It’s all about set up and appropriate parts choice- the OP doesn’t know how to set up a good troll, and he’s chosen terrible material to do it with.

yeah bleeding hydraulics is such a nightmare…. especially when you compare it to the simplicity of keeping a wheel true… and then having to replace a whole rim cos the braking surface has gone….its an absolute nightmare having to push a syringe of brake fluid once every 5 yrs 🙄
i mean who want to brake it the wet anyway???

😆 @ Northwind

Discs, maintenance ?my basic Deore discs have served me for 8 years with nothing being done to them and they work fine

I was lucky enough back in the late 90’s to have a bike with Ceramic rims and a full XTR brake setup, including XTR sealed brake cables. It was head and shoulders above pretty much anything else (possible exception Avid Ultimates, but they couldn’t get any bigger than a 1.9″ tyre in with any mud clearance!). I could stop pretty much as I wanted, lock either wheel up if required, and because of the ceramic rims they even (just about) worked of sorts in the wet. They were tonnes better than most generic V brakes that most people will remember.

Didn’t stop them clogging up in thick mud, requiring 2 fingers worth of pressure on the brake levers to get the stopping power I required, and being totally dependent on a perfectly dead straight and true wheel at all times.

Looking back on things with rose tinted specs is great, but ultimately I’m much better off with the powerful and easily modulated disc brakes I run now that I can stop in a perfectly controlled manner at any time using just one finger on each lever. And at the end of the day, I sold probably my favourite bike of all time back in 2002 (having owned it for over 5 years already) simply because I couldn’t fit a disc brake on the back of it. I know that sounds stupid, but even though it had XTR V’s I had become spoilt by discs already and it had to go because of this…

I’m with mboy – ceramic rims and parallelogram cantis made a huge difference over your bog-standard M600 LX clone, and were actually even pretty good in the wet.

But disks (again, with the exception of fudging Avid Juicys) just work, end of. I’d forgotten that feeling of ‘uh-oh, i’m not stopping’ you almost always got with Vs in the wet until I was caught out in the rain on my roadie with callipers the other week.

I’ve still got some XTR V’s on a retro bike, they are shit compared to disc’s. In fact even mechanical discs make them feel useless.

Magura HS33s for the win!

If you like buying new rims all the time then yes.

lol.. i love the trolls on hear.. U brakes were the best..

I struggle with long sentences! If you prefer v brakes then you’ve clearly got mental health issues. Good luck with that.

I have xtr on ceramics which are fine……………..till it rains, then they are a joke.
Discs for me please.

I absolutely love the reliability and one-finger power of disk brakes. Except currently my back brake resonates and makes my willy feel weird.

Are you crazy!!!!

I’d give up suspension before i gave up my hydro discs!

Rodbrake FTW!

I’m still riding with v-brakes…. and a quill stem.

I’m a relic, basically.

So what v-brake pads can you recommend for Fort William then?

Nothing like the useful brace on a rear HS33 to liven up your day, as you mess a landing up, land on your rear knobbly and get driven forwards like a wacky races conveyor belt to hell, sucking a testicle under and feeling a pop as it releases it again. That drove my shift to discs.

I like V brakes too, have them on a couple of bikes. Light, cheap, simple. Generally capable of locking a wheel too. Useless in deep mud and willy waving competitions but just dandy at slowing a bike down in most situations.

Now caliper brakes…. that’s a different kettle of bottom feeding fish….

haha
alright alright. thanks for all your wonderful statements 🙂

maybe I am looking at things with rose tinted specs. perhaps it is time to try out another set of discs. I do still like V brakes and always will mainly due to the tactile stuff as mentioned and also ease of maintenance. but of course I have fallen to the mud every now and then.

but they’ll have to go on another and as yet unmaterialised bike as I don’t have mounts for them on my current fleet. and I ain’t selling the litespeed or the attitude for this!

anyway it’s interesting to get opinions.

Buzz play in your rear hub? Mine did the same traced it back to play in the cones. One new cone kit later and the brakes are fine.