Tao Geoghegan Hart’s Giro d’Italia winning Pinarello Dogma F12 and Bolide TT bikes

Amazing that people still feel compelled to post comments expressing their tribal attachment to a design of brake.

Oh sweetie don't be upset, I ride disc bikes too 😘

From the tone of that response, it sounds like you're the one who's upset. I'm certainly not - I don't care what brake choices you or anyone else makes. I'm just bemused that anyone does, and still more that they choose to waste time posting entirely unprompted comments about it.

I apologise sincerely for making a comment about the bike and it's set up at the bottom of an article about the bike and it's set up, it was so clearly irreverent and unrelated to the bike and it's set up that you felt utterly compelled to comment on how uncommentworthy my comment was, and that was wrong of me to place you in such a situation 

If you want to add complexity, expense and weight to your set-up, go right ahead, the manufacturers will gladly supply you.  Rim brakes and Reynolds 853 or 531c - that's how I roll, often downtube shifters as well.

As you say, rim brakes still win races (which makes no sense to me on any level!)

down tube shifters? what's wrong with having two fixed gears and swapping your wheel round at the start of the climb? i bet you're on those new-fangled metal rims too.

Brakes are the new helmets!

Joking apart, I wonder if the grip of the tyre on the road/track (discs undoubtedly exert more raw stopping power, especially on a miserable wet day like this) becomes the weakest link in the braking system? 

Always has been really, you can lift the back wheel off the ground with rims or discs so that's pretty much the limit of how hard you can brake. Back when Millar was involved with the Factor One he was asked about discs, said they weren't on the agenda - "No one ever said they lost a race because they couldn’t brake hard enough" - now they don't offer a top end race bike without them because that what the marketing departments are selling. Discs have their place but it's not really in racing, and the reduction of choice for the consumer is worrying 

The consumer has spoken - discs sell - rims don't.

Dont believe me - take a look at the 2020 end of line bike sales - vast majority are rim braked...  As are most of the groupset bargains out there see AXS rim options at wiggle as an example.

Its a great time for rim afficionados simply because there are some great bargains to be had.

Just because you feel the consumer is lacking choice doesn't mean the actual consumers do.

The consumer buys what they're told they need - when a new Tarmac, SystemSix, O2 VAM, Madone etc are sold as a disc only not only is there less choice for people who want to buy a top of the range race bike, but those who's budget won't stretch will still want one that looks like the top of the range one. Like I say, discs have a place, I rode my disc frame today as it was chucking it down, but the constant grinding and howling noises during the ride was almost as bad as the hassle of maintaining them. I've chucked silly money at bikes over the years but no way will you catch me on a 5 grand disc frame 

in every instance that i know of where a top-end road bike has been available with discs or rim brakes, the disc braked one has vastly outsold the rim braked one. the reason those bikes you list are now disc-only is simple economics on the part of the manufacturers: it doesn't make sense to do both, because only one of them will sell on.

Right? Tends to happen when something new to is presented to the public as a panacea for all situations. I won't at all be surprised if a few years passes and rim brakes are presented by the same marketing departments and media outlets as the new big improvement over the last thing you bought 5 years ago. Lighter, Quieter, Faster, Aero, Less maintenance 

Discs are great sometimes, bad weather, big tyres, go for it. I ride my disc bike when I don't want to ruin my good bikes in the rain and muck, rim brakes just work better in every other situation. I've got old carbon rims that don't like to brake when wet and I've got other carbon rims that brake better than the discs do both wet and dry. And in comparative silence, which is priceless

Certainly it does. but that's the way you'd want it to be, right? rather than, say, a set of rim brakes on a wet carbon rim where the amount of stopping power is dictated by the amount of friction between the pads and the braking surface? i've ridden bikes that simply don't stop in the wet. i can't say i'm keen to go back.

And the rider had something to do with it too.