[gorjusborg]

The problem is the mindset behind the choices.

You don't need disc brakes. You don't need carbon frames, or even aluminum ones.

These things are marginally better performing than their predecessors, but we want things to get better and better forever. That is exactly what makes it unsustainable.

We'd be better off settling for good and sustainable than best and unsustainable. That's all.

[harha]

Well you don’t need disk brakes until you do when the car pops up in front of you.

There’s a bunch of people who would gain more from losing weight than whatever the marketing department of the bike company tells them, but it’s great to have this choice. I’m having just as much fun cycling as I do reading up on the tech and tinkering with my bikes, that’s time I’m not spending on being interested in cars.

[derbOac]

I'm not going to vilify disc brakes because it's good to have choices and disc brakes are a good option.

However, I've always had this hunch that if you were going to actually quantify the percent of times in which the stopping time difference between a rim brake and disc brake actually was the deciding factor in serious cycling accidents, my guess is it's very very very low. That is, my guess is the car appears so suddenly it doesn't matter what brake you have, or the accident would have overwhelmingly been best prevented by approaching the intersection differently to begin with, or it doesn't involve another vehicle at all, but instead involves loss of cyclist control.

I guess it's not so much the disc brakes I take issue with, it's how new bike markets seem to lurch from one new component type to another so completely without serious weighing of actual costs and benefits in use. So you end up in this situation where new bikes all have disc brakes without rim brakes even being much of an option anymore. Even when people are interested in them and have legitimate reason, the dynamics of the bike market is such it pushes them away from it.

I guess I feel like something is different about the current bike market compared to other markets I'm familiar with. It feels to me like there's this market pressure due to various factors (bike manufacturers, sellers, cycling community discussion dynamics) toward some form that's hyperoptimised for use cases that aren't realistic in general. Maybe this has always been the case -- the skinny tires of the 1980s were pushed using unrealistic theories and test conditions -- but my sense is it's getting worse overall.

[harha]

Oh yeah fully agree some things are just silly and not having the option for rim brakes isn’t good either, if you live somewhere dry and safe you’re probably better off with nice rim brakes than cheap mechanical disk brakes that aren’t properly adjusted.

Another annoying one is internally routed cables.

Some good things do happen though, e.g. thru axles, small and light TPU inner tubes.

[gorjusborg]

Yeah, I agree. I don't think we should stop improving things, and I don't think we should stop leveraging solutions we have come up with. I would say, be honest with yourself about what you need and understand that you are making trades.

Don't reward companies that want to push disc brakes (for instance) as a reason to ditch something that fits your purposes.

It's easy to cherry pick scenarios where a piece of tech would save you over the alternative, but life is holistic. We can adapt. The first step is to decide that it is worth trying to.