Without Rim Or Reason

I possess many great qualities, but perhaps the greatest is my unbeatable modesty. This is why you’ll never hear me brag about being the world’s greatest bike blogger, or cycling’s preeminent Y-Foil expert, or the genius who coined pretty much the entire lexicon of urban cycling:

Also, I just happen to be the cycling media’s foremost rim brake apologist. Okay, fine, admittedly that’s a pretty low bar, and kind of like being the biggest Neil Diamond fan at the death metal concert. Still, nobody defends rim brakes as staunchly, passionately, and–let’s be frank here–insanely as I do:

Which nets me nothing except stupid Internet comments like this:

Good point. That’s why every Tour de France mountain stage prior to 2018 ended in a pile-up at the bottom of the descent. Also, two can play at the “I ride more seriously than you which is why I need the new bike tech and you don’t” game. Guess what, Brimstone 117? I’m a better cyclist than you and rim brakes are fantastic, and if you can’t ride the Swiss Alps with nothing to stop you but a pair of antique Delta brakes then you suck and you’re a loser:

[All bow to Bike Snob NYC, King of All Freds]

By the way, is there anybody who needs to get over themselves more desperately than the cyclists of Colorado?

Just kidding, I’m not really asking, we all know the answer is “No.”

So as the greatest living defender of rim brake road bikes, I suppose I should feel vindicated when I see something like this, right?

Hey, here’s the most mainstream of all cycling publications publicly stating that even today in 2026 a rim brake road bike still rides better than a disc brake road bike:

Because a great rim-brake road bike offers ride feel and sensations that, in my considerable testing experience, disc-brake road bikes still haven’t quite unlocked. At least not yet. And those qualities are worth considering because they point to something that can get lost when we talk about the evolution of road bikes strictly in terms of what newer technology makes possible.

This an astounding admission–so astounding that even I don’t believe it. I mean, I have my reasons for sticking with road bikes with rim brakes, but a belief that a really nice bike with disc brakes can’t possibly ride as sublimely as one with rim brakes is not one of them. And yet I don’t feel vindicated, just as I didn’t back in 2016 when the same publication–and the same writer!–sang the praises of long-reach (or technically medium-reach) brakes:

See, in both cases my reaction is simply, “Well, okay, great, but where were you when we really needed you?” It’s one thing to lie in front of the bulldozer to save an important landmark that’s being destroyed to make room for a Chipotle, but it’s quite another to simply watch the bulldozer roll over that landmark while actually eating a burrito bowl from a Chipotle and then write something wistful about the landmark several years later. And to me, praising rim brakes now (or medium-reach brakes in 2016) feels more like the latter.*

*[And yes, I will also freely admit that I resent anybody else who stands up for rim brakes because I’ve built my entire identity around it and I don’t want to share it. Yeah, that’s right, I’m gatekeeping rim brake apologism! What do you think of that!?! The only thing that scares me more than the complete disappearance of the rim brake is the resurgence of the rim brake…unless I get to take credit for it. But that would never happen. Instead, when Ultraromance designs a rim brake road bike he’s lauded as a genius, whereas when I stand up for rim brakes I just get Internet comments about how I’m a Luddite who doesn’t ride hard enough.]

And what about Firefly, the maker of the rim brake in question?

Surely I owe them a debt of gratitude for all the thought and effort they put into this rim brake bicycle, right?

Right?!?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

To understand why, let’s take a look at what they have to say about the bike:

No one was asking us for a new rim brake model in 2026. But we still believe in the value of the simplicity of rim brakes, and we realized we had all of the tools we needed to build a modern, versatile, beautiful new all Ti rim brake bike, and we couldn’t resist. We just had a few gaps to close.

The benefits of bigger tires on road and all road bikes are undeniable, so we developed a new Ti All Road fork for medium reach caliper brakes and 40mm tire clearance.
We worked with Cane Creek to modify their spectacular Brompton eeBrakes with a traditional cable pull, giving us a top of the line caliper brake with All Road tire clearance.
Good quick releases are hard to find now, and don’t work well with the Ti fork design to begin with, so we created a new 3D printed though-bolt dropout design that is lighter and stiffer than older plate dropouts, secures the wheels better than quick releases, and looks beautiful.

The result is a versatile, light, elegant, and modern All Road bike with the simplicity of caliper rim brakes.

Really, no one was asking? No one was asking!?! Have we not established I have been lamenting the disappearance of the rim brake road bike for years now? WHAT AM I, CHOPPED LIVER!?!

Also, let’s take a look at the brakes:

Holy crap, is that price for each? (Sorry, I now you’re supposed to say “per wheel,” whatever) If so, that’s ALMOST EIGHT HUNDRED FUNTIX™ FOR A SET OF RIME BREAKS!!! Rim brakes are about elegance and simplicity (according to me, the Official Arbiter of All Things Rim Brake), and there’s nothing elegant or simple about an ugly-ass set of brakes that costs as much as an entire top-of-the-line Meh-roica bike on the used market.

Also, apparently it’s a modified Brompton brake. Hopefully the bike is at least compatible with other less-ugly and less-expensive models of medium-reach brake…which are still out there, even if there aren’t too many still in production. And if you need to get fancy there are always these:

Or these:

Neither of which are cheap, but both of which are a bargain compared to those eewBrakes.

Still, even if it is compatible with normal brakes, it isn’t compatible with normal skewers:

Good quick releases are hard to find now, and don’t work well with the Ti fork design to begin with, so we created a new 3D printed though-bolt dropout design that is lighter and stiffer than older plate dropouts, secures the wheels better than quick releases, and looks beautiful.

Okay, I’m sorry, thru-axles of any kind are NOT ALLOWED on rim brake bike. They’re just not. And sure, I know things are bad, but in what dimension is it hard to find a good quick release?

I don’t think it’s possible to ask for a better quick release than that, and five seconds of search engine-ing suggests they remain readily available.

And finally, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

I believe the bike is also compatible with a mechanical drivetrain. But it doesn’t matter. Look, I have no problem with people riding whatever they want, be it crabon, or dick breaks, or electrical drivetrains, or any combination thereof. However, if you’re making a bike that “no one was asking for” specifically to showcase how much you “value the simplicity of rim brakes,” then have some respect and GET THAT REMOTE CONTROLLED STUFF OFF OF THERE!!!