81forest said:
Rim brakes can be adequate, but discs are better. Way, way better.
Nope. Instrumented tests by German bike magazines have demonstrated that only the very best disc brakes perform as well as normal rim brakes at energy dissipation, and unlike rim brakes they can't be upgraded with a heavier rim.
In the last twenty years, discs have developed better feel, and the low end of discs has become much less awful. But there's an insurmountable physics challenge for them. You can't make 150g of stainless steel with a low heat capacity and low thermal conductivity do the job of 1000g of aluminum with excellent heat capacity and thermal conductivity, especially when the aluminum is arranged in a rotor three times the diameter. Rim brakes
are disc brakes-- but with much bigger, much heavier, qualitatively better rotors.
I made the rim brakes in my photo, before Shimano V-brakes had even been brought to market. Nothing yet has come close to them; definitely not discs.