Quote Originally Posted by Marco View Post
I'm sure that my next bike (which could be many years away) will have disc brakes, as it's pretty difficult to get a road bike without them nowadays. In the mean time, I'm very happy with rim brakes.

I'm not sure about how suitable disc brakes are for me, because my total rider plus bike is so light (under 70kg). I haven't used my rear brake since 1994 (and I can remember where), because it will pretty much instantly lock the wheel (I'm still using a single pivot side-pull on the rear, should I need to use it).

The advantage for me with rim brakes is that I can't lock the front wheel, even though I can lift the rear wheel easily with hard braking in dry conditions. Wet weather braking is not as good, but then again I wouldn't want to have massively effective braking in slippery conditions, because with low total weight it doesn't tend to end well. As all contributors have said, keeping your rims and blocks free of contaminants will improve the performance of rim brakes, and this is especially so in the wet.
Of course Brett on his Cinelli F/W just uses brute strength on the pedals to stop on a sixpence -I've heard his front brake is just a dummy.