

In days gone past, single-pivot caliper rim brakes were the norm. Single-pivot caliper brakesĪ retro cycling trend that won’t be coming back into fashion. There’s a wide variety of different caliper brake designs out there, and we’ve explained some of the more common types below. Bikes equipped with rim brakes are also usually significantly cheaper than their disc equivalents, even if they’re hard to come by on the latest releases. That said, a pair of well set-up rim brakes on alloy rims are more than sufficient for nearly all riders.
ROAD BIKE BREAK PADS PLUS
It’s for those reasons, plus the opportunity to fit wider road bike tyres and to make carbon rims lighter if they’re not used for braking duties, that modern road machines have moved substantially to disc brakes. They’re lightweight and can provide strong braking, although they’re much more susceptible to performance degradation in the wet than disc brakes.īraking performance can be degraded on carbon rims in the wet too, and there’s a risk of overheating with prolonged braking on carbon brake tracks. Side-pull caliper brakes were the primary choice for road bikes for decades.

Some riders still favour rim brakes thanks to their simplicity and low weight.
ROAD BIKE BREAK PADS FULL
Still, we’ll give you a full rundown at the end of this article. There are other brake designs out there, but they’re a rarity on mainstream bikes. V-brakes (also known as direct-pull cantilever brakes) are operated via a cable that runs from one side of the brake and across the top, pulling the two halves together. These also work on the rim and are attached to frame bosses on either side of the wheel. On that note, and as we mentioned at the top, mountain bike disc brakes have been commonplace at all levels for years, providing powerful stopping power uninfluenced by trail conditions.ĭisc brakes and caliper rim brakes take the lion’s share of braking duties across most bikes, but you’ll also find V-brakes on some cheaper urban or commuting bikes. There are good reasons for that, mainly related to more efficient and consistent stopping, whatever the weather. Over the past five years, road disc brakes have rapidly taken over from rim brakes, which push brake pads against the wheel’s rim. We’ll go into different types of disc brake below. The majority of new bikes, whether that’s road bikes, mountain bikes or hybrid bikes, now use disc brakes that operate by pushing pads housed in a caliper against a brake rotor attached to the wheels’ hubs. There are three main types of brakes on modern bikes: disc brakes, rim brakes and V-brakes. V-brakes are still common on commuter and town bikes.
