It's always worth looking at alternatives, but as any accountant would ask, at what point is the alternative cheaper? At the point where the product is purchased or three, five or seven years time when things like maintenance time or cost of spares have to be factored into the costs as well?kwijibo wrote: ↑18 Sep 2021, 10:20pm I've not tried drum brakes, but I recently fitted some Clarks hydro disc brakes that were about £40 for the set. Work perfectly well. If you have the mountings on your frame it would Surely be cheaper than new drum hubs and wheel builds.
https://www.colyfordcycles.uk/component ... lack__3721
My drum brakes cost me more than a set of rim brake blocks, when I purchased and fitted them in July 2016. However since then all I had to do was to adjust the cable tension on my brakes. If I had stayed with rim brakes I would have had to replace them (normally front and back every two years which would have been a further cost of £15 x twice (commuting only - if I had gone touring then pad replacement could be as much as three times in a year) plus time spent fitting them, plus time spent cleaning all the black gunk from my wheel rims. My hourly rate of pay works out on average at 15 pounds per hour, it takes me thirty minutes to change front and brake pads (if things go well) so that's a further costs of £15 x twice x 0.5 hour, plus i spend an hour or year cleaning and checking my wheel rims when I had rim brakes so that's £15 x 5 years. So within 5 years, the front hub as paid for itself and the rear hub is on it's way to pay for itself
(If my hub brakes continue to perform without issue then next year the savings will look like; £15 x three times (not needing rim brake pads) £15 x 3 x 0.5 hours (not having to change rim brake pads) £15 x 6 years not needing to check and clean black gunk off wheel rims.