In my experience , yes. It somewhat depends on the frame and the rider weight/power, but after riding one for most of a year, I’m not sold. My take is to stay with rim brakes until they standardize and firm up the disc setup more. Through axles obviously helped, but there’s a ways to go and I’m also not willing to have a weight penalty.
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I get a tiny bit of rotor rub when sprinting hard up a hill, but it’s a negligible amount of power loss. If it was a meaningful amount then the pros wouldn’t use it, no matter what their equipment sponsors told them to do.
Unless of course someone has some data on this?
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I’ve got an Emonda SLR with disc brakes, and occasional will get a rub when up and out of the saddle while putting down some power. If I make sure my rotors are perfectly true, it doesn’t usually happen.
In the flats where I often ride the disc brakes are overkill. However on the days I get to the hills, or take the bike travelling, I wouldn’t want to be without them. Descending Haleakala with disc brakes vs rim brakes was such a difference.
If they aren’t true are you breaking out the anvil? 
i’ve got the rim-brake version of the Madone and a few other road bikes all with rim brakes. There are days/situations I wish I had disc, particularly in the rain and really steep descents. Part of the problem is wheels/hubs for me. I’ve got a nice inventory of road wheels and they are all rim brake. Nice hubs are expensive even if I wanted to rebuild the wheels with disc hubs. Finally, I have powertap rear hubs in all my wheel sets (some hubs are over 10 years old and they just won’t break). My cyclocross bike is rim brakes just so I can have a powermeter and can ride nice carbon wheels for CX. If I could start over today, I’d go rim brakes and crank-based power for everything, but I’m pretty invested at this point. That said, I’ve probably bought my last bike with rim brakes. They might bury me with my madone, love that bike.
Im all in on disc, I wont be going back. Modulation and ease of braking is so much nicer, plus I dont have to worry about stuffing nice carbon rims by riding big descents or in the rain
If they are setup well they dont need touching. Ive done 20,000km on my CX bike and all ive done is adjusted the caliper a couple times and put new pads in the front twice. Havent even bled it yet (should get around to that though). 2nd bike I built up with cable discs on the cheap and just recently switched it to hydraulic after picking up some cheap 2nd hand. Thought I wouldnt really notice the difference but I sure did
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Rim brakes are going to be relegated to a niche technology. New frames will most likely be designed as disc brake-only, which allows you to forgo some compromises that come into play when you want to design a disc and a rim brake version of your frame that ride (almost) the same.
Disc brakes are simply much, much better, the technology is extremely mature as it has been the standard in the MTB world for >15 years now. They allow for more tire choice, better modulation when braking, better braking in more varied conditions (especially if you own a pair of carbon rims) and require less force. Given that the UCI weight limit hasn’t budged, rim brakes don’t have a weight advantage in racing either. But you can even build gravel bikes that weigh less than 6.8 kg. Of course, if you want to build an anorexic weight weenie bike that comes in at <6 kg, you will have an easier time with rim brakes.
The last hill to die on will be aero: yes, there is an aero penalty, which is also due to the UCI outlawing aerodynamic devices that can mitigate some of the extra drag. But conversely, many of the “hidden” rim brakes deliver suboptimal braking performance even when compared to other rim brakes. And at least for non-pros, I’d rather get brakes I trust.
Currently all my bikes are rim brake. Not really fussed at this point to upgrade, but happy to move to disc when the time comes. I will probably wait and see what the new Cervelo S5 looks like next year or perhaps an over-priced italian steed for shits and giggles
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Define “out of the picture”…in terms of OE spec, they pretty much are already “out of the picture”. In terms of aftermarket support and parts availibility, then they will live on for a number of years, but it will become increasingly difficult to sell your rim-brake bikes and demand will be decreasing rapidly.
tl:dr - rim brakes are pretty much dead now, they just haven’t realized it yet. 
Same here. I had a new-ish eTap group and my stable of rim brake wheels when I bought my Domane last year. I wasn’t dying to buy a whole new group, race wheels etc. so I went the frameset route, which actually worked out great.
But I think this will be my last rim brake bike, not because of desire, but when it’s time for a new bike in a few years (or whenever) I don’t think I will have much choice. I’ve never really bought in to road disk. I don’t think you can deny that they have more power, modulate better etc. But for my use case, New England riding, I don’t do many massive descents and I only occasionally ride in the rain it’s a bit of a solution looking for a problem. MTB and CX is a totally different story however…
For the big alpine descents I would imagine there could be an advantage. I was in Nice this summer and rode Col d’Eze and Col de la Madone. The bike I rented had hydro discs and they were good, I’ve never done descents like that with rim brakes so I don’t really have a comparison. But I wasn’t left saying ‘wow I need these’ 
Rim brakes are going to die but not because they are less aero. They are more aero. Not because rim brakes are heavier…they are lighter.
Rim brakes are going to die because it makes life easier for the largest bicycle manufacturers. It gives them frame and wheel design options that rim brakes can’t. If the heavy weights in the field want it to happen they will coordinate and make it happen.
As to the rest of us, I promise you for 80% of riders, if they see Peter Sagan riding around on disk brakes & then pay thousands of dollars to buy a bike with disk brakes on it they will be UNABLE to say that disk brakes are anything other than the best thing ever. As I often say, bike marketing is 80% appeal to authority, 15% cognitive dissonance, and 5% wind tunnel data. (give the most recent Marginal Gains podcast a listen for some chuckles regarding psychological tricks that get riders to adopt new technology)
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Road disc performance is clearly better. Can be a PITa changing flats though. Seems like for the money the industry could develop a more user friendly, utilitarian, quicker wheel/tire changing system. JMO
I’m sorry, but that is just factually incorrect.
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having worked in product development for 10 years in the bike industry, I can gurrantee you that it is impossible to get the big companies to collaborate on anything. There is no grand scheme to get you on disc brakes.
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Sales of disc road bikes wer growing substantially long before the pro peloton started using them in any significant number. Heck, ~50% of the field still rides rim brakes. Disc brakes for road finally took off because the right technology finally came along to solve the issue of carbon being a crappy braking surface. The advent of wide rims / tires coinciding with the introduction of a hydro brifter sealed the deal.
Road discs were brought about because of the consumer, not pro riders.
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I didn’t say they collaborated. That’s your fantasy. I said disc brakes make life easier on the largest bicycle manufacturers…so they did it. Same thing with press fit bottom brackets…that’s not a good thing for bicycle owners it’s a good thing for bicycle manufacturers…so they did it.
Disc brakes allow manufacturers to do things with wheel design and frame design that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. At a weight and aero penalty to the user. That’s pretty much that.
As for me, I can assure you the spoon brake on my ordinary is sufficient for all conditions. Just kidding. But not really.
Uh, yeah you did…
If the heavy weights in the field want it to happen they will coordinate and make it happen.
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Couldn’t agree with this more.
It’s one of the few instances I’ve seen where consumer choice has driven pro rider equipment rather than vice versa
Such as what? I’m not sure the industry is quite the conspiracy you think it is.
Negative. To aid you in your reading comprehension, I’m going to provide some commentary.
That’s what I said. It’s not collusion for two entities to do something that is independently in their best interest. If, in the next four seconds, both you and I take a breath IT DOESN’T MEAN WE CONSPIRED TO DO IT.
You’re welcome!
How about we keep the personal attacks to a minimum before this ends up getting closed down.
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More compliant dropped seat stays. Wider rim profiles. Thinner rim sidewalls. Rim sidewalls that are more aero. Changes the material science of the rim (wrt to resin choice). Just makes design of the rear triangle a lot easier and opens up the possibility for some aerodynamic improvement in rim & seat stay design. Is the possibility of aero improvement more than the reality of the aero disadvantage of disk brakes? Who knows. The counterfactual is a hyper-designed rim brake bike we’ll never get to see. 