Tom Boonen says disc brakes "the biggest improvement I've seen in my career" and he will be racing on them in 2017

Are there any poor hydraulic bike sets or are they just all good?

I know how car hydraulic brakes work so I'm assuming it's (massive over-simplification alert) basically the same and other than a regular (yearly?) bleed/service/pad change they just all 'work'?

Thing is though, you need only go a small way up the hybrid scale to get to hydraulic brakes. Theyre still £1000+ stuff on road bikes. The bottom end shimano hydraulic brakes are still very good.

This argument is more nuanced than 'discs or rims'. To expand on herrow's one negative: this is a pretty large negative, in my book.

There's a world of shit, entry-level disc brakes being flogged at the moment, under the 'discs are better' line, and in my experience, they're more shit, more difficult to maintain and more likely to suffer a 'wtf' sudden-ish failure (ie just not work rather than get progressively less effective) than similarly shit rim brakes. And for those disadvantages, they'll cost you more.

That's a shit situation, and a major black mark against the 'disc' argument.

So yeah, I've every reason to believe that decent hydraulics are the best brakes you'll get on a bike. But I also think that the 'disc' label covers the worst brakes being stuck on hybrids and commuters when half-decent rim brakes would be cheaper to start with and easier to maintain.

Are discs better? Yeah. Are discs worse? Shit yeah.

My reasons for using discs:

1. I commute, when someone pulls their car out in front of me in the wet a disc will grab faster than a wet rim, meaning I am less likely to end up in the side or back of a car.
2. I don't have a huge amount of money to spend on my bike, rims wear down very quickly when you ride everyday, as I found on my last road bike with rim brakes meaning a new set of wheels/rims are needed more regularly and wheels tend to be a lot more expensive than disc rotors.
3. I have in the past had the brake pads go into the tyre (I know badly setup, but sometimes this happens as the pads wear down or after a crash) causing the sidewall to tear and pucture the inner tube. New tyre required as well as an inner tube. Discs have stopped this from ever being an issue.
4. For me weight isn't as important as keeping running costs down. I have  one bike for all my commuting and road cycling, I can't afford more than one (except for my old 26" wheeled! mountain bike) and the disc so far have kept my maintenance costs down.

I only really have one negative from my point of view:

I only have cable discs which definately aren't as good as my hydraulic mountain bike disc brakes lever feel is not great and I can't use just one finger to feather them but I find the cost of hydraulic road disc systems prohibitive at the moment compared to dirt cheap mountain bike systems.

For the pro's, bikes are always having weights added to keep them over the UCI weight limit so I don't think disc weight will bother them either, it just means they can run a bike without added weights. They also don't have to worry about costs, so it's their choice.

At the end of the day, ride what you want, it's all personal preference.

Once you've ridden and used discs brakes, you won't want rim brakes, the bite, control and feel that discs offer I s excellent.

Well the "proper" hydraulic disk brakes with road levers today cost the price of an entry level bike. I would prefer them over rim brakes at least for 30mm wide+ tires, but now they are quite expensive for my budget.

And yes I am not a pro, and bikes like many other things need to be foolproof and as efficient as they can get. Especially the day that somebody will decide to drive through a stop sign...

If you choose to run carbon rims in the wet then you'd better have some proper skills if you think you can brake as safely as a  disc brake. Or be able to change physics. With discs there is no delay and once practiced, superior modulation without locking up. I prefer my rim brake bike for sure, but once the weather looks iffy I'll ride the disc brake. Which is quite often. 

I have both disc and rim brake bikes which I have been riding for a good while now. I can't say there is a massive difference between them, certainly not enough to justify the weight differences. I read about modulation, riding in the rain but for the average person, who can really tell and slow down. Traction is far more important in wet conditions. 

I can see some merit when it comes to comparisons to carbon rim brake wheels vs aluminium or disc brake rims. Put simply, carbon rim brake rims are inferior especially in the wet. Skill is definitely required in the wet on carbon rims more than with the other two options.

With the exception of very few expensive branded wheels, it's hard to find a light disc brake option compared to that if rim brakes, although I'm sure this will change over time.

And what about the unsightly and unergonomic hydro levers? I know that this is also being addressed by Shimano and Sram in newer versions of their top end groupset but seriously hat far off before this becomes more accessible.

I'm currently in the process of building up a new bike and have chosen to stick to rim brake with no regret.

I for one could not care less. When was the last time you were watching the peloton whizz along thinking about the brake calipers of the different teams or riders?

And if you do or don't want it on your bike matters not a jot to me, or the rest of the internet.

They are superior though.

and yet

disc brakes mean expensive carbon rims are not consumable wearing parts

disc brakes allow the use if larger tyres

disc brakes do work better in the wet.

It's not just about hoping to brake later and harder.

Whether a Pro-rider picks discs or not is irrelevant to Joe Public.

Whether the manufacturers can make them light and cheap enough is the real question.

Oh no! He's going to murder the entire field with his discs to win Paris-Roubaix! The anti-disc crowd are the same as the Flat Earthers. Stop holding up progress! The UCI does enough of that.

Well hopefully that will put the "people who use disc brakes just don't know how to ride a bike" line of argument to bed.

I'm cool with him using disc brakes this year, as long as he remembers to wear socks,  preferably long ones!!