostly-metal pedal with a plastic support* and a lightweight cage clip I took the straps off, to give me some hill leverage. It's been working really well, and means I don't fall over when coming to an unexpected stop in a high stress situation, which is always a bonus.
*because the all-metal ones do a number on my shoes
Posts
Generally speaking, it looks like you can buy yourself about 15% speed overall with lighter more aero bike + skinsuit + aero helmet / etc.
As for wheel weight, they'll certainly help with acceleration, but as per , even in a climb, a 1 pound difference in bike weight saves you ~2.5 seconds on a mile of 7% hill, which is not an awful lot. (though the measurements there are fuzzier)
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
And yet the sum of all those differences (including the rider's!) can be quite large in terms of endurance. Human endurance is grossly non-linear versus power output. For example: you might be able to ride all day at 150 W but only an hour at 175 W and perhaps ten minutes at 200 W.
So when you're operating at a chosen speed (keeping up with people, which gives you a tremendous boost, or at a minimum climbing speed) and that puts you somewhere near that steep knee in the curve, a small reduction in required power can have tremendous endurance benefits.
Five watts saved in the right place? That can save you hundreds of watt-hours on the day.
Eh, carbon is more comfy than aluminum. Light alu is quite often harsh, thus why I only have steel and carbon bikes.
1. Inspection of the cleaned rim showed two possible cracks at the spoke drill holes. Due to the deep recesses inside, I (and two machinist friends) can't tell if they're real cracks or just in the paint. Time to carefully strip a little paint and see! God help me if I have to dye pen test this thing.
2. I finally ordered a cheap USB microscope so that I can take pictures of these sorts of little fun things. First world problems.
3. I may have also ordered a set of 2017 Reynolds Assaults from the shop up the road from my brother.
Look, I had a moment of weakness and they were a good deal! :redface:
Here's the thing. I don't want to get caught up in "well you HAVE to have ____ because it's the BEST", but the bike I'd decided was more or less what I wanted is the Diverge E5 Comp, which is apparently nigh impossible to locate here in Singapore. In fact, the one place I've found where you can get Specialized in town appears to sell them at a 2K markup (accounting for the exchange rate), and fuck that.
So what I'm going to try to do instead is make a list of the details that are important to have (disc brakes, aluminum frame, etc) and then have the bike shop dudes help me out building something that fits the bill. I don't want to get talked into stuff I don't need, or into leaving things off that will actually make life better.
Help? What details should I make sure to have, and what isn't so important? What brands for various parts are the ones to go with over others, in y'all's experience?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I dunno, when I upgraded my dumb ol hybrid to carbon fibre road, I decreased my overall travel time by over ten percent.
Satans..... hints.....
I tend to think of a bike purchase as "things that are hard / expensive to replace" and "things that are easy / cheap to replace". Like if you get a bike that's awesome but has a crappy seat: no big deal because seats are trivial. If you get a bike that's awesome but the entire rear cluster sucks: that's fixable but going to be considerably more expensive.
So I'd say you're on the right track and it sounds like your hard-to-change requirements might be:
Here's a cut-down version of my "so you're going to a bike shop and want to buy something like X?" guide I've used before. You can do most of this on the web in most markets.
(I definitely am extremely bummed that Specialized are impossible to find here, because I love the berry/mint color combo sooo much. Also I got my tires replaced on my commuter recently and they didn't have cream tires available and I am still sad about it because they look so much prettier with the maroon paint...)
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
subject: my ride to work today
body: I'm sorry
Fresh snow is fine, but this is 95% road salt, pretty much. Also, I guess now I know why I couldn't stay in the two gears below top:
(We used to have to spray down the chain, derailleur, and cassette with WD-40 or T-9 right before a ride. Nice runny oily coating to keep things from sticking as long as possible. Strangely enough, it seemed to work best if we sprayed, waited five minutes, and then went rather than spray-and-go. I'm guessing the solvents just weren't hot enough to quickly evaporate if we just rolled straight out into the winter.)
For example, the fixed-gear that I rode through winter when I had indoors parking wound up with the front chainring looking like this about halfway through winter while I was still riding it and putting oil on all the time -- it was squeaky but still rideable, it looks worse than it actually was to ride:
When it got too cold and I stopped riding and oiling it, but still parked it at home in the garage (so car warmth kept the snow semi-liquid at times), the real trouble hit, and the chain wound up like this:
(this was as bad as it looks)
(first one the bike lane is right on the edge of the road; second one there's a lane of "parking" between the red and green lines, and to be fair those aren't exactly super useful for cars at this point either)
I love living in the tropics!
Hey quick question as I continue to stew over what bike to buy - is there such a substantial difference between disc brakes and rim brakes that I should let it be a major factor in which new bike I ultimately buy? (full disclosure, I like the color options of the rim brake versions of the possibilities more and everything else is the same >.>)
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Your bike trip is in the nederlands/northwest europe, yeah? I think in your position I'd go with the rims for weight, cost + ease of maintenance.
They're not bad, but the difference between the best rim brakes and average hydraulic disc brakes is glaringly obvious. My own bike has some pretty nice downhill-spec MTB disc brakes on it (well, for 2007 anyway), and they're fucking magical.
A spare set of disc pads is small enough be popped in your wallet, too. Hell, you could hang them off a necklace. You won't need any on a new bike though (I've only had to fit new front pads, the rears are still only about half worn), and maintenance on a nice new well-bled disc brake system is going to be zero.
Hydraulic disc brakes are likely going to add at least a couple of hundred dollars to the cost of a bike, though. Avoid mechanical disc brakes, they're cheaper but they just add a bunch more moving parts to fail and also the cables are going to need adjusting!
If your wheel is centred properly, the disc is mounted straight, and your caliper is mounted correctly, there is no adjustment required with hydraulic disc brakes. They are self-adjusting, just like the disc brakes on cars.
I haven't had to touch my mountain bikes brakes (avid elixirs) in literally years, aside from popping out pads and slotting in new ones
My road bike's rim brakes (shimano sora) have needed way more fiddling, fettling, and adjustment
If I was shopping for a new bike I'd definitely be looking at disc brakes. I do wonder how the costs compare over time, I could definitely see them being cheaper in the long run for someone like me just from your wheels lasting longer
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
Disc brakes are better in the wet and muck, work better for heavy riders and loads, and allow some sophisticated wheel designs that rim brakes exclude.
If you're buying a downhill, trail, or cargo bike, go disc. If you're buying a pure road bike, commuter, or tri bike, probably go rim unless the above disc benefits help you. Anything else in between (all-road, gravel, touring, etc. etc. etc.), it'll depend on the specifics: use model, cost, what builds are available, what kind of wheels you want to run, etc.
Discs are awesome but they're infinitely more complicated. There are just a lot more moving things with smaller clearances and parts which have to work perfectly. You have to pull the wheel to replace pads, etc. Rim brakes are a lever that pulls a cable which pulls a lever with a return spring.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
You can check how worn out is with a ruler (assuming you don't want to replace it due to other issues like being rusted to hell). Depending how worn out other stuff is you may want to consider replacing the other parts of your drive train along with your chain, as a new chain with a worn cassette (and to lesser extent chain rings) can cause slippage issues
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
In other news, new bike bought! Went with the Surly Disc Trucker, not the newest model because I am extremely shallow and the older model was still available in blue. I like blue a lot! Literal only difference in the specs is the seatpost, which I am led to believe can be replaced if for some reason the older model's is awful and I hate it.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I hate them.
I hate those dumb shoes and I hate clicking around like I'm walking on two of those metal stress balls after I get off the bike.
Soooooo I can't decide if they will really make my life exponentially better by investing in, once I'm used to them, or if I should just let my hatred burn and not.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
There are fewer moving parts in a hydraulic disc system than there are in a rim brake system, and they're better protected from the ingress of foreign materials. The lever, the master piston, the slave piston, the pad. There's no cable to stretch or get gunked up with muck. There's no arms to adjust and lube. There's no manual adjustment for pad height or angle. There's no manual adjusting for pad wear. There is zero wear on the rims themselves. And discs are more powerful and perform much better in wet conditions.
For the last few years I've been using a mostly-metal pedal with a plastic support* and a lightweight cage clip I took the straps off, to give me some hill leverage. It's been working really well, and means I don't fall over when coming to an unexpected stop in a high stress situation, which is always a bonus.
*because the all-metal ones do a number on my shoes