'It's time we stopped using rim brakes'

Warren Rossiter argues the tech has had its day, after sorting through his overstocked garage

- Warren Rossiter

The whole ‘save the rim brake’ thing is getting so old. Read the comments section under any lightweight modern road bike we test, and you'll see someone pipe up about a bike they have, or had, that’s lighter and somehow therefore better than the one that’s just won the Tour at record-breaking pace. It’s like a film website posting a list of films you can still get on VHS.

Bikes and wheels are now made with cutting-edge aerodynamic features, freed from the constraints that rim brakes put on design, including the need for narrow rims with a flat braking surface (affecting aerodynamics), limited tyre sizing and baggy cable routing.

Moreover, the argument that, somehow, an older road bike with rim brakes, which has a low weight, is therefore better, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The improved braking performance of discs doesn’t come with a significant weight penalty any more.

Look at this year’s Grand Tours – Tadej Pogacar's Colnago Y1Rs from the Tour de France weighed roughly 7kg. And the new Cervélo R5, which Pauline Ferrand-Prévot used to win the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, is available in complete builds with weights as low as 5.97kg.

The ‘save the rim brake’ crowd seem to focus on how good these brakes once were rather than how bad they are compared to discs. Sure, rim brakes worked well on alloy wheels and were easy to maintain. But on carbon rims? I'll come back to that.

I was inspired to write this while recently organising my stupidly overstocked garage, as part of the process of digging out an old mountain bike for an upcoming, out-there gravel conversion idea.